Name of Activity:.Blindfold

Category:. Me and My World

Props: A blindfold (a handkerchief is best), a pack of post-it notes pre-numbered from one to ten, and a felt tip pen

Your Role: Travel guide and historian

Directions: Tell your child that today together the two of you are going to go on a blindfold walk through a familiar room. Also explain that the "tricky" part is that your child will be blindfolded for the walk and his or her task is to figure out if he or she can use all of the other senses (not sight!) to figure out all the difference objects and placements in this familiar room. Before you place the blindfold on your child, explain that you will never let go of his or her hand if he or she is worried, that this is a "challenge" not a threat, and also that you will help if necessary. Blindfold your child. Now take your child on a tour of the room focusing him or her on various pieces of furniture and other room decor. Help him or her use all of his senses to re-experience the room. At various places in the room, ask him or her to identify an object. Explain that you will place a sticky note on that object with the name of what he said he thought the object was. Ask your child to identify about ten objects and you place sticky notes with identifying information on that object. Now remove the blindfold. Go around the room and read to the child what he or she said. If the answer is correct, praise the child. If the answer is not correct, do not chastise the child or count up the number right. Instead, ask the child to focus, concentrate and use all of his or her sense to learn more about that object. (For example, if he or she mistakenly identified the television as a window, ask him or her to look at the television and the window and figure out what's different about them.) Remember, that this activity is not about "getting it right" but helping kids really succeed by encouraging them to focus on the task and to retrieve images that will help them. Set this activity up as playfully as possible and be extremely encouraging.

Goals for You: Your goal is to help your child pay attention to here-and-now experiences and to compare them to what they know from the past. Your goal is also to help your child focus on details, concentrate on experiences, and trust their memories and recall.

Goals for Children: This activity should be fun and challenging for your child. It should help him or her know that he or she knows a lot about the world (metacognition) and can trust in previously stored experiences.

Possible Strategy:

What to say "Today we are going to try to be in your room and learn about how it "looks" when you are blindfolded. I bet you know more about this room than you know."

What to do Make sure your child is ready to be blindfolded. If he or she peeks the first time through this activity, let him or her. Next time you can encourage a try with the blindfold on.

Possible Shaping:

What to say "Your job is to use your sense of touch, your sense of hearing, your sense of movement, and your sense of smell to recognize parts of your room. Isn't it amazing to be in this room and not use your eyes to know what you are near? I'm going to bring you over here. Where are we in the room? Use all of your senses except sight to help you figure out where you are. I'm going to write down what you said on this sticky note. Later, we'll look and see whether you were right."

What to do: Help your child focus, touch, and smell. If he or she seems frightened by having on a blindfold, of course take it off.

Possible Ending:

What to say: "You did a great job. Your senses seem really well-tuned."

What to do: Most likely, your child will mistakenly identify some objects. Try to make sure that he or she doesn't feel bad or stupid about misidentifying some objects. Instead, encourage your child to laugh about the mistaken identification. The more instances you can laugh about, the better. Children who can learn to laugh at errors they make and see the humor in this rather than feeling shamed are more likely to become risk takers. Also, in your discussion with your child, you might want to share with him or her some of your feelings about leading him or her around when blindfolded. Perhaps you felt scared that he or she might stumble. Perhaps you realized the great responsibility you have for his safety. This activity should encourage an open discussion about risks, fear, and success!

Material on this site created by Helane S. Rosenberg, Ph.D. and Yakov M. Epstein, Ph.D. in conjunction with their forthcoming book titled Play for Success. All material on this site is copyrighted and may not be reproduced or cited without written permission of Helane S. Rosenberg, Ph.D.. Dr. Rosenberg is Associate Professor of Education at the Graduate School of Education of Rutgers-The State University, New Brunswick, NJ. Dr. Epstein is Professor of Psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Science of Rutgers-The State University, New Brunswick, NJ. He is also Director of the Center for Mathematics, Science, and Computer Education of Rutgers University.

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