Tactile and Accessible Color Wheel Game for Blind Kids
Introduce colors to your blind child with this fun game that incorporates tactile objects, braille, and social play!
Below are instructions for making a matching color wheel game, mostly from materials you already have around the house!
Follow the instructions below, or:
Game Description
This game starts with a simple color wheel (6 colors in all) that has been turned into a spin board. The colors can be identified multiple ways: through color, print, braille, and a tactile element.
I used clothespins for playing pieces, but you might come up with another idea. Each clothespin must match the color, print, braille, and tactile object also used on the color wheel. The idea is to match up your clothespins with the colors on the board and get rid of all your pins first!
What You'll Need
How to Make Your Color Wheel Game
- 1. Download and print up the color wheel printable. Cut it out and glue to a piece of cardboard or poster board, also cut to the same dimensions.
- 2. Download and print up the arrow printable. Use this as a template to cut out an arrow from cardboard.
- 3. Open up a large paperclip and then fold in half. Leave a loop at the top of the paperclip so that your arrow won't fall off your wheel.
- 4. Using your scissors or a sharp knife, poke a hole in the arrow and in the center of the wheel. Place the paperclip through the two holes so that the arrow is now attached to your wheel, then bend the back of the paperclip and tape to the back of the wheel. You now have a working spinner! (Of course, you can also skip all of this and just buy a pre-made board game spinner, but it's more fun to make your own.)
- 5. For the clothespins, I used markers to color each pin. It was actually really easy and not messy at all (but you could also buy clothespins that are already colored). Add braille to both the color wheel and each of the clothespins (the hardest part of this project was cutting the braille labels so they were skinny enough to fit on the clothespins). You can also add print to the back of the clothespins.
- 6. Finally, add a small tactile item to represent each color. Here is what I used:
- Red: Small foam heart sticker
- Orange: Q-tip end colored orange
- Yellow: Uncooked macaroni
- Green: Small tear-drop shaped felt fabric
- Blue: Small pom pom
- Purple: Small piece of pipe cleaner
- 7. Some other options: This project includes print, braille, and tactile items to help emphasize and label each color. Choose which works best for your child. You can also add some puff paint or glue to the lines between each color triangle on your wheel so your child can feel where one triangle ends and the next begins, but make sure it doesn't interfere with your spinner. And if you want your wheel to sit up on a stand, you can glue it to an upside-down paper bowl. See how fancy your wheel looks now?
It's Time to Play!
- Place the 24 clothespins in a box or bag and mix them up. Each player is given one clothespin until there are no more left and everyone has the same number of pins.
- Player one spins the wheel and sees which color they land on. If they have a clothespin in that color, they attach it to that color's triangle and they get to go again. If they don't have that color, it's the next player's turn.
- The player to get rid of all their clothespins first wins!
- BONUS! If you land on a secondary color (orange, green, or purple) and you have both primary colors that make up that color, you can pin 2 pins at once. So, for example, if you land on orange and have a yellow and red pin, you can pin both red and yellow (and get rid of 2 pins in one spin).
This activity was created by Amber Bobnar of WonderBaby.org for Great Expectations
