Week 8

K-1
We began class by watching more of Florida School for the Deaf's version of Snow White and the 7 Dwarves. Students kept their eyes out for signs about animals in preparation for this day's lesson.

We learned the signs for Colors and Animals. Students practiced the new vocabulary by playing zookeepers who had to catch escaped animals.

basic animals
colors

2-5
We began class by watching more of Wonderstruck. Students especially liked the scene where a newly deafened boy is taught the fingerspelled alphabet by hearing boy who learned it at school. We discussed communication challenges between people with a hearing loss and people without one--difficulties of lipreading due to practice or darkness or mustaches, writing notes and trying to remember to put everything you are saying on the paper, etc. The kids are really enjoying the movie!

We then learned the signs for Colors and Animals. The school photocopier was out of paper, so I did not have enough copies of all the animals signs for everyone. I will bring those to class next week, but in the meantime they are available here.  Everyone received a copy of the Colors handout from earlier in this entry and an extra page on animals:

extra animals

The gym was busy, so we hope to do fingerspelling baseball next week!

Week 7

It's the week before spring break!

K-1 finished watching Florida School for the Deaf's version of Wizard of Oz and then watched some of their production of Snow White and the 7 Dwarves.  Students were able to find signs in the stories that they knew such as FATHER, MOTHER, DAUGHTER, BABY, 

2-5 watched the beginning of an award winning movie adaptation of Brian Selznick's book "Wonderstruck." This movie features a 13 yo Deaf actress named Millicent Simmonds as a young deaf girl in the 1920s who is isolated by her father's refusal to communicate with her so she goes off in search of her mother. This storyline alternates with that of a young boy who loses his hearing due to a freak accident during a storm and begins a journey to try and find his father.

Week 6

Thank you for your understanding and kindness with my recent absence!

This week both classes watched a video about a young Deaf boy who is a wonderful basketball player and who had recently just joined a team where he was the only Deaf kid. The video showed how his hearing coach and teammates figured out ways to communicate.

Then we did a quick unit on Sports signs.
Sports signs handout

K-1 watched part of Florida School for the Deaf's filmed version of The Wizard of Oz. Students worked on pointing out signs they recognized.

2-5 headed to the gym to play my new fingerspelling/sign vocabulary baseball game to review our topics that we have covered so far. The kids were great at being guinea pigs. We hope to play again next week and figure out ways to improve the game.

Week 5

The k-1 class watched a video about the Indiana school for the Deaf. We talked about why residential state schools for Deaf people exist (years ago many cities didn't have interpreters or even teachers qualified to teach Deaf children) and reasons why fewer Deaf people go to residential schools but there is still a need for them. We compared them to Hogwarts and the feeling of community Deaf students feel there when they attend a Deaf school.

2-5 students watched a video about a Deaf artist named Jennifer Tandoc. Her work is very intricate, and many of her pieces have signing hands in them. She also hides a 9/F handshape in all her work, as a "Where's Waldo?" type of search game.

Both classes reviewed School vocabulary from the previous week.

Week 4

Both classes watched a video about a Deaf gym teacher who works at a mainstream public school.

Then we introduced signs related to school (2-5 has a slightly longer list). K-1 practiced identifying which teachers/staff at Irving have which jobs/teach which subject. In the 2-5 class, students who had not taken the class last year practiced listing who lives in their house, while my experienced students went on a School vocab picture hunt so that they could teach the new school sign vocabulary to their classmates.

k-1 school signs
2-5 extra signs

Week 3

In k-1 we started class by watching another example of Deaf storytelling called "The Hotel." Traditional Deaf stories are often humorous, usually highlighting the difference between the Deaf and Hearing worlds. We reviewed our family vocabulary by using my family tree. Students then practiced telling who lives in their house. No new handouts were given.

In 2-5 we watched a video about Koko, a gorilla who can communicate with sign language. It was interesting to see how she learned to sign and to compare and contrast her signing to humans signing.  We learned signs for Family vocabulary (see week 2 post for link to handout) using the Sakellaris' family's tree.

Week 2

Oops, looks like the blog posts I had been putting up each week actually didn't post!

During our 2nd class, the K-1 kids watched an ABC handshape story (these stories are an important part of Deaf culture) called "The Cowboy" while 2-5 grades students watched a different handshape story "Skiing." Then students divided up into groups and created their own short handshape stories about activities like making a pizza crust, playing baseball, and going in a haunted house.

Both classes reviewed fingerspelling and introductions. We also talked about to ask Yes/No questions versus WH questions.

K-1 began learning Family related signs, but we waited on that for 2-5 since all the 3rd graders were out on a field trip.

Family signs

Welcome to the Irving ASL classes for grades K-1 and 2-5!

Hopefully your child brings home their handouts--they can use these to review in between classes. If you'd like, have your child keep their handouts in a folder that they can bring to class each week. If your child has lost the papers from our first class, here are links to their PDF versions:

ABCs and #1-10
Week 1 vocab

We watched a short video about the history of American Sign Language:
The Story of ASL

concepts taught:
1) quick introduction to sign language and Deaf culture
2) introduction to ASL alphabet and numbers
3) practiced basic introduction-
    MY NAME (fingerspell first name)
     I OLD (sign number for their age)
     I HEARING/DEAF/HARD OF HEARING

In the Fingerspelling/Numbers tab on the homepage, I have listed some great websites that students can use to practice. They seem to work on the school iPads fairly well.

Just like with any language, the key to success in ASL is to practice, practice, PRACTICE in between classes--with online games, with friends in their class, or with their families (ask them to teach you)!