Sign - Kevin Kammeraad and Friends

Incorporating Sign Language into Songs to Increase Merriment, Movement, and Memory

Introduction:
We all know the importance of using music and movement in the early childhood classroom. Our list of benefits could fill pages. But what if we could have our students moving in such a way that it further enhances our literacy and content-area instruction? We can! In this workshop you will learn how to take any song and incorporate sign language based movements, thereby making them interactive. Not only does this add to the fun, but it also aids the students’ memory of the words by utilizing another learning modality.
Notes to you:
There are many benefits to incorporating and teaching sign language to your students with the songs that you use with them:

American Sign Language (ASL) is an official language, so the sign language movements that you are teaching your students can help them to communicate (even though it might just be in a small way) with children who are deaf or hard of hearing. We want our students to become global citizens, and teaching another language is one of the ways to help them do that.
We want our students to be compassionate. Teaching sign language is a great opportunity to share with your students about the various ways people communicate (now and throughout history): through written, spoken, pictorial, and kinesthetic language. Teaching sign language is also a natural opportunity to teach your students about people who are deaf and hard of hearing.
Teaching sign language for some of the words in a song brings movement into it and makes the song more interactive. For your kinesthetic learners, this is imperative!
The more learning modalities that are used by your students at one time, the easier it will be for them to remember what it is they are learning. If you play a content-rich song, post the lyrics where the students can see them, teach them sign language for the key words, and your students will be utilizing three out of the four learning modalities. Talk about aiding retention!
Learning sign language is fun!

Figuring out which words to do sign language for is the hardest part of the process. Once you do this for a few songs, it will become easier and will go faster for you.

Break the song down line by line and choose the most important words. These will be the ones that you will look up in an online ASL dictionary. (See “Resources” on last page to find links to various ASL dictionaries online.) You do not want to sign every word, nor sign more than a few words per line (depending on the length of the line.)
The more you use sign language with your students, the more you will know how many signs per song they can handle. You will also be able to increase the number of signs that you use with them per song as the year progresses. It will become easier for all of you!
We encourage you to look up the words in two ASL dictionaries to gain a good understanding of the sign movements. Sometimes the movements vary a bit, and this would be similar to how sometimes a word in English sounds different depending on the region you are in, i.e. different dialects. Choose the movement that you feel is best for using with your students.
Sometimes you will not find the word that you are looking for in the dictionary. When this happens, we recommend that you check another ASL dictionary. If you still can’t find it, then look up a synonym of that word.
Sometimes the sign for the word that you would like to use is complicated and you might deem it too hard to teach or too complex for your students to learn. In that case (after you’ve looked it up in a second ASL dictionary) you can either look up a synonym of that word, skip that word and focus on another word in that line, or modify the movement slightly, making it less complex. If you do the latter, simply tell your students that this sign is based on the ASL sign.

How to implement with students:

Start by telling your students that you are going to be teaching them some sign language for some of the words in the song you are about to sing together (or that they are about to hear). Say (don’t sing) the words of the song slowly, doing the sign language movement for the words as they come up. When you get to a word that you are signing, after you say it and sign it simultaneously, pause and show the kids again how you did the sign, explaining it to them as you do it. Then go back a few words and say the lyrics of the song again with that word in it, signing it as you say it. Continue on speaking the lyrics, pausing and teaching after each word that you are signing. Once you’ve gotten through the song, tell the students not to worry if they don’t remember how to do all of the signs. They will be watching and following along with you as they go. Remind them to have fun and that it doesn’t matter if they don’t do the signs just right – you are all learning together! Now sing or play the song and have fun!

Resources:

http://www.nick.com/videos/clip/nick-news-151-full-episode.html - Nick News: “Now Hear This! What If You Were Deaf?” This is a 22 minute video showing hearing kids what it’s like to be deaf, from the perspective of four different deaf children.

www.signingsavvy.com – Online dictionary of American Sign Language with videos

http://commtechlab.msu.edu/SITES/ASLWEB/browser.htm - Online dictionary of American Sign Language with videos

www.lifeprint.com – The website of American Sign Language University: a sign language resource site for ASL students and teachers.

Songs we used in this session to practice adding American Sign Language:

The More We Get Together

The more we get together,
Together, together,
The more we get together,
The happier we'll be.

For your friends are my friends,
And my friends are your friends.
The more we get together,
The happier we'll be!

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!

Baa, Baa Black Sheep

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.

One for my master,
One for my dame,
One for the little boy,
Who lives down the lane.

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

Mary Had a Little Lamb

Mary had a little lamb,
Little lamb, little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow

And everywhere that Mary went,
Mary went, Mary went,
Everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go

It followed her to school one day
School one day, school one day
It followed her to school one day
Which was against the rules.

It made the children laugh and play,
Laugh and play, laugh and play,
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school

Itsy, Bitsy Spider

The itsy bitsy spider
Crawled up the water spout
Down came the rain
And washed the spider out
Out came the sun
And dried up all the rain
And the itsy bitsy spider
Crawled up the spout again.

Three Little Birds