Sarah Murray is mum to Lucas, aged 5 and kindly agreed to review the Shut the box game (GB72) for us.
Lucas reads and writes braille and has the eye condition Septo Optic Displasia and Retinal Aplasia.
First impressions
The toy arrives in a storage box and when you open the packaging you get a lovely solid wooden toy with good distinctive braille, large print numbers and two tactile dice, which are black/white contrasted for children with some vision.
The fact that the toy is self-contained is great for travelling and the wooden tray for the dice to roll in makes it easy for a blind child to play unsupervised and removes the frustration often displayed when trying to "hunt the dice".
Activities carried out
Lucas hadn't come across tactile dice before and was fascinated by them! He enjoyed counting the dots and rolling the dice in the wooden box with the felt backing, as they make a pleasing noise.
His maths skills are not honed well enough yet to play the game as the instructions state (using both dice, and shutting boxes that add up to the number rolled), so we used just one dice and matched the number rolled to the box itself, so if Lucas rolled a "2", he closed box two.
He doesn't yet know his braille numbers, but was able to count along from box one on the left, to box nine on the right, whilst obviously coming into contact with the brailled numbers also. This is a great tracking, pre-braille activity.
It was great to see him enjoying "maths", which is a subject I feel we fall behind in at home - it isn't easy finding fun maths toys, nor am I so comfortable with maths myself as my strength lies in literacy.
Conclusions
This was a great game and one that Lucas will almost certainly continue to enjoy as time moves on. It can be played as we did at its most simple level and can then be developed to include both dice, requiring adding skills. The only issue was that when he tried to count the dots on the dice, it wouldn't stay still, so I held it in place with a bit of Blu-Tack.
I would thoroughly recommend this toy to children from around age four (the instructions say "three", which may be plausible for a child with vision) and I think it can be enjoyed at home and in the classroom to bring simple maths concepts to life!
Ordering
To order the Shut the box game (GB72) or to view our full product range please please visit the online shop or contact RNIB on 0303 123 9999 or email shop@rnib.org.uk