Festive Braille Biscuits

I am not really one for baking, but I am certainly one for introducing Braille to my little girl in a creative way.  Scarlett is a massive fan of biscuits, it is one of the primary words in her vocabulary. Every day after school she marches in repeating biscuit over and over.  So I have used this festive season to include braille in such a way that will truly resonate with my little girl.  I have found there is more motivation when Braille is applied to meaningful things to Scarlett, such as when her favourite items have been braille labelled and also when used as part of a fun sensory story about an enjoyable part of her routine.

It is very important from an early age to start to introduce Braille to young children as it helps build up the necessary skills for your child to be able to successfully adopt this skill.

Okay, so what did I do?

I am not a master baker and I certainly didn’t need to have a great flair for baking to be able to create these ‘brailled up’ festive treats!

My shopping list:

1. Ginger bread mix- available at all supermarkets
2. The accompanied ingredients required for the mix, in this case it was butter and golden syrup, but will vary dependent on what product you use
3. Festive shaped cutters to create the shapes, I purchased a box of 12 shapes for around five pounds
4. Silver cake decoration balls
5. Pre-made icing

Once I had bought all the items I needed I made the mix as directed and cut the ginger bread biscuits into the festive shapes.  I used all of the most pronounced shapes to add the braille.

I applied to icing to the top of the biscuits and looked up the braille code on the internet, then I spelt out the name of each of the shapes using the silver balls.

Hey presto! Within 20 minutes I had lots of delightful biscuits all labelled up with their name in Braille.  No part of this activity was difficult for me to do.

The verdict:

Scarlett was far more interested in eating the biscuits than reading the carefully spelt out braille, but none the less I found it a lovely way for me to add braille to something Scarlett loves. I also think this would make a great inexpensive present idea, and also a good way of letting sighted siblings see braille in an aesthetically pleasing and tasty way.

Explore our other 12 Days of Christmas blogs here.