Bring Your Mom to Braille Lesson Day

By Liz Eagan

Texas School for the Blind has an annual Bring Your Boss to Work Week the first full week of November. While I participated in this, I thought it’d be fun to do this same thing with a parent. Waiting for my student to indicate she was ready, we invited her mom. Today was the day!!!

I created a lesson plan based on the agenda of activities my student created. I was directed to braille two books as her mom would be reading along side her. She wanted to know who could read braille faster…she or her mom who is also learning braille. Then there was to be a page of “which braille symbol is not the same as the other” page. She directed me to bring a second brailler as her mom would be brailling with her! She then served her mom a snack (chocolate chip cookies and milk) and then played the braille review game I created for her.

Here is the lesson plan we created for the day.

TAKE YOUR MOM TO BRAILLE LESSON DAY

Procedures:

1. Distribute “workbooks”

A) Read sentences

1. I have a pet.
2. The pet is wet.
3. It is a wet pet.
4. I have a mom.

5. I love you!

B) Using indicator dots, indicate which braille symbol is different.
1. do     that    do    do
2. it       so      so      so
3. just    just   have   just
4. the    the     the     z
5. and   you   and     and

2. Distribute Braillers

A) Braille name

B) Braille the following words:
     people, every, do, it, the, that, and, is, we

C) Braille the following letters:
     x, e, t, d, p, h, w, j, l

3. Snack time
     Student serves their parent a snack; while snacking, play the BOP Braille Review   
     Game

OMG we had sooooo much fun today! Words cannot express how much fun we had! My student’s mother had lots of “take aways” from the day and my student shined brightly! The most comical part of the day was when the parent cheated off of my student!