Game

Think back on your own childhood and time with family and friends and you’re likely to remember a game you enjoyed playing whether it was a board game, word game, or sporting activity. Games can help your child develop skills such as:

Social Skills – Many games aren’t played alone; rather they are played with others. Since it is not uncommon for a child with a visual impairment to have challenges developing social skills, games are a natural and fun way to help your child learn to interact with others.

Recreational Skills – Well adjusted adults have hobbies and interests that form the basis of their recreational time. Many of these interests were developed in childhood so it’s never too early to lay the foundation for your child’s recreational enjoyment in adulthood.

Academic Skills – Learning to read, write, and do math are the basics of academic success. Many games can help your child build these important academic skills.

Below are a variety of ideas for exposing your child to games. You can take many of our ideas and adapt them easily based on your child’s interest or age. For example, a simple word game which children as young as 7 or 8 can play involves taking a word such as “summer” and seeing how many smaller words one can make from it. From the word “summer” you can make me, sum, us, muse, etc. If your child enjoys basketball you might have her see how many smaller words she can make from “basketball” or from the letters in the name of her favorite player or team.

Word Games on the Go

Adding Braille and Textures to Games

Where to Get Games That are Already Adapted

Make Your Own Braille Word Search Puzzles!

Word Games on the Go

These word games don’t involve anything other than your brain! Give them a try the next time you and your child are traveling somewhere and he says, “I’m bored!”

Rhyming – Take a word such as “hammer” and see how many words your child can come up with that rhyme with this word. If your child enjoys competition have him compete against a sibling or friend or set a timer and see how many words he can come up with in 3 minutes. You can have your child braille the words he comes up with.

It Sounds Like – A fun word game is to have your child say a word such as “elephant” and then take the last sound of the word /t/ in this case and have the next person come up with a word starting with /t/ such as “turtle.” The next person would need to come up with a word starting with /l/. You can do words with a theme such as animals as demonstrated here, or you can make it free flowing. Players can write their words down using braille or play orally.

I’m Going on a Picnic – This age old game is never old. As you move through the alphabet another word is added. The first person has “A” and might say, “I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing applesauce.” The second person has to add a word starting with the letter “B” and the third person adds something starting with the letter “C.” So the third person might say, “I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing applesauce, bracelets, and cotton balls.” Your child can braille out the list of what is being taken on the picnic.

Story Starters – Telling a story is always fun, especially if it is a ghost story or one that involves travel in outer space or another such fun topic. Each person adds more to the story as it is told. Depending on the creativity of the group, you can end up with quite the tall tale!

How Many Words Can You Come Up With? – You or your child can prepare cards that have themes on them such as “Girls’ names that start with K” or “Things found in the ocean.” Individually or in small groups a card is selected and in a specified period of time people write down in print or braille all the words they can think of that meet the criteria.

These five games are just the tip of the iceberg. Think back to your own childhood and you just might remember some games you enjoyed that you can play with your own child.

Adding Braille and Textures to Games

There are many commercially available games in the stores that can easily be adapted for a child who is blind. You can do this by adding braille where print is found on the game. We’ve given you directions to braille playing cards. You can use the same idea to add braille to other cards such as those in UNO or Old Maid.