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Activity and strategy

Tactile Number Line

Create a tactile number line to help blind kids and students with multiple disabilities to understand the sequence and value of numbers.

Tactile number lines provide a concrete way for children to see how numbers get bigger and smaller, as they count “up” or “down”.  This gives practice with sequencing, and helps to support simple addition and subtraction.  Print and braille can be added. 

There are lots of ways to use this for a variety of fun activities.  Try some of the following:

  • Give the child a stack of number cards in print or braille and then ask for them to be placed at the appropriate spot on the number line. 
  • Cover up numbers and ask the student has to determine which one is “missing”.
  • Give the students small sets of items, ask them to count how many are in the set, and find the place on the number line.
  • Have the students build a number line and add a new number each day.  This can be done to count the number of days in a school year or a month, or any other amount of time.

Share your ideas of how to use a number line!

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