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MILLCREEK — A Mill Creek Elementary School educator is going the extra mile to make her students feel included and excited for the new school year.
Katie Chevalier is a teacher’s aide for the school’s special education class for students who are blind and visually impaired. Last school year, she was heartbroken to see one of her students struggling to play a board game with others in the class.
"One of my students was left out, and she only has light perception and wasn't able to play," Chevalier said.
So Chevalier came up with a plan and spent the entire summer adapting two dozen board games to fit her students’ needs. With a Perkins Braille writer and feel-and-peel stickers, she added Braille to game after game. She also added Velcro to game boards and pieces to make it easier for her students move their pieces.
“I did one and it just blossomed from there,” Chevalier said. “I did Skip-Bo, Chutes and Ladders, Sequence, Uno and even Sorry.”
The class, which is considered part of Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind, has six students this year, with school grades ranging from first to sixth.
A third-grader named Emory said she is now able to play with her classmates thanks to her teacher's hard work.
"I actually am color blind,” Emory said. "(Mrs. Chevalier) brailles the first letter of the color and then I can tell what color it is.”
Although the modifications to these popular activities may seem small to Chevalier, who is also visually impaired, she is optimistic they will give families hope.
“Just because their child was born with a vision impairment, it's not the end of their life. They can do so much,” she said. “They just need to find a different way to do it.”
Chevalier wants to include the whole student body in her project, so she is planning a game day for students from other classes to play the games with her kids.
Chevalier is also raising funds to adapt more games for schools in Ghana. To learn more about her project, visit the Games Adapted for Blind Facebook page.
