Infants-Toddlers with Visual Impairments
Strategies for Infant-Toddlers with Visual Impairments
Home Play-based Strategies for Low Vision Infants - Toddlers
- Make caterpillar with alternating foam pieces on poster board
- Scrabble letters use to make name
- Sticker Detective - use sticker and put it in a book or magazine and have to find it.
- Bottle Discovery - find the object in a bottle filled with jelly beans, animal crackers, etc
- Mystery box - guess what object is in the box without looking
- Plastic Bag Paratrooper - Tie army man to bag with pipe cleaner (throw it up in the air and watch it fall)
- Use Flashlight to find hidden around the house (blocks, plastic snakes, etc.)
- Throwing objects in bucket at different distances and weight and size (ball, cotton balls, Styrofoam balls
- Sticky frogs on the wall - use iPad to find frogs on the wall
- Soft stackers - paper cups stack them up and having child kick or run into them to fall
- Hopscotch for Blind and Visually Impaired-make with high contrast painter tape or gym tape
- Jelly Bean Trail to a prize at the end of the trail
- Yarn chase - several different yarns draped around the house to a prize at the end
- Finding treasures - Hide painted rocks in the yard
- Action shadow puppets - make paper horse/bird/dog, etc. and turn off the light and put them in front of the flashlight to cast shadow on the wall to track and find
- Winter sun catcher - put water and die in a cake pan and put in freezer. Take outside if freezing and you want it to last
- Paper bag gargoyles - cut eyes, mouth, nose and ears out of a magazine or newspaper and paste them on
- Paper bag (cut the top out for hair)
- Guess what is missing - tabletop memory game) put five item on table and take one away and have others guess what you took away
- Adapt Guess Who game with family photos
Home Play - based Strategies for Orientation and Mobility
- Dancing to music - Don't Worry, Be Happy, Car Wash, Jump N' Move, Holding out for a Hero, We go the Beat, Walking on Sunshine, The best of Both Worlds
- Make no-slip socks with 3-D paint (dimensional fabric paint to mark the bottoms of our socks)
- Scavenger Hunt - find pictures of things to find in the home/outside
- Yarn Maze - string yarn around house of certain colors for each child. Have to follow it until you get to prize
- Leaf Jumping, Water balloon Race
- Indoor Volleyball
- Race with six legs - 3 people hold on to waist and walk around
- Toddler - friendly musical Chairs (everyone gets a chair)
- Fabric Dancing with scarves, felt, blankets, silk, sheets
- Crocodile Alley obstacle Course - Quicksand (blanket), Poison Ivy (towels rolled up), Bat Cave (chairs together with blanket over it), Spider nest (make dashes with the tape that kids to hop over), Piranha pond (rug) Hungry jungle creatures (stuffed animals)
- Hula Hoop Games for positional concepts
- Pretend to make train with chairs, laundry basket for a boat
- Make obstacle course with objects and/or people - use cane to navigate through course
- Family exploration walk - parks, local sites, playgrounds (make a map of the travel and items collected or taken a picture of)
- Leaf trail - create a trail with leaves
- Charades
- Simon Says
- Tidy up treasure hunt - grab items from different rooms of the house. Child must put item back in its place - socks, toothbrush, spoon, etc.
- Balloon volleyball
Home Play - based Strategies for Blind Infants - Toddlers
- Making Tactile Easter Eggs with dyed floss, string, tea leaves, puffy paint, aluminum foil, rubber bands, bubble package, melted crayon
- Discovery bottle - Soda bottle with various objects around the house - buttons, sequins, baubles, ribbon
- Play with music with various items from the house - pots and pans, paint sticks, bottle filled with various baubles around the house
- Alphabet blocks - put braille on
- Use "Scrabble" game pieces with braille to practice alphabet
- Scribbling on tinfoil with pencil
- Mystery box - guess what object is in the box
- Braille bingo
- Sticky Frogs on the wall (using search pattern to find frog)
- No sew baby rattle - use old sock and stuff it with cotton batting and put a bell in it, twist the end and wrap it back over itself to form a ball, tie with ribbon
- Crayon rubbings of any textured surface
- Streamer in entrances to doorways, around bed
- Whipping cream exploration - put whipping cream on tray (put toys in to find)
- Dancing balloon - put marble in balloon and blow up-throw it, roll it, spin it and bounce it.
Home Play - based Strategies for Cortically Visually Impaired Infants - Toddlers
- Photo Collage - family photo(try to find their image among others
- Swinging comet tails - glow-in-the-dark ball, glow-in-the-dark fabric paint, glow-in-the-dark string - play catch or roll the ball to others
- Photo scavenger hunt
- Family magnetic appeal - magnets with family photos to attach to fridge
- Memory game with family, toys and food pictures
- Magnetic photo puzzle - cut baby picture in four pieces
- Deck of cards of family pictures, food, toys-go fish, matching games, war, memory game and spoons
- My First Field Guide - riding in the car looking for different objects that you have made pictures of from magazines - duck, bird, cat, car, bike, store, park
- Adapt Guess Who game with family photos
- Action shadow puppets - make different animals out of cardstock and put flashlight behind them and project them on the wall
- Lightbox Story Hour
Resources for the Visually Impaired
- Perkins School for the Blind
- American Foundation for the Blind
- American Printing House for the Blind
- Texas School for the Blind
- Michigan Department of Education-Low Incidence
- Time for Tots - story and music
- Videos from American Printing House for the Blind