These tools fall into three related categories: explorers, puzzles, and challenge tiles.

They are related in this way:

Explorers

Explorers are the foundation for tactile exploration, discovery, and recognition.

Here are a couple of examples of explorers that can be used to begin exposing your student to shapes that one will often find in Blissymbols.  These solid, tactile tools allow the student to simply explore various shapes.  You can choose shapes that comprise the concepts you’re working on that day or week and then build those shapes into the target symbols.  You can download 3D-printable versions of the examples below but remember that they are just examples of what is possible.  You should create new explorers that are specific to your needs.

lines and arrows example	half-line dot example

You can include earth and sky lines on the explorers to begin to teach the concepts of vertical orientation:

vertical location example

Challenge Tiles

In addition to simply exploring shapes you can introduce the concept of matching tactile shapes.  The base has a set of target shapes and slots for inserting “tiles” that match the target shapes.  They can be used to learn and reinforce simple shapes.

circle sizes

Or they can reinforce how simple Blissymbols are superimposed to create more complex shapes. Protection + man = father… Protection + woman = mother:

father build	mother build

Challenge tiles can have multiple rows and columns:

numbers 1-10 (with targets & without targets)

Or just a single row – with or without target graphics:

numbers 1-5 (with targets and without targets)

Bliss Puzzles

The Bliss Tactile Symbols and designer includes a couple of puzzles based on Blissymbols.  Because many of the fundamental Blissymbols are pictographic, it’s easy to create pictographic puzzles comprised of individual Blissymbols.  These puzzles can be an entry point for children learning the language.  Here are a couple of examples.  The STL files associated with these puzzles are located in the Bliss Puzzles folder.  The puzzles come in two forms – an explorer version that is one solid piece and another with individual pieces that plug into a base with holes cut out for the pieces.

Note that the Bliss Head and Bliss Body designs were taken directly from Eugene McDonald’s book Teaching and Using Blissymbolics.

Bliss Head

The Bliss Head puzzle introduces the following nouns: eye, nose, ear, and mouth.  These are key nouns because they can be used to introduce four of the five senses – i.e., their associated verbs.

Start with the Bliss Head explorer.  Help the child explore the head, match parts of the explorer to their own body parts and learn the correspondences between them.  In the picture below, the explorer is on the left and the associated puzzle is on the right:

As the child becomes familiar with the parts of the explorer, you can introduce  the challenge of  building the Bliss Head puzzle based on what they’ve learned about the individual symbols.  Note that some parts could constitute a choking hazard so the puzzle should only be used by small children under adult supervision.

Bliss Body

The Bliss Body puzzle introduces the concepts of: head, hand, arm, body, as well as, legs and feet.  With the hands, you can introduce the fifth sense – to touch. In the picture below, the Bliss Body explorer is on the left and the associated puzzle is on the right:

As the child becomes familiar with the parts of the explorer, you can introduce  the challenge of  building the Bliss Body puzzle based on what they’ve learned about the individual symbols.  Note that some parts could constitute a choking hazard so the puzzle should only be used by small children under adult supervision.

 

There are two things to note about these two puzzles.  A couple of the shapes have been reoriented from their standard orientation to complete the image.  The correct orientation of the symbol for “ear” can be found on the right side of the Bliss Head puzzle.  The correct orientation of the symbol for “arm” can be found on the left side of the Bliss Body puzzle.  You may need to help the student focus on the puzzle part that transitions properly to the tactile symbols.

Transitioning from Tiles and Puzzles to Tactile Symbols

Once your student is familiar with the parts of the Bliss Head puzzle, you can begin to introduce the related Bliss Tactile Symbols:

Help the student transition from the Bliss Head Puzzle to the “mouth”, “ear”, “eye”, and “nose” tactile symbols.

Once your student can reliably relate the symbols to the puzzle parts and back to their own body parts, you can introduce the verbs related to each facial noun: speak, hear, see, and smell.  Nouns naturally inspire verbs – as any parent knows.

Other Puzzles

There are a wealth of opportunities for such puzzles because the simplest Blissymbols are usually pictographic.  Other puzzles could represent a farm, the zoo, or your school.

Here are two examples of nature-scene puzzles based on Blissymbols.

Garden Creatures Puzzle:

garden creatures explorer (standard size / large size)	garden creatures puzzle (standard size / large size)

Here the generic “plant” symbol is surrounded by the symbols for “butterfly”, “fly”, “snail”, “worm”, and “spider”.

Bear and Fish Puzzle:

bear and fish explorer (standard size / large size)	bear and fish puzzle (standard size / large size)

Inspired by classic pictures like this one:

The puzzle includes the “bear”, “fish”, and “water” symbols. [The water symbol is repeated three times.]

Designing Puzzles, Explorers, and Challenge Tiles

You can construct these tools for yourself using our Bliss Tiles and Puzzles designer. 

Note for Printing Puzzles, Explorers and Challenge Tiles

These items pose a unique problem for 3D printers.  They’re simple shapes but they have large surface areas where they make contact with the build surface of the printer.  Let’s just say simply that they can tend to warp at the corners as the printing process proceeds.  This can result in a final print that doesn’t sit flat on a surface and can have a rough top surface above the warped region.

It’s critical that there be excellent adhesion between the build surface and the first layer of the print.  You may be able to solve this problem by adding a skirt to the print in your slicer but the print can have a sharp bottom edge even after you remove as much of the skirt as you can.  I think a better approach is to add glue stick to the print surface before starting the print.  There are “fancy” glue stick preparations but just about any version that you’d find in an elementary school will work.

Voice It

The Voice It is a DIY device that speaks a word or phrase when an object containing an RFID tag is brought near-by.  RFID tags are small and very cheap.  Bliss Tactile Symbols can be printed with a small pocket inside to insert one of these tags.  Students can use the Voice It to remind themselves what the graphic on the symbol represents just by touching the Voice It with the symbol.  The Voice It comes with recorded vocabulary in English and Spanish for all concepts in the Bliss Tactile Symbol Extended Core Vocabulary.  Like the Bliss Tactile Symbols, the Voice It has extensibility built in.  You can use the Voice It with Challenge Tiles as well – but no reason to stop there.  If you can attach an RFID tag to something, you can describe it with the Voice It.