There can be multiple variants of the Beats game. In teams of two, teams of three, and teams of four, depending on the number of students in the class. In fact, this is suited for games with mixed age groups and mixed grades children which is very common in schools for the blind, due to the heterogeneity of the incoming class as well as the shortage of teachers. So one can imagine the games period with combined classes using drums in patterns along with movement in patterns. The leader (could be the teacher or one of the students taking turns being the leader of the band) could set the rhythm and others follow it.
In order to connect between numbers and counting and the beats, the leader can call out a pattern: 3, 4, 7, 4, 3. And everyone has to do 3 beats, pause, followed by 4, pause, etc. It could be in a challenge format between two teams, alternately calling out the patterns. Traditional percussion practice I think calls these bhols. The students can learn to keep time as well as to remember and repeat patterns with numbers. This can evolve to more complex and creative patterns that resemble patterns in percussion practice: given 32 beats to split them into subgroups and play them put so that the subgroups add up to 32. concepts involving factoring, addition, and repeated patterns can all be learned while having lots of fun.
Though these simple examples look very exciting and appear to have lots of potentials, there are three major challenges: first is the result of actually running such sessions in a real school with real children has so many uncertainties. the only way to find out is to actually go out and do it. This requires us to work with schools for the blind that have some confidence and trust in us to do the right thing. This trust has been earned over a period of time and hence comes with a responsibility. Second, one session may be lots of fun and everyone wants more. Creating follow-up sessions, holding the thread about where we are going with these sessions without losing sight of the objective of enhancing numeracy while keeping the play element intact is a major challenge. If we keep each session's content rigid and fixed and insist that children follow it, we are immediately violating the rules of play. If we let the session evolve based on the whims and fancies of the children, we may find remarkable new insights or descend into a chaotic ruckus or something in between. it may be that one session descends into ruckus, but if we persist, the subsequent sessions might evolve into exciting, insightful, and at the same time joyful sessions for the children. Thus we need to have the patience, and the support of the school to persist with the efforts. The third challenge is that of scale: we are not doing this to benefit one school for one session or a school year. We want to create content that can be used by ALL schools for the blind across India. This requires us to not only document our initial efforts but to create templates for each session that can be used by others without the core team being present to instruct and train, while at the same time retaining the flexibility and freedom to explore alternate ways of running these sessions.
So considerable effort must be expended in creating a template for 'lesson plans' and 'teacher resources' that are diffused with the spirit of play. Nothing written down is a fixed and fast rule. Everything is up for negotiation and rework based on the experience with the children. This is hard. Teachers in every school, the mainstream of specialized, have been trained to follow instructions and are actively discouraged and disincentivized to deviate from the standard way of doing things. For one, they are expected to cover the syllabus in a fixed number of sessions and are expected to prepare the children to score high marks in tests and exams. Second, they are convinced and are trained to believe that children will not learn unless they are forced to learn and learn by repetition and practice and that if given an alternative they will escape from doing work. To give agency to children to direct the course of a session is anathema to all mainstream teachers. However, the ludic approach takes the diametrically opposite view: the teacher and the students are players in the game with equal rights to direct the course of the game. in fact to not play the game if they chose not to! This mindset created by the standard school pedagogy is going to be the biggest barrier to the widespread adoption of the Ludic Approach. Fortunately, schools for the blind are very different from mainstream schools, not by design, but by the circumstances and the context. For example, class sizes are much smaller with no more than 10 on average per class. Children are much happier, especially in the younger classes since there are not enough teachers to keep them working on tasks round the clock during school hours. The need for close personal interactions and the need for a lot of touch-based interactions brings the children much closer and on more friendly terms with the teacher: many of the lessons are taught by the teachers by holding the hand and fingers of the child and tracing them on objects. There is a strong element of kindness and gentleness needed by such teachers in guiding the children and so the distance between the teachers and students in schools for the blind is very little compared to mainstream schools where usually the teacher is the figure of authority that should be obeyed implicitly. Thus, the relationship between teachers and students in such schools is a lot more conducive to the Ludic Approach.