Episode Four - Puzzle Activities

Introduction

Braille Bites Season Two – Puzzle Activities

What can you do when the puzzle picture is the only clue to what goes where? Puzzles are a big part of every learner’s kindergarten experience! For young learners with visual impairments, puzzles may be more of a tactile than visual activity. In this recipe, we share two easy adaptations to puzzles to make them fun and accessible.

Linked here is a PDF version of the Puzzle Activities recipe.

Key Ingredients

• A wooden puzzle. It is important that the puzzle have a base.
• Sticky tack to hold puzzle pieces in place.
• Textured materials to adapt the puzzle pieces.
  • Examples: Corrugated paper, sandpaper, felt.
• Glue to affix the textured materials to the puzzle pieces and puzzle base.

Mixing It Together

For adding anchor pieces to a puzzle:

• For learners who are new to puzzles, it may be easier to start with several puzzle pieces already in place to provide more edges to figure out where to pop in the next piece.
• With the puzzle assembled, remove several pieces and place sticky tack on the back, then replacing them. Select pieces that are not directly next to one another to ensure that there will be missing spaces for the learner to fill with the correct piece.

For adding tactile cues to puzzle pieces.

• Glue tactile textures to each puzzle piece so learners can solve the puzzle by matching textures as well as rotating to match the edges. Affix an identical texture to the corresponding place on the puzzle base.
• Select textures that are not too thick so that the puzzle can be reassembled on top of the set of tactile cues.
• The learner can match the textures on the piece and base in place of, or in addition to, the image on the puzzle piece.
• To make the puzzle a little easier for new learners, use sticky tack to place down a few starter pieces. This will give the learner more edges to match and make placing the correct piece easier.

Nutritional Information

Connections to the Expanded Core Curriculum

• Recreation and Leisure Skills – Introducing puzzles as a leisure activity.
• Compensatory Skills – Exploring and matching textures, tracing lines and contours to determine size and shape.
• Orientation and Mobility – Practicing concepts and dimensions such as left – right, top – bottom, on top – below.

For More Information and Inspiration

• Make Your Own Textured Puzzles – Paths to Literacy. More suggestions for materials and textured for adapting wooden puzzles.
• CVI DIY: Adapting Puzzles – Everyday CVI. Article written by the parent of a learner with CVI on some of the adaptations that she has found helpful.
• Adapting Jigsaw Puzzles for Younger Students – Paths to Literacy. Another adaptation for puzzles – using point symbol stickers on the puzzle base to give the learner a sense of the outline of the correct piece.