At the beginning of the school year, there are teachers who are giving away things that they’ve found in the room or that they no longer want. This provides an excellent opportunity to find materials that you don’t have to buy, but can just adapt!
Adapting the Cards
These vintage “Judy” cards were among the pile in the teacher’s workroom at one of my campuses.
- All I had to do was to add the braille labels for the numbers and words.
- I then put textured paint on the number.
- I blackened the word, as it was a pale green and needed more contrast.
Now I can reuse these cards with a student with low vision or with my braille students.
Activity Ideas to Use the Cards
Note that there are holes on the side of the cards. There are lots of ways these holes can be used in a lesson. Try some of these ideas:
- The student can count how many holes there are.
- Put it on a cork board and put push pins through those holes and then count the push pins.
- Pretend to use a “needle and thread” through those holes. The students can count how many times they put the “needle” through the hole.
The whole project took me around 30 minutes to adapt. It’s a quick and easy way to have new materials at no cost!
