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Activity and strategy

Thanksgiving Cards with Braille Message and Craft

These Thanksgiving cards are a fun crafts activity for students who are blind, visually impaired, or deafblind that can be shared with families. Students write braille or print messages.

I get these crazy ideas from time to time that it’d be cool to share my students’ awesomeness with their families, teachers, and others. Two of my braille students made Thanksgiving cards to their families. I looked in the local craft store for ideas and all they had were Christmas crafts…sigh. So I asked my students to describe a turkey to me. One student had no idea a turkey was a bird. The other student informed me it had a lot of feathers and a funny face. So I went with that last description! We listened to turkey sounds online and then I made a ‘replica’ to share with them.

Making the Cards

The students started by folding a sheet of braille paper in half. They decided whether they wanted a landscape or portrait orientation for the card.

Folding the braille paper in half
Folding the braille paper in half

Next, they put their message inside the card.

Card with braille text:  Happy Thanksgiving  Let's have some fun this week.  Love, Gabriel
Card with braille text: Happy Thanksgiving Let’s have some fun this week. Love, Gabriel
Braille card with text:  Happy Thanksgiving!  I love you! Karen
Braille card with text: Happy Thanksgiving! I love you! Karen

They added glue (not a favorite texture for either of them…)

Adding glue
Adding glue

and then the feathers were added.

Adding feathers
Adding feathers
Feathers
Feathers

The turkey face was made using the PIAF (Pictures in a Flash), so that the students could explore the face once the card had dried.

Turkey faces
Download the turkey faces
Turkey face with raised tactile line from PIAF
Turkey face with raised tactile line from PIAF

They then brailled on the envelope who the card was for, and placed the card inside, and sealed the envelope.

We have plans to create Christmas cards and then mail them next month.

Collage of Thanksgiving cards with braille message and craft
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