Navigating to Eleanor's

My best friend and I met when our neighborhood was in its infancy.   Very few houses had been built and so at the initial point of our meeting, we could say we were, "next-door neighbors" because there were no other houses between theirs and ours.  The neighborhood is finished now and a good number of houses lie between hers and mine now.

We've been to Eleanor's house many times.   We've driven over, walked over, scootered over and trudged over through the snow.  It's a short walk of only two blocks between our houses, but my daughter said today she wanted to learn how to get there own her own.

She knows how to use her cane to walk on the sidewalks and can cross streets with caution and care, but none of the helps if you don't know which house you're aiming for.  When she mentioned this today my husband said he'd help her get there and know how to do so bt herself after their pathfinding trip.

My husband brought out the draftsman and drew the following picture for my daughter using the tactile paper and laid out the key things she'd need to navigate her way there.   Here's what he drew:

I marked out the path they followed in black sharpie.

The starting point is in the middle top, leaving our house and heading towards the intersection.

Next, she'd cross the street to the sidewalks on the opposite side which are indicated with a zigzag pattern.

When she got to the next intersection she crossed back to the other side of the street.

Then she counted driveways—Eleanor's driveway was the second one

For navigating home, she would do most of this in reverse with some minor variations.

On the way back they discovered there was an electrical box that was making a buzzing sound right about the point she should cross back to our street.

Eleanor and her family were out of town today so they did a scouting mission for my daughter.   They're back in town tomorrow and might get an unexpected visit from my daughter tomorrow.

The Big Boy Update:  My son brought home something he made at school in music class.   The front was a nice scale.   The back has three melodies, my son told me.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We played cards as a family tonight.   We have braille Uno and Old Maid, My daughter plays cards very well.   We can glance at our hand and see, or refresh our memory, on n what cards we have.   My daughter has to read the card names in braille and then commit a lot of it to memory or else she has to go through the cards constantly.   She's getting quicker all the time at this.   We had a good time, all four us and wasn't a bad sport when she didn't win.