Project Math Access DVD 01 - Primary Grade Levels - Part 03
Transcript Start

Audio Description: Part three, activities for teaching number concepts at the primary grade level.

DANSDILL: To modify a Math activity for a blind child, in patterning, I use real objects. In Kindergarten, they color patterns most of the time. And that ‘s another point I want to make. Kindergarten or First Grade children want to color, blind children, just like all the other kids in the school. And I want them to be the same as everyone else and not feel “you‘re blind, you can‘t color“. So I let them color; I put Braille; I buy flat, colored crayons, they're called non-roll crayons and there‘s a flat side on them and I put braille label colors on them. So, they learn their colors that way, but then they feel part of the class that way when everybody‘s yelling “can I have a yellow, can I have a yeIIow“; they do that same thing too. They don't understand what yellow means, but “oh, I‘d like to use yellow too“. So, they'll grab the yellow and they know what yellow is. So, in Math, when the children are learning to pattern with colors, we're learning to pattern with objects. 

In addition, we are learning something that I've used often now. A big problem in Math was that the kids would go to feel their objects all over the place and count them and put them together and they'd just wipe them out. And that was a real problem of how to keep them contained. We used containers but they were on top of each other. This way, I needed to find a way to keep it so they could feel them all in an order. So, I put masking tape upside down, the sticky-side up and put that down and they had a field for all their objects to stick, where they put them. And then when they went back to feel and count again, they were there for them. So, we use that for addition, subtraction and the concepts of numbers, it's just that braille number, sticky number has to be everywhere, on every object they're doing. We use envelopes with braille numbers on them. They read the envelope; they have to put that many objects in it. We put braille on paper plates and they have to find the number and put that many clothespins on the paper plate. So, have to just be creative in what you can find and stick braille on and the kids can manipulate. 

Other examples that we use, kids like to play school and teacher, so every day they get a little brown envelope and I put the coin in the envelope for them to learn what their coins are. They have to open up the envelope and get the coin out, so they just feel real important by opening an envelope. The first time I gave it to a bunch of students, they didn't have any idea how to open an envelope. So, you never think of all these things. So, he just tore it open and had to get a new envelope, but that was the lesson. The next time was to teach them how to open it, a little brown envelope. Another thing, we play with the large, American Printing House has the game board, so we take, we'll roll the dice and they're learning dice. 

But one thing I've found, blind children don't know how to roll the dice. So, they don't see everybody else rolling it, rolling it, so that was one lesson, to put the dice in your hand and turn it and flip it over. They would throw it and then they couldn't find it either. So that was a lesson in itself. But to feel the dots on there and to understand what pattern that number is all the time is a lesson. Putting together, playing UNO, we play a lot of UNO. They have to read the color word and the number. You don't have to buy that, you just braille that right on there. A lot of things you can braille right on; you can just stick in right in your brailler, such as Math cards that you buy at the store. You don't have to worry about the plastic paper, you can just put it right in the braille machine and braille right on top of it. And you can have the kids braille right on top of it and then play the game. The other day we played, that was a letter game. We played “Go Fish" using “I" words. So, you could do that with any number cards. You can use a thematic approach. When we read a story or actually we did something with “j's", it was jackets and they had to match the number of buttons onto the jacket. We have birthday cakes; they have to put candles on top of the birthday cake after they read the braille number. This is one of the ways we teach our number concepts right away. This is my “1 Book". The child writes the number sign, 1, and if hand-over-hand is needed, that's okay. 

We just practice every day. And they have to find the object and they read this object to us. They put the 1 on every day, or every page they put the 1 on. So, when they go back and read it they'll find “oh, this is 1 bow". Then I say, “Okay, go find the braiIIe". Then they'll find the braille and eventually they'll learn number 1, 1 toothpick, 1 spiral pipe cleaner, 1 spaghetti, 1 circle, 1 star and 1 feather. So, whatever you have lying around. In my home, I have several children so if I find junk on the floor, I just bring it to school and we use it in a book. We're doing “J" week; these are jelly beans. So today, they did a jelly bean book. They had to write a color word and the different flavors and colors of the jelly beans. 

To teach independence, the beginning independence stage, I made this small graph and I use a Thermoform machine to emboss the graph. So, it's raised lines, so the child could feel it. And for the child who can read, read braille, this is a copy of it, I just went ahead and wrote the word in braille, “circIe", “triangIe", and made a line for them, instead of making raised lines. But I take cups, and I put those same shapes on them and they have to take the cup and I put items in it. So, they have to count the item and then record it under the right recording. And that's very challenging for them First of all, there's 9 of them and to find the same cup and to not to drop all the items in the cup, to come up with the right answer. So that was very difficult at first, but then they started getting the hang of it. I also have braille on it, the word “square". And I tried to make it dark but, these are Wikki Sticks and they make the shape on the cups also. 

