Posts by sroyson:

Creating Tactile Experience Books

March 21st, 2011

A tactile experience book may be created with meaningful tactile items for a child or older individual who is visually impaired or blind. A tactile experience book can be made and used for many different reasons, from recalling a vacation or special holiday, to helping establish a routine such as bath time, brushing their teeth, or getting dressed or preparing for a new event such as an addition to the family, flying for the first time, the first day of school, or going to a new place such as an Aquatic Center.

Material needed:

1. A blank photo album or scrap book. A small size is easier for a child to use. These can be purchased at many places such as Michael’s, Wal-Mart, Target, and some drug stores.
2. Decorate and personalize the cover of the book to fit the event.
3. Select objects and/or items that are meaningful to the purpose of the book. When possible, let the child help decide what materials will be used.
4. Use strong glue (Elmer’s or for heavier things even Super Glue) or a glue gun to attach the items.
5. Braille or print text is also usually added.

The most important item to remember about making experience books is to have fun!

Amber’s Christmas Book



Meet Amber. She is an 11 year old young lady with a contagious smile and laugh. She was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and cortical visual impairment.



Meet Susan Blackmon. Susan is married, has 3 daughters and one on the way! She earned an undergraduate degree from Winthrop University and a Master’s degree from Francis Marion University. She has been a Special Education Teacher for 14 years in Lancaster, SC and is currently providing homebound instruction for Amber.



This is Amber and her Mom, Angie. Angie has 2 children, a son, Grant, and Amber. Angie is continuing her education and will graduate with a degree as a Physical Therapy Assistant. She would like to work with children who have special needs and their families.

Amber, Angie, Susan and I collaborated to make this tactile experience book.

Amber is non-ambulatory and does not have independent arm extension. It was difficult to hold her while assisting her in touching the Christmas tree, lights, ornaments and presents. So, this book was a collaboration of thoughts in order to bring “Christmas” to Amber’s lap.



1. The cover of Amber’s book.



2. The garland is to represent the wreath and Christmas tree in Amber’s home.

3. Amber enjoys the sound of bells ringing so bells were a must for the book. She jingled the bells, with assistance, to the song Jingle Bells or just to make all of us smile.



4. During the winter, Amber wears flannel pajamas so we glued a piece of flannel material to the page to remind Amber of being cozy and warm.



5. This page is full of puffy cotton filling to remind Amber of all the snow we had.



6. These are extra light bulbs from a string of lights. Amber enjoyed locating and fixating on a small string of lights bunched up into a small ball and held in front of her. She enjoyed touching them with assistance. When she touched these bulbs the first time, she looked around as if asking “where are the colors”?

7. Amber enjoys the cool smooth feel of ribbon being pulled across her hands.

8. To have Amber experience the different shapes of “snowflakes” we added the foam snowflakes to her book.



9. Amber loves the sound of crinkling paper. We added this page of tissue paper so she can reach out with assistance and “crinkle” anytime.



10. A cardboard “present” and “ribbon” covered in glitter was a tactile treat to Amber’s fingertips. The red “present” and gold “ribbon” attracted her visual attention as those are her preferred colors due to her cortical visual impairment.



11. A cardboard “stocking” with different colored glitter was selected so that Amber can distinguish between the top of the stocking, the heel and the toe of the stocking.



12. Next is a cardboard cross covered in silver glitter. It is in her book to remind Amber about going to church. The silver glitter reflected the multi-colored lights and attracted her visual attention.



13. The final page is a bow with multi colored curly ribbon and small bells in it. As Amber is assisted in feeling it, the little bells ring softly.

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Activities for Learning: Infants and Toddlers

