Body Concepts 1 Teaching Plan

This trio of lessons highlights five iconic Blissymbols representing major, or key, regions of the human body.  The lessons are intended to progress from A to B to C.  The Bliss Body explorer serves as a proxy for the student’s and teacher’s bodies in Lesson B and provides a nice tactile bridge to the raised shapes on the Bliss Tactile Symbols.  In Lesson C, the bridge is removed and the student learns the direct relationship between the symbols and the parts of their own body.

At any time, a doll’s head and body may serve as a substitute for the student’s and teacher’s heads and bodies. 

Prerequisites: – none (see “Remedial Supports” below, if necessary).  The Facial Concepts trio of lessons involve more iconic and instinctive concepts.  So, preceding this trio of lessons with those lessons may lead to greater success.

 

Lesson A (DOCX, PDF) – provides a foundation for Blissymbols as simple, raised shapes, that can directly correspond to real-life shapes. The student and teacher alternate between parts of their bodies and raised elements of the Bliss Body explorer.

    • Lesson A Supports – 
      1. Bliss Body explorer
      2. (optional) large doll (as a substitute for the student’s and/or teacher’s body)

Lesson B (DOCX, PDF) – introduces the association between the the raised elements of the Bliss Body explorer and the corresponding Bliss tactile symbols. The student and teacher alternate between parts of Bliss Body explorer and the corresponding Bliss Tactile Symbols.

Lesson C (DOCX, PDF) – the student associates their own head, hands, arms, body/trunk and legs and feet with the corresponding Bliss tactile symbols. The student and teacher alternate between parts of their body (or the doll body) and the corresponding Bliss Tactile Symbols.

    • Lesson C Supports – 
      1. Bliss Tactile Symbols for “head”, “hand”, “arm”, “body“, and “legs and feet”
      2. (optional) large doll (as a substitute for the student’s and/or teacher’s body)

 

Remedial Supports – if required, the following supports can be used to build tactile awareness of the sub-shapes that comprise the symbols in this lesson:

Bliss Body basic shapes explorer “arm” basic shapes explorer and challenge tiles “body” basic shapes explorer and challenge tiles
“hand” basic shapes explorer and challenge tiles “head” basic shapes explorer and challenge tiles “legs and feet” basic shapes explorer and challenge tiles

Motivational Supports – if the student is progressing rapidly in their recognition of the four facial Blissymbols, they may be able to reinforce their skills and spatial awareness by assembling the Bliss Body puzzle.

 

Next Steps:

  • with a foundation of the concepts: “eye”, “nose”, “mouth”, and “ear” from the Facial Concepts lessons – and now adding the concept of “hand” – the student may be ready to learn their verb/action related concepts for all 5 senses: “see”, “smell”, “taste”, “hear” and “touch“.
  • the concept “legs and feet” can motivate the action concept: “walk”.  That can then open up readiness to learn concepts like: “stand“, “sit“, “go“, “stop“, and “hurry“. 
  • the student may be ready to move to finer regions of the body, with the concepts : “foot”, “leg”, “finger”, “knee”, “buttocks”.