This week, I thought about what ways I want to use ASL in my future classroom. This idea brought me back to a personal experience I had a few weeks ago. I was teaching a PE lesson into a grade one class, and the students showed us a “silent appreciation” to me and my peers. I was pleasantly surprised to see all the students were demonstrating the signs “thank-you” and “applause” in sign language. This simple gesture showed was a way for the students to show their gratitude in a small way. 

In the primary years of elementary school, students begin to develop their own attitudes and behaviours towards others. As teachers, we have the responsibility to exemplify positive behaviour as our students are susceptible to our actions. We are role models and students will follow and mimic what we do. For today’s research, I decided to look into signs that you could teach your students some basic manners.

In this first video, you will learn the signs “please” and “thank you” in the tune of a catchy song. These signs are perfect for both the student and the teacher to learn and use on the daily.

In this video, you will learn the signs “more”, “all done”, “food”, “milk”, “water”, “sleepy”, and “toilet”. These signs are often taught to infants but can also be used in the classroom usually around snack time. In my opinion, the most useful sign is “toilet”. Rather than having a student disrupt the class, the could simply show the sign to the teacher and go. 

The last video demonstrates two signs that are simple confirmation signs. This video repeats a few signs we have already learned, but the three new signs are “yes“, “no“, and “your welcome“. These signs are easy to do to quickly answer a question a student may have.

Thanks for reading!

– Ms. G 🙂