My Latest Project

The end of May, I was trying to find a summer project.  I always need a challenge and embrace learning something new. (I'm definitely not one to sit idle for the summer!!)  I went online to look at Ashland's summer courses, knowing the class would need to be independent, a weekend, or online.  My goal was not to take too much time away from my family, yet satisfy my constant desire to learn something new.  Ashland had an online, self-paced class for sign language, which I decided was for me. 

Becoming more proficient in sign language has been on my "bucket list" for sometime.  When my children were little, I taught them basic signs, plus we bought the Signing Time videos to view and learn.  By watching these 30 minute videos off and on, my children began using some signs in their day-to-day happenings. 

Talking With Your Hands and Listening with Your Eyes is a must have for anyone learning sign language and wanting to incorporate signing in their classroom.  It was the required text, but when it came in the mail, my son recognized it from his own classroom at school.  It's a complete photographic guide to learning the language.  The chapters are organized by usage, and not alphabetical.  For example:   conversing; pronouns, people, and relationships; actions, home & clothing, etc... Even chapters on school, geography, math, communities, and science.

I want to incorporate signing in my morning and closing meetings, learning new content vocabulary, and non-verbal community signals.  Seeing, hearing, and moving to new concepts and words can help students understand better, so I'm hoping this may be one strategy to help my students.  As I work on my new vocabulary this summer, why this summer did I choose to learn the language?   Is there a child who I may reach by using this skill?  Is this a tool that I can make a difference in the life of just one?  Will someone come into my life who I may reach?  I can't answer these questions.  All I know is I've been given this time to learn the language.

The purpose of life is not to be happy - but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all.  ~Leo Rosten