Perkins School for the Blind
Making Choices
Here is an excellent and well-developed lesson intended to promote choice-making skills for learners with visual impairment and intellectual disabilities. It fosters choice-making skills through a soft version of discrete trial training,...
Perkins School for the Blind
Beginning Map Skills
Maps can be so much fun, they help you understand spatial relationships, distance between objects, and can foster direction skills. Budding cartographers with visual impairments use the Wheatley Tactile Diagramming Kit to create their...
Perkins School for the Blind
Creating a 3-D Model of a Plant Life
Instructing blind or visually impaired learners means you need to make symbolic tactile representations of various processes to provide as much input as possible. But wouldn't it be even better to have your learners make the models...
Perkins School for the Blind
Planning a Special Event
I love planning parties, they are a great way to get social, require organizational skills, and engage cooperative problem solving. Teens with visual impairments put their heads together to plan an event for their friends. They choose an...
Perkins School for the Blind
Rolling Along
I cannot stress enough how important orientation and mobility training is for learners with visual impairments. To practice maintaining their balance, as well as work on building the confidence to participate in recreational sports,...
Perkins School for the Blind
The Country Egg
Because most children with visual impairments don't reach and grab things at a young age the way sighted children do, they need additional supports to build up their fine motor skills. Here, they work on the pincer grasp, using their...
Perkins School for the Blind
Counting in Tactile Journals
This is one of those great ideas I totally love. Youngsters with visual impairments practice counting and left-to -right sequencing by counting out a set number of edible objects from the left and putting them in a bag on the right. They...
Perkins School for the Blind
Eating Out
Going out to lunch, reading a menu, making choices, and spending time socializing are all parts of growing up. Teens with visual impairments use several braille menus from local restaurants to practice ordering and appropriatelyeating...
Perkins School for the Blind
Rubber Band Stretch
If you don't teach blind or visually impaired students, this lesson plan may seem a bit strange. But, it helps them develop motor skills, orientation and movement skills, and listening skills, while building a better understanding of...
Global Oneness Project
Understanding Blindness
Gaia Squarci's photo essay, Broken Screen, turns viewers attention to the challenges faced by those with visual impairments. After viewing the images, class members discuss why they believe the photographer structured the album as she did.
Perkins School for the Blind
The Price is Right
Go on a shopping trip to practice estimation, price value, and shopping skills. The class heads off to the market to purchase several items for the activity. While they are there, they discuss the cost of various foods and even...
Perkins School for the Blind
What Do I Hear?
Being able to give positive reinforcers to a child starts with knowing what the child likes. Intended for children with blindness, this instructional activity gives you a way to determine the types of music your learners like best. You...
Perkins School for the Blind
Initial Consonant Activity
Bingo is a super fun game and can be used to reinforce a vast number of recognition skills. These bingo cards are prepared by constructing nine squares, each delineated with raised Wikki Stix or gluedyarn and containing a braille...
Perkins School for the Blind
Circle Time
Oftentimes children or teens with one or more disability are reluctant to participate in whole-group activities. Foster good participation, verbal expression, and social skills through daily circle time activities. Each day you and your...
Perkins School for the Blind
Build a Word
Get out those scrabble tiles and a braille tape labeler because today we are playing a build-a-word game! Label several sets of scrabble tiles using the braille labeler, place them in a box, and have children take turns pulling letter...
Curated OER
ASL: Lesson 13
Ever consider becoming an interpreter for a special needs or hearing impaired pupil? ASL lesson 13 focuses on becoming an interpreter and also on research. Included are many links to visual aids and video intended to guide your signing...
Geographer Online
Restless Earth
In less than 25 years, the continent of Australia moved 4.9 feet thanks to plate tectonics. The presentation introduces the idea of the layers of the earth as well as plate tectonics. It goes into why the plates move and where we believe...
Curated OER
I am Special and You are Special Too - Project Children L.E.A.D.
Eighth graders recognize what makes them special through class participation and discussion of rap music, writing a poem about themselves, and designing their own special hat while working in groups.
Perkins School for the Blind
Polyatomic Ion Bingo
If your class is learning about polyatomic ions and needs a fun way to study those chemicals, then a bingo game might be right up your alley. This bingo game is intended to boost memorization skills, specifically the names of tricky...
Space Awareness
Meet Our Neighbors: Moon
Since a field trip to the moon isn't possible, bring the moon to young astronomers! Participants use everyday materials to create models of the moon and represent the features on its surface. The materials serve as a tactile as well as a...
Exploratorium
Sound Bite
Learners use their teeth for more than just eating. The activity shows class members how to send sound through their teeth by using an electric motor connected to a radio to generate vibrations. Biting on the motor transfers the...
Curated OER
Thai Children's Trust
Students spell words in braille and learn how to use braille to punch out their names. In this braille lesson plan, students discuss what life would be like for a visually impaired person.
Curated OER
Spacemobiles
Aspiring astronauts construct a space vehicle using cylinders, cones, spheres, and rectangular prisms. This is an engaging method of learning about three-dimensional shapes. Note that the word cylinder is constantly misspelled in the...
Curated OER
Translating African Masks
Students identify traits of African masks. In this multicultural art lesson, students view online examples of African masks and discuss the characteristics of the masks. Students create an original 2-D version of the African mask by...