This lesson is a simple and fun way to introduce and practice using protective techniques. I having been repeating this lesson for a kindergartner student who is totally blind. I always want to keep my students motivated to work and this one has been a hit.

I first taught my student how to place her arms and hands for both upper and lower body protective techniques. She is now at a point where I simply say, “Where do your arms and hands go?” and she automatically gets into position.

I wanted to be creative in how I showed her she will be using these techniques away from mobility lessons.

I gathered up some balls I had in my resource kit which I mostly use for assessments of big/little, small/large, hard/soft.

The way it works is to stand about ten or fifteen feet away from the student and tell him/her to walk toward the sound of your voice using upper/lower body protection. When the student is close enough to you, place the ball on the ground and bounce it or tap it and have the student bend down to pick it up.

The purpose of this is so the student can experience bending down to retrieve an object while staying in position and protecting their head. When you do this activity for the first time you can have the student find the ball in your hands before you graduate to bending down.

My student really enjoys the surprise of discovering which ball it was and as a reward she gets to play with it and tell me if it is squishy or hard and occasionally I let her toss it toward me.