Aww first cane, that's exciting! Honestly just treat her like any other kid. She'll be getting a lot of the services she needs through school. It means a lot to these kiddos to just be treated like the kids they are.

For some kids, decorating the cane (within reason) can help with buy-in and encourage usage. I've seen some people decorate it with stickers (if they have some usable vision) and rhinestones. There is a company that makes then, but to be honest, you can do the same thing with dollar store supplies and decent glue.

https://www.glamsticks.co.uk/product/rhinestone-encrusted-white-cane/

Encourage the family to have your niece get some O&M training from a specialist (your school may already provide it), and maybe even consider enrolling in a camp for those with vision loss. It can be useful for her to interact with other children to vision loss to find out what they like to do and for her to find out there are others like her.

If your brother didn't know, a fair bit of Disney+ has descriptive video. This can help with your niece following along with a video she may have trouble seeing (especially ones with lots of details), and help her keep up with her peers about what she has seen (it can be really frustrating for some kids when all their friends are talking about a recent movie, but she hasn't because she wasn't able to follow along).

https://help.disneyplus.com/csp?id=csp_article_content&sys_kb_id=087aaa78db0580100a2af56e0f9619aa

You know what I really really loved as a child growing up blind


When board games were accessible


And yeah I know most people don't even play board games anymore but it's still super cool when you get a Monopoly board that's brailed so you can move the pieces on your own and not have to have someone move them for you or when your chest set has squares that are raised so you know where the lines are


I think you can get accessible games like that on Amazon and you can get brailed playing cards so you can play all the card games like Uno or go fish


I mean if she's only five she probably is young enough where you can still introduce her to board games and she might love them and it's the kind of thing you can do with somebody else or the kind of thing you could do with the whole family I really really love family game nights when I was little

I glam up my SO's cane! Think bejeweling

First cane! Aww.

Just make her use it. My experience is not with people who were born with sight problems and they can often be very reluctant because they don't want to stick out, and I get that. I don't know if that's something you'll hit once she becomes more aware of how other people see it, but I suspect she will, because she'll get comments. Unless someone's really being persistently unpleasant, questions are not bad or wrong, that's just life, and she needs to be able to deal with it with a smile on her face. But there's no love for a shy cane with agoraphobia that lives in your bag while you take a guide from someone. It's very much a learned skill and you can get amazingly good at it. It's also a perishable skill so you have to stay in shape. Even not going out for a couple of days over xmas, say, I notice the skill fading.

Oh, yeah, and as regards staying in shape... she's young of course, but being in good physical shape is massively massively helpful. Holding a cane for anything other than a short journey is a physical workout for your arm. Also consider which hand she's going to use, or try to make her ambidextrous with it if that's possible. Most people end up doing it with their naturally dominant hand which is instinctive but then you end up with your dominant hand tied up any time you're walking anywhere.

I don't know what is taught by proper O and M people (paging u/KillerLag) but one thing I always make sure to do is guard myself with the cane when I'm getting a guide from anyone I don't trust completely, which is basically everyone other than my partner of twenty years. Many people don't do this and it is a mistake. Just have it in front of your legs, you don't need to sweep, just out in front a little. Saves a lot of bashing your shins. The other aspect to this is that you can't reasonably expect everyone to be a brilliant sighted guide first time out, and they'll feel terrible if they walk you into something, and I sort of make it my problem to save them that. Helps with getting along with people.

In my world, people who refuse to use canes properly soon become members of the Order of the Bruised Hip, this is inevitable and is part of the process. Better to get it sorted out when she's four feet tall and has less distance to fall.

It's always exciting watch8ng children learn and explore their surroundings, but remember she's a kid and surprise surprise kids LOVE toys think interactive think talk back, I bought on of my client's k7ds who has glaucoma on of the interactive robots from Amazon (like $40) and she love the goofy thing. You xan alway be practical but to be COOL go with the toys

Get her some different types of cane tips to go with the cane, nice and pragmatic.

I loved audio books as a kid. Also, my dad read to me for many years longer than most kids are read to by their parents (until I was probably around 12), because reading was so slow and difficult for me. I have tons of fond memories of him reading stories to me and I credit him for my love of reading. Otherwise, I might have just given up on it all together.