I think two most important things to teach is how to stay independent and how to continue doing things one enjoys.

Big part of staying independent as has been already mentioned by others is getting orientation and mobility training. Also there are added things like having a specific place for everything so things are easily found or using tricks like I have this piece of metal that is put in a kettle. It rustles when the water boils.

I thought losing sight meant losing things I like but it is possible to be active in sports and other activities even with no sight. Internet has more specific details on whatever one wants to attempt to do but there are people with little vision left traveling, taking photos, playing video games and billiards, painting etc.

Sure, things might be slower or take more effort but still it is important that nice things can still be achieved!

Get Orientation and Mobility training (with a cane) sooner rather than later. Having even a bit of vision makes it a little easier.

Depending on the prognosis, she may also want to learn how to use the accessibility features on her iPad. The basics of Zoom and VoiceOver can be picked up faster than you'd expect.

There is a tactile Rubik's cube ( https://www.lssproducts.com/product/Tactile-Rubiks-Cube/games-and-books ), although there are plenty of other games if she is interested in learning some. This company does a few ( http://www.64ouncegames.com/ )

There are also lots of games on the iPad designed for those without vision. There is a website called AppleVis that does a lot of review of apps and their accessibility. ( https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-gaming ) That link is for their games, but check the site out.

My mother and husband both lost their vision later in life. My mom sounds like your mom and hates being still. The advice above is great. I would add
* large print books (then free audio books, newspapers and/or magazines through the Dept of Vision ... or your local library).
* my mom got a nice lighted floor magnifying glass that helped for a while.
* she moved from small needle knitting to large needle knitting
* my husband loves sports so he listens to SiriusXM and games on a free app
* Learning new things can be tough for some older people so it’s great to help her learn now.
* Comcast has a voice activated remote which is great for low/now vision
* My husband loves our Alexa. We play jeopardy, 20 questions and other trivia games.

If she is receptive, encourage her to learn how to use Uber or Lyft as that will allow her to go to movies (most of which have audio description to describe what she can’t see that is relevant to the plot), museums, restaurants. (Check out Seeing AI app for reading menus and lots of other neat capabilities)

Hope this helps! Glad she has you to get her started. It is hard stuff for many people. Just adding: my husband still works, goes to the Y and travels all over the country by himself. A lot of it is shifting perception about what is possible.

Podcasts are great. If she’s already doing audio books you could supplement that by finding a good screen reader and teaching her how to use it So she can also read [listen] articles that are not available in audio format.