Intersection map

I've used puff paint for the curb.
Sandpaper is the footpath (sidewalk)
Bubble paper is the place where one walks across the street.
This, by the way, is a controlled intersection (traffic lights)
That little bit of brown is the island...
Top right is the school, and bottom left is the shopping center.

Apparently, it is a good idea to cut the upper right hand corner off... so that a student can tell you how the map should be held.

However, I get the student to move the map to represent where things are in real life. This is another step in mapping skills, but for me, I think it is essential that the student understands that a map can be moved...

Of course, one needs to make sure that the student understands that a symbols represents real life objects.

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Movable maps

This is a map of a classroom. It doesn't look like it, but it is.

I used velcro so that the pieces are movable. I decided to do that because desks in a classroom can move around, and I wanted this map to do the same thing. Besides, you can use it so that the student has to add the object that is missing in the room. You can also use it as a memory lesson. This I did by accident. It was the student who told me that something was missing on the map.

The brown bit is the door. I made it out of sand paper.

The green bits are the tables. The two green bits that has a different tactile feel are the computer tables. The yellow thingies are cushions.

I must say that I've used this for other things are well...

Neighbourhood maps

I made a map from styrofoam, braille for street names, bumps to locate house and school and controlled intersection (although those came off too easily).

There are three uncontrolled intersection and one controlled intersection (traffic lights). As the main road is really noisy, I got him to indent those roads... as we do in New Zealand.

I made a very complicated map as I found out afterwards. He had a very hard time figuring out where he was, what the roads were, etc etc. This was my first route map and so it was a bit of trial and error. This is what it looked like.

After discussing his inability of 'getting it', I was offered the following suggestion: get the student to help you make the map. Now this isn't brain surgery, and I have done this before but it just didn't dawn on me to do this for him.

So I did. So we did. Since he had used the complicated map before, he knew the location of his school and of his home. Those were the two reference points that we put on the map. Next, I gave him some Wikki-stix as roads. These Wikki-stix sort of stick to the paper and this makes the perfect 'equipment' for doing doing this. He was able to put the main road on the map. From the main road, he put the side streets. He definitely likes this simpler map better than the other one.

Here's the picture of the simpler map.

The pen is to let you know how big the map really is. The top right hand corner is the school, and the white round bit is his home.
He made the street curve to his home too. This helped him understand this road (that he keeps wanting to cross).

Handwriting

How to teach a totally blind teenager how to write his name in print. He knows braille, and does quite well at school, but he needs to be able to sign his name for cheques and so on. (or at least knows how to initialise his name)

I decided to use braille. Each letter is a combination of braille. So the first letter of his name is J. P is the first letter of his surname.

J = braille C and reverve V
P = braille L and C and J

I got him to use the blue braille plastic thingy (see picture). He had to use his finger to show me the C brailled letter. That was easy, but when it came to J, he made a mistake. You have to remember that he's used to brailling his letter with the Perkins, not his fingers.

Then I got him to use a crayon to draw his letter. The crayon has to leave a bit of 'residue' in order for my student to feel the letter.

It's not an easy task. It must just be so hard to visualise if you never seen (felt) your name in print. Acutally, that's not quite true. I did write his name using puff paint.
I only started working with him on this skills this past month, so I have no idea what he learned previously.

This part wasn't going to well, so I decided to use Wikki-stix. He needed to shape his letters on his own with the Wikki-stix. I made two letters out of Wikki-stix. One was a reverse J and the other was the correct J. He had to tell me which letter was correct. He then had to re-shape the wrong letter. This worked a treat as he felt that this was a sort of game.

We are still working on it.