Louis Braille

Our topic of conversation today came around rather strangely, someone had left some marbles in the hallway and we have wooden flooring, as I walked through to the kitchen with my heels on I stood on the marble and 'rolled' down the corridor and fell through the cupboard door, I felt as if I had broken my wrist and ankle at the same time, but got up and shook myself off.

The kids were very concerned about me and someone said 'Didn't you see it?'.

I hadn't seen it and this is where our topic for the day came from (sorry no photos of me or the broken door!)

How you would feel if you were blind?

We studied using another lapbook and some print outs all about Louis Braille to gain a bit of background knowledge about the history of where Braille originated and visited our local library with the hope of showing the kiddies what a braille book look and feels like, we were a little disappointed to find they only had hearing books. We looked high and low to find a tiny piece of braille somewhere and eventually found a very small bit on the side of a bin in the ladies toilet of a local restaurant, as you can imagine I didn't encourage the children to 'have a feel'!!!

The children wrote to the Royal National Institute for the Blind who ever so kindly send them the Braille alphabet and some other fab pieces of information. I made me realise not just how difficult it must be for someone who is blind or partially sighted but just how scary the world must be.

We tried out a couple of experiments to try and see how we would feel.

Here are a few photos of the children making jam toast and a strawberry milkshake, blindfolded.

Alex went first....

He got his bearings pretty quick but had to try hard to remember where all the item lived, he especially had to be careful of the toaster as obviously it was hot whilst it was cooking.

The milkshake making was actually quite impressive, except there were no spoons in the drawer so he had to 'go find' more in the dishwasher.

Sophie breezed through this activity, I wondering if she was having a little peek, but she says she just knew where everything was kept and was very confident in her actions.

Well done on this one Sophie but scroll down as she didn't do so well on the next activity, lol!!!

Shannon worked hard and took a lot longer to familiarise herself with her surroundings which kind of made me laugh as she bakes in the kitchen almost everyday so I assumed she would know where everything is. Something I found extremely interesting was that Shan didn't cope to well with the other kiddies chatting around her, she wanted it to be quiet so she could concentrate on what she was doing.

 Casey was fascinated as to what we were doing and being three, she really didn't understand when we tried to explain what being blind is, she also had a go!

Didn't she do well! Well true to form my little darling did a fab job of buttering her bread blindfolded, (I had only left the room for a minute) and this is what I returned to find!

Our next little activity was hurdles, how it felt to walk through the house firstly in a straight path, secondly after being spun around then asked to get to the front door, the kids chose to use a stick which nearly caused Alex to loose an ear and very nearly a new TV for Rich! Well Casey does get a little excited at times.

And I must add that although Sophie was fab at the breakfast making task and pretty good making her way to the front door but I have honestly never laughed so much when we spun her around, she was so disorientated she nearly walked into the door.

We had a bit of fun learning about this topic, we had fun trying out a few activities but we all agreed how much we take for granted and how lucky we are that we have our sight and what a harder world it would be without it.