Learning Braille: Playdough Braille Cells

One thing led to another (the definition of unschooling!) and we found ourselves prepping for little lessons in Braille. I found this lovely activity from 'Path to Literacy' that I thought would be a good starting point  http://www.pathstoliteracy.org/strategies/model-magic-braille-fun

Our first task was to print out a Braille Alphabet.
Once we took a look, it was clear that The Braille Cell is crucial in understanding how a tactile alphabet functions.

Then we remained blindfolded to count the bumps on the backside of the 6-well paint trays.

We had made Rice Cereal Playdough for this project, but it hardened up overnight and was challenging to work with. So instead, we resorted to a bag of play dough Grandma made us last year. I numbered the 6-wells so that it was easier for O to remember the cell number.
Even though this was a little side lesson in math, it was actually cheating because we were using our vision.

As I called out numbers, O filled the appropriate cells.
O noticed that none of the Braille Alphabet seemed similar to the shapes of the visual alphabet.
For example, "V" (cell 1, 2, 3, 6) makes the shape of an "L".
We agreed the Braille Alphabet would be tricky to memorize.

We also discussed how the loss of one sense (sight) heightens your awareness of other senses.
Someone who cannot see, is likely a keen listener and probably depends more on taste, touch and smell than we often do.

We incorporated this library loan, 'The Black Book of Colors'  by Menena Cottin into the lesson.
All the pages are black, except for the white text.
To accompany the text, is the Braille translation and the opposite page features a raised illustration!
It's brilliantly done, but our fingertips were VERY unskilled at guessing what the illustrations were!

'Floating Feathers'

EXPAND ON LEARNING BRAILLE

Ten Tips. Path to Literacy includes a page of Ten Tips to learn Braille, with some lovely tactile activities and suggestions. http://www.pathstoliteracy.org/strategies/ten-tips-prepare-your-child-learn-read-braille