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Keywords from Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch

Introduce keywords to beginning braille readers using tactile materials to develop braille literacy skills

The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch by Ronda and David Armitage is a delightful story about a lighthouse keeper named Mr. Grinling, whose wife, Mrs. Grinling, sends his lunch to him each day in a basket on a pulley.  Everyday the naughty seagulls steal his sandwich from the basket and the story tells of the ways in which Mr. and Mrs. Grinling attempt to outwit them.

Many, many skills can be taught to children who are blind or visually impaired using this book.  Cross-curricular ideas are explored in detail in: Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch: A Cross-Curricular Approach to Reading Readiness for Braille. This post focuses on some of the keywords in the book and ideas for extension activities for beginning braille readers.

Procedure

  1. Read aloud The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch.
  2. Encourage child to tell you the objects that were in the story and together make a tactile key word book.
  3. Encourage the child to identify the textures to use for each object or item.
  4. Provide a box of collage materials for the child to choose from. They are more likely to read the book and identify the pictures if you have involved them in this process.
  5. Encourage the child to hold the 3D object or model and relate it to and explore the 2D version of the object in the book.
  6. Encourage the child to feel or read the initial letter sound of the keywords in the book.

Here are some sample pages we created using braille, large print, real objects and tactile symbols for some of the keywords.  Be creative! Be sure to select materials that have meaning for the individual child.

tactile red dotted apron on green paper
Apron
tactile brown cat on orange paper
Cat
Tactile basket on purple paper
Basket
tactile cakes on pink paper
Cake
tactile drink with straw on green paper
Drink
tactile pot of mustard on pink paper
Pot of mustard
tactile plastic plate on purple paper
Plate
tactile sandwiches on black paper
Picnic lunch: Sandwiches
tactile picnic cloth with red and white checkers on black paper
Picnic cloth: red and white checked
tactile boat on red paper
Boat
tactile green hat on tan paper
Wooly hat
tactile lighthouse on blue paper
Lighthouse
tactile Mr. Grinling on yellow paper
Lighthouse Keeper: Mr. Grinling
Mrs. Grinling
Mrs. Grinling
tactile rocks on orange paper
Rocks
tactile sea on yellow paper
Sea
tactile seagulls on blue paper
Seagulls
tactile striped red and white
Stripy t-shirt

Be sure to check out Gwyn’s other post: Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch!

keywords collage

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