Another game we play is, I cover this up with tape and we put a dice in there, and we roll it and I have braille, I had put braille numbers in here and before we roll the dice, we put an object in here and we shake it up and wherever the object is, they would have to read the number. 

So that was another game we played. And this is a pretty heavy book; this is for number concepts. Just take, if you go to a hardware store where they make keys, they have a big box of keys that they throw away. So, we asked them for their keys and they have to count the keys and braille the number on it. And this is for a higher level where they're counting more keys. That's another book we've made. When I make these number books, I went through the dilemma of not knowing whether I should use literary numbers to teach right away because they're also beginning ABC braille or whether to teach Nemeth right away. And at first I was always very nervous and I didn't know which way was the right way, so I just made up my mind and I taught them literary numbers right away. 

Having taught 20 years now. After I knew the kids were really solid with their braille skills, I just told them, “okay, there's a new braille system, it's called Nemeth Code and whenever you do Math, you have to use these numbers; now take your number and drop it down". And they understood it, even high functioning, low functioning kids, they caught it right away and there was never a problem with it. The skill level where I decide that they're ready to drop their numbers down to Nemeth Code, they have to be confident with the location of the numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. If I can say “make a 2-5-6", they go to it, like it's in their brain, they know where it is. They know probably First Grade reading level; they understand contractions; they understand a lot of the literary code I teach them, it's a dropped letter, it's sitting on the floor, so they understand that. 

So, when all of those concepts are understood, First or Second Grade reading level, I just tell them “okay, drop it down". Probably more First Grade level, when I feel they're confident with their braille skills. I'd like to show you some of my wonderful collections of objects. Some are store-bought, some are just found here and there, but my pride and joy, this was obviously a Math program from the school that they were getting rid of, so I used these for counters. These are the links that you can put together. These were, they were getting rid of at a tile store, so you can go and find these. And these are nice because they have both sides; they have ridges on one side, smooth on the other. The leftover Halloween bin, there's all kinds of rings. And then for all the girlies in my class, we have several different kinds of rings for counters. And the animal bin, so they can sort, count and learn how many legs on each animal. These are the Crazy Bones from my personal home; my children come to school and say “Hey Mom, I used to have a bin like that full of Crazy Bones!" And so, we steal a lot of things from home. 

These are one of my personal favorites, a whole container full of frogs for them to count, sort and discriminate all the different kinds and feels; these stretch. And those are some of the things you just can't buy anywhere, right? But some of the things you can buy from APH is this a hundred board and you can do a lot of different things with it. It gives you blue squares, red hearts, and they're all velcroed on, stars, and all the numbers to go with it and green triangles. So, you can do shapes along with colors and numbers. And you can make them put all the numbers in a row; you can have them do quantities, tens, any area you're working on. It also comes with the number chart in braille and the first time I had one of these, this child was counting and counting and got so upset because 18 was brailled wrong. So, I had to send it back. They found 18 was wrong and I had to send it back and I got a new one. 

Another thing from APH that I use in Math is the game board; it's called the Game Kit, actually. Put these to the side. And it comes with this spinner and this spinner has different sections, amounts of sections; this one has what, 6; this one has 7. And you can put whatever numbers you need on there. You can put large print or just braille and each child sits at one of these edges or you turn it toward them, and this is how it spins and whatever section, they read the number and that's how many they move. But the counters they give you, and since blind children can't see color, we call it half-circle head, you could be dome-head, you could be triangle-head, you could be square top-head, pointy-head or triangle-head. And they know which guy they want to be and here's flat circle-head and here's their dice and they roll it and whatever number they get, they start on their way and they learn how to move. One hand moves and the other hand watches where they're going. When somebody lands on top of them they have to scream, “ow". And they get a kick out of that game and so they go around and that's one way to teach them how to use the dice This is another Thermoform copy of coins and they have to find the braille on it. And I just use pennies and Thermoform different amounts. So again, I would say it's a lot of time consuming items, but after you get them, they're easy ways to learn their numbers. Also, we use a lot of candy for counters. And the kids make piles of any set of candy that they are asked to get. 

I talked earlier about brailling on top of any object or some objects. This is one of them, these cardboard flashcards. And I just put them right in the brailler and you could see I just brailled right on top and put the problem on the actual card. And this was, a lot of stuff I use from Math Their Way program and this is one of their ideas, was take Lima beans and paint them, color them and we made pumpkins, we make ghosts, and these are to be frogs. So, these are fun counters also. And then you can put them down on a Halloween board or put the frogs in a pond, you could make a pond. You could roll the dice and put that many frogs in the pond. That many pumpkins during Halloween, you could put that many pumpkins on the fence. 

I take a Whole Language approach each week, to the letter of the week and then I throw in Math, Science and all my subjects around the letter. And what we did today for Math is we're talking about the jungle and we made a jungle mix. Here's a braille version, want me to leave them there? And each kid had to count out 16 animal crackers, 15 sticks, 14 fruit snacks and 13 Cheerios. So, it's following directions, reading their numbers, and counting.