Heading to the beach for a summer vacation? Summer is the perfect time to build concepts about ocean animals and things that you might find at the beach. Andrea has created numerous motivating emerging reader books for her students, including the Ocean Animal Sounds ePub book. This book has clear, simple images on a black background with text, perfect for students emerging readers with low vision or CVI! Each page has one image, one sentence in print, a read aloud button and a button with the related sound.
The Ocean Sounds books has 6 animals:
To help BLV students to learn more about these animals, download the simple outline coloring pages of each ocean animal. Print the images on capsule paper and run through a PIAF or Swell machine to create raised line drawings. Use these images to build tactile graphic literacy skills, vocabulary words, coloring/fine motor skills, and to develop concepts of each animal’s main features. Which animals have feet? wings? fins? flippers? Which animals live in the ocean and which animals live on land? What is the difference between a penguin and a sea gull? How can you distinguish the Orca from the Humpback from the dolphin?
Note: For simplicity, this post uses the term “animals”; use the real terms with students who ready for proper classification.
If desired, have the students put the tactile sheets in the correct sequence to make an accompanying book to the ePub book. Add braille sentences if desired!
Dig deeper by reading additional books about the individual ocean animals!
Continue with the ocean theme to practice pre-braille or pre-writing skills with the Waves Tracing worksheet. Students with low vision can use a highlighter or marker to trace the waves; students who will be braille readers can trace the tactile version of the Waves Tracing worksheet. Be sure to talk about how the ocean can be flat (especially early in the morning), have gentle waves or have big waves. Ask your student what kind of waves he/she likes to play in and why!
For more on tracing worksheets, see Graphics Literacy: Tracing Lines. This post includes tracing lines that lead to various ocean animals.
Each post below contains at least one beach-related digital book. Most of the posts include additional activities.
by Diane Brauner, originally published June 27, 2022
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