Hi Guys,
Today was a very special storytime at my library… a bilingual storytime in both English and American Sign Language. Myself along with a deaf mother and performer, created a program where we worked together to create an inclusive program for both deaf and hearing families.
Here’s what we did:
Rhyme – The More We Get Together
For this one we taught the group the signs for: more, together, happy and friends. Then we put everything together and signed the rhyme together, getting faster with our signs each time.
The more we get together Together, together The more we get together The happier we’ll be
‘Cause your friends are my friends And my friends are your friends The more we get together The happier we’ll be
Introducing Colors
We talked about a rainbow and what colors are in a rainbow. Then we worked through the signs for: rainbow, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. We love the sign for rainbow!
Story – Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you See? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle
They way we did this one was that I would ask the questions and my performer would answer. So I would sign, “Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?” and she would respond, “I see a red bird looking at me.” And we went back and forth until the end of the story.
Game – Traffic Light Freeze Game
This is you basic traffic light freeze game except, instead of using color signs we used our color ASL signs to indicate what the kids would do. So when we did the color sign for green, the kids moved really fast. When we signed the color yellow, they slowed down. And when we signed the color red, they stopped. We played this for a few rounds and it helped get some of the wiggles out before our second story. BUT it also helped to reinforce our color signs.
Story – White Rabbit’s Color Book by Alan Baker
For this one, my performer signed the story with her interpreter and I accompanied the story with some props. Very similar to this one. I don’t have a picture of mine, so I’ll add that later.
Rhyme – The More We Get Together
We then finish up with the same rhyme we started with.
The more we get together Together, together The more we get together The happier we’ll be
‘Cause your friends are my friends And my friends are your friends The more we get together The happier we’ll be
How’d it go:
This was a wonderful ASL/English storytime, with a really great turn out. We had both deaf and hearing families and everyone seemed to enjoy the program. The pacing was a little quicker than I was expecting and I think we could have easily added one more rhyme to hit that 30 minute mark. The whole program only took about 20 minutes as is.
Brown Bear is like THE perfect story to do for an ASL storytime. The signs are fairly straightforward and are not that hard to learn even if you do not know sign language. It is also a familiar story for the crowd.
This was such a fun storytime and I can’t wait to plan some more!
That’s all for now!
-M-
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