August 18th, 2010

In the home

Kitchen

• Independent exploration:
  • Create a cupboard that has safe items for child to explore: plastic bowls, wooden spoons, plastic measuring spoons, and plastic measuring cups.
• Sink play: Help child explore the wonders of water by
  • Playing in the sink,
  • Modeling pouring water from a cup to another item,
  • Making bubbles with dishsoap,
  • Modeling how to wash dishes,
  • Using food coloring to make the water different colors,
  • Using different temperatures of water to talk about hot and cold, and
  • Using ice cubes to teach the concept of melting.
• Basic cooking:
  • Use picture symbol recipe cards (can be in braille);
  • Develop “kitchen” vocabulary: stir, pour, whip, add, and ingredients;
  • Let child assist in simple cooking activities; and
  • Give them their own set of play kitchen items for pretend play.
• Laundry:
  • Let children sort and fold laundry according to such elements as color, size, towels vs. clothes;
  • Let child put clothes in washer and dryer;
  • Put clothes away or put clothes in the room of the person they belong to.
• Sensory experiences:
  • Put pudding and other foods in Ziploc bags and containers and let them squeeze, squish, and shake.
• Stack rolls of paper towels.
• Use a child’s broom and have child help sweep the kitchen floor.
Bathroom
• Have the child assist in taking off shirt, pants, shoes, and socks.
• Water play:
  • In the bathtub, pour water into containers with diferent sizes and shapes;
  • Move hand or legs slow or fast; and
  • Use bubbles and various toys and allow for supervised, independent play.
• Body awareness:
  • Use a washcloth to learn body parts though such instructions as, “Put the washcloth on your knee.”
  • Use bathtub body paints to learn body parts or colors through such instructions as, “Put a blue dot on your hand.”
• Mirror exploration:
  • Have the child copy facial expressions;
  • Talk about the meaning and expression of such emotions as happy, sad, mad, or surprised.
Family Room
• Take out and clean up toys. Use pictures or tactile labels of toys on shelves, on cupboards, or wherever the toys go.
• Interactive play with members of the family. Roll a ball, read a story, play a game, sing songs, repeat nursery rhymes, finger play, explore and interact with toys, share, take turns, and have a conversation.
• Put different sized, different colored items on the floor and supervise as the child searches for and picks up items and places them into a small container.
• String items of different sizes onto a string or use snap beads to create a necklace.
• Let the child color in a coloring book. If you don’t want to use crayons, you can use colored pencils or scented markers.
• Have the child turn the pages of a book one page at a time. You could use board books for infants and other books for toddlers.
• Use a small box or container and let the child push small trucks or cars into the “garage.”
• Ask the child to find parts of pictures and find them in a book.
• Make a book of pictures of friends and relatives and talk about and point to people in the pictures. Ask the child questions about the pictures. For example, “Find grandma” or “Who is sitting on the bike?”
• Make story boxes or bags for hands on literacy experiences. Find items that relate to the story. For example, for the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar use a plastic Easter egg, toy food items and silk plant leaf. Model play with the items as the story is read.
• Create and use books with textures, sounds, scratch and sniff and flaps that cover parts of pictures.
Outdoors
• Explore outdoor textures: sand, grass, tree bark, flowers, and leaves. Use words like soft, rough, smooth, or bumpy.
• Explore outdoor auditory experiences: birds, insects, flies, bees, cars, trucks, dogs, and sprinklers. Ask the child, “What do you hear?” Then have the child point in the direction of the sound.
• Spend time in the sun and shade. Then describe and talk about the weather every day. Use words like hot, shady, wet, or breezy.
• Sand and water play:
  • Pour water or sand into different size and shaped containers.
  • Place a variety of toys in the sand to scoop, sift, and play.
  • Hide items in the water or sand and ask the child to look for them.
• Play with bubbles. Have the child follow them and try to pop them.
• Model sweeping and provide a child-sized broom for child to practice.
• Have child help plant flowers or seeds. Allow them to help with every aspect of care including watering, weeding, and picking.

Community

Grocery Store
• Talk, talk, and talk. Describe every part of the experience. For example, “We are going into the fruit section. It smells good.”
• Before putting an item in the cart, hand it to the child and describe it and tell them to feel or smell it. If it’s several items, let them put the items into the produce bag.
• Develop position skills by saying “right, left, up, down, over, aisle, top, bottom, or row.”
• When checking out, let child help put items on the belt.
• When paying, talk about money and the cash register.
Park and Playground
• Supervise while the child explores independently.
• Model and practice gross motor skills such as running, jumping, and climbing
• If other children are playing, foster interaction and social exchanges.
• Help the child develop awareness of their self in space. Describe the experiences. For example, we are climbing up the slide and now we are going down. When we swing, we go back and forth.
• Let the child get on and off equipment independently, monitoring closely for safety.
• Walk over different types of surfaces such as grass, pavement, wood chips, or curbs, Describe the changes in the surfaces.
• Pick items such as flowers, acorns, and leaves so the child learns where items on the ground come from.
Library
• Attend story time at the library to develop listening skills as well social interaction with other children.
• Ask the library if they have a section for large print, tactile and/or braille books for children. If not, ask them if you could have a small section to put some items so when the child comes, there are accessible books for the child to check out.
• Check out audio books and practice listening skills and page turning.
• Record your child’s favorite books.

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