ASL Club

[sherry3995]

Hi Everyone,

I am looking for any input into an ASL Club at my son's elementry school.
This is a club at a public school that will be meeting once a week after school.
We are in the process of getting a "ASL mentor" from our community college (which has an excelent deaf studies department). However in the mean time we are going to start with the ST series.
I think we are goint to start with grades 1st to 3rd for this year and after we get things organized we will open up to the entire k-6th grade school.
So my quesitons are:
What kind of activities should we have?
What are things to watch out for?
And any other thoughts you can think of.

Thanks for any and all input.
Sherry ;)

[Lynja_the_ninja]

you might try reading books in sign. things like "brown bear, brown bear" and "Goodnight Moon" might be good ones to start with. most of those sign you learn on ST and the others you can look up on line. with that age group you can make signs/posters/hang around neck for each of the caracters in the books and let the children act out the book in sign. "three lillte pigs" might also be a good one. JaLyn:)

[Teresa Jo]

I did an ASL program at the local public library I used to work for. The kids were mostly 3-6th grade. The program ran 6 weeks and each week I focused on a different subject/theme. Some activities I remember:
~~Each child randomly selected an animal name. I provided several signing books and references and they were given time to look up and learn how to sign their chosen animal. Then one by one they did their animal sign to the class and the others tried to guess what the sign was.
~~After teaching them the signs for "like" and "don't like", each child was asked to introduce themselves signing 3 things they liked and/or didn't like. I offered several signing resources for them to look up signs they might not have already learned in previous classes.
~~We had a food fest and learned how to sign all the foods we were eating!
~~I kept cards (2x3 inches) with the words printed on them of signs that I had taught them. I frequently used these for various games. For example: Two teams for a tic-tac-toe game. One team member selects a word card. If the team can show me the correct sign, they can choose a square.
~~I frequently started classes with 10 question quizzes. I either gave a sign and they had to write the name of the sign, or I fingerspelled a word and they had to write the word. These were self check quizzes.
~~In one of the later classes, I made a jeopardy type game. For example, category "fingerspelling". For 100 points, how do you fingerspell dog? category "animals". For 100 points, what is the sign for cat?"
~~A lot of times I would simply just narrate in sign using the chalk board to help them follow my tale. I did an "about me" session this way. For example I signed "I live house" and drew a house on the chalk board. Described my house and drew the coordinating features (ie. doors/windows/tress). I also used this to describe my family and drew stick figures to represent my family as I introduced them.
~~I loved the signing tour of the library. We left our program room. As we were leaving I signed door and indicated the door we were walking through. Then closed it and signed "close door". Then opened it and signed "open door". I did a simlar demonstration for lights on/off. Then I simply walked them around and pointed out various items and gave them the sign. Since we saw the same items several times (ie bookshelves), once I gave them the sign, I would later in the tour point to the object and ask them to show me the sign. And since this was in the library there was of course no talking allowed!

[sherry3995]

I like those ideas I will share them with the teacher I am working with and I am sure we will use them.

Sherry

[amiller]

[QUOTE=Lynja_the_ninja]you might try reading books in sign. things like "brown bear, brown bear" and "Goodnight Moon" QUOTE]

Polar Bear Polar Bear and the other one (can't remember the name but there is a blue gorilla on the cover) also have animals on vols 7-9!

[c01dunlap]

I did an ASL program at the local public library I used to work for...Wow! What a great series of activities!! I am toying with the idea of trying to get something started at our local church at some point (fun & free - my ASL does not warrant any $$ :o , but I would also ask my deaf cousin-in-law if she would do some guest appearances too). I was a bit at a loss as to what we might do, so I am also very interested in answers to Sherry's post.

And, Sherry, thanks for asking. I learn so much from everyone here, both questions & answers. :D

[Teresa Jo]

My ASL program was one of my favorite and most fun. When I left the library (I was pregnant and became a SAHM) one of the kids said "Who's gonna teach us sign language now?" I felt so sad to be leaving them.

I remembered two other activities I did:
~~With the same collection of 2x3 inch word cards (words of signs they were taught), I also played an indoor baseball game. The 'player at bat' randomly selected a word card. If they got it correct, they got a base. If they got it wrong, it was an 'out' just like regular baseball.
~~We also played hangman on the chalkboard several times. I usually started and picked a word to be guessed. They had to ask for letters using sign of course. The person who then correctly guessed the word got to be the next one to choose the word. You can also require that the correct answer be fingerspelled and signed.

[sherry3995]

Thanks to everyone for their creative ideas. I will be printing out this thread and using them. I will be sure and let everyone know how things are going.

Sherry