Let me feel your face Experimental Elementary School, TAIPEI, TAIWAN

Language Arts / English

CONTENT

Language Arts / English

An art of storytelling

Character

Developing empathy, being responsible, building citizenship

Global Goal

Skill

Listening, speaking for effect, oral communication, problem solving

Age Group

10- 11 Years / Grade 5

Learning Standards

McREL Learning Standard: Grade 5

Prerequisite

None

LEARNING GOAL & PURPOSE

This is an inspiring story of young superheroes from Experimental Elementary School, Taipei, Taiwan. They were bothered about their blind friend Jack. He recognized his friends only through the voice. He wanted to know his friends by feeling their faces. Our superheroes set up a campaign and invited his classmates to come and let Jack feel their faces. This not only allowed Jack to ‘see’ his friends but also built stronger relationships with them. At times, in our day to day life, we miss out on these small details and hardships of people who are disabled. Sensitizing children at a very young age is a step forward to build empathy.

Lesson Plan

Hook: Take your students to your school library and tell them that today they are going to read storybooks. But they will face only one challenge – They will be blindfolded.

 

You can play a quick game of ‘Read with a blindfold’. Ask one child to volunteer and blindfold his / her eyes. Give one storybook to him/her and ask the student to read the storybook. The moment the student says that he/she can’t read - Ask students what would a blind child do? With all the wonderful storybooks in the library, how can we make it as a useful tool for them?

 

Show this video to your students and initiate the conversation with your students about ‘What would happen if we lose one of our sensory organs - Eyes?’

 

  • Ask the students to share their ideas and make a list of all the possibilities of bringing the world of books alive for blind friends. Suggestion: As a teacher, you can guide them towards creating a sensorial storybook and audio storybooks.
  • Put students in a group of 4-5 students in each. Take them to the school library and ask them to choose a storybook that they would like to convert into a sensorial book or an audiobook.
  • Suggestion: This can be a great opportunity for a team teaching technique. Involve your art teacher or material exploration teacher and technology teacher to join along with you for the lesson planning.
  • Ask the material teacher to bring in different types of materials for students to use them to enhance the story experience. Materials like wool, cotton, strings, corrugated paper, gelatin paper, sandpaper, shells, sand, small pebbles, dried twigs, leaves, etc.
  • Students can explore the different material and choose the right material for the story chosen by them.
  • Ask technology teacher to come and share about how audio recording is done and also give an idea about all gadgets used to record voice.
  • Share how different kind of voice modulations will enhance the recording/audio story. Students can choose the right kind of voice for a particular character by voting in the class. They will need different characters for the story. Also, talk about different sound effects that can be used
  • Inspiration: Teacher can share a story of change and get students inspired

Show: Lighten up the dreams of a Blind Kid

https://youtu.be/Wdf559I__-g?list=PLOS7LSVwOyfIEWnXU1_YMDprk6fL2GqRi

  • Let the students share their audio and sensorial storybook with blind children and get their feedback. Let them go back and work on the feedback received from the blind students.
  • Once they have completed the story, ask your students to go and share their success story with other teachers, students, and parent body. This will inspire others too.