TT - Deaf/Blindness Unit Study

It's been a great week of discovery this last week.  Sir N and I have been on a journey to discover Braille and the lives of two amazing people born in the 1800's.

We read:

• Buddy, the first seeing eye dog.By (author) Eva Moore, Illustrated by Don Bolognese
• Scholastic biography - Louis Braille by Margaret Davidson
• History Maker: Louis Braille by Madeline Donaldson
• Famous People - Louis Braille by Tessa Potter.
• Follow my Leader by James B. Garfield
• Scholastic Biography - Helen Keller by Margaret Davidson
• Helen's Eyes - A Photo biography of Annie Sullivan Helen Keller's Teacher by Marfie Ferguson DeLano.

Video watched:

• 1962 version of The Miracle Worker (The story of Helen Keller) 
• Watch on YouTube 1:46:28

On YouTube we watched:

• Helen Keller & Anne Sullivan (1930 Newsreel Footage)
• The Miracle Worker 1962 ( FULL MOVIE)
• Helen Keller -Cartoon Movie- Part 01,Part 02,Part 03,Part 04,Part 05,Part 06
• Young Heroes: Louis Braille (with Captions and Description) 
• Seeing Eye Co-Founder, Morris Frank in his own Words

On the www:

• Pinterest
• Helen Kellers' birthplace over at Creating Treasures
• Helen Keller Biography.
• Helen Keller Kids Museum on Line.
• Helen Keller's Birthplace.
• Helen Keller on Wikipedia
• The History of Braille on Squidoo.
• Louis Braille biography.
• Learn about Braille and Louis Braille with Perkins the Braille Dog 
• Louis Braille at the New York special Institute.  
• Louis Braille and the Braille system.
• Louis Braille on Wikkipedia
• Through Buddy's Eyes
• Morris Frank and Buddy over at Tennessee History for Kids.
• Hall of Fame: Morris Frank.
• History of Guide Dogs.
• History of Guide Dogs in Australia.
• Historical Timeline of the Seeing Eye.

Notebook Pages:

• Helen Keller at Teacher Vision.
• Helen Keller portrait at Scholastic.
• Helen Keller at Homeschool Helper
• Helen Keller and Annie at the water pump coloring in page over at eBook Browse
• Huge Helen Keller pdf document at DSCL.
• Helen Keller over at Enchanted Learning.

• Louis Braille at Homeschool Helper
• Louis Braille at Crayola.
• Braille Games over at National Braille Week.
• Braille Alphabet and page to print.
• Louis Braille over at First School Years.
• Story of Louis Braille Worksheet at Education World.
• Louis Braille pdf from The Bible Society.
• Louis Braille from ABC Teach pdf

Craft Activity

• We took a piece of paper and wrote out the words we wanted in Braille.
• I made a template of the six dots used in the Braille system.
• Sir N used the book to tell me where the dots needed to be for each letter using the place value of 1-6 for each dot to tell me.
• We then turned the page over on the window and used a sharp needle to puncture the braille for us to feel.

We completed our studies with a trip to Melbourne Museum to see their Living in a Sensory World display.

Top

1. A Braille Doll to help children learn the system
2. Reading about the display and feeling braille
3. This lady developed a machine to print braille on both sides of the page making books that used less paper and fitted into libraries easier.

Middle

1. The entrance
2. In 1920 the metal plate to the right was what was used for maths.  The wooden square with the eight sided star denoted different numerals.  Pins were fitted into the star shape and depending on it's position it denoted a different value.

Bottom

1. Looking at items used by the blind.
2. This is a braille keyring used to learn braille.  It is the next step from the doll.  From here the wooden case with metal braille letters is used to learn to 'read' braille.
3. Braille type writter.

Sir N has been trying to form his own sign language this week when communicating with me.  It's been fun to watch and has inspired me to find somewhere the two of us can learn Auslan (Australia Sign Language)from.
I was visiting Betsy from the Notebooking Nook who shared this video of her daughter using ASL.  It was a blessing to watch and an inspiration.

Blessings
Chareen  

Linking with

 Favourite Resources over at Learning All the Time

Collage Friday over at Homegrown Learners.