Thanksgiving In the ASL Classroom

Thanksgiving in the ASL Classroom

The month of November is all about giving thanks. It is sometimes a concept our students don’t really understand. Where I work, the English department has a final for our Seniors that is based on The Gratitude Project. Students write out a short speech about why they are grateful for a specific person then they call that person and read the note explaining why they are special to them. While I don’t think this is a final exam, I do think it is an idea that can translate into the ASL classroom.

Here are some ideas

Can’t you just see students making a “video call” to a famous deaf person or sign to their favorite teacher creating a captioned video explaining why they are thankful for them? Wouldn’t a teacher be inspired to hear how they have touched the lives of students and that their work has not gone unnoticed? This would be a great communication activity for students to show their thanks and learn how to communicate in the target language. This activity also lets the beauty of ASL be seen by others outside of the classroom. This also gives our students a real-world audience.

There are also a number of activities students can do for the month of November that shows gratitude and thanks but also allows them to use the language they are learning. Here are a few vocabulary and communication activities you can try.

Get your Thanksgiving Bundle of Activities here.

Planning a Thanksgiving Meal

Chances are your students have never planned a Thanksgiving meal. I am sure most of them have consumed the feast someone has prepared for them, but never actually thought about how much food is really needed. Hold a class discussion about foods that students eat at Thanksgiving dinner and then have them create a shopping list. Students can learn the real cost of food and budgeting.

Continuing on the theme of food (after all, we know Thanksgiving is really about the meal), have students look up recipes online or bring in cookbooks. Each pair of students discusses how to prepare a traditional Thanksgiving dish. To enhance this project students can first create a shopping list and cost of the food items. For the presentation, students could explain what items are needed, how much they cost, and how to prepare the dish.

Family Traditions

All students have various versions of how they celebrate Thanksgiving. Have students present how they celebrate the holiday telling about their own family traditions. They can tell what they do, where they go, and who they celebrate with. Have students create videos and QR codes to hang around the classroom with a picture of their family at Thanksgiving. Students watch each other’s videos in a gallery-style walk. For an added Thanksgiving bonus, have students write something that they appreciate about the video on a Post-it and leave it next to the QR code activity.

Thanksgiving A to Z

Have students make a list of things that they are thankful for from A to Z. This activity is longer so when signing, have students work in small groups. After, ask students what they learned about specific people in the classroom to make sure they were actively involved in the Thanksgiving activity.

Thanksgiving Situation Cards

This is a great communication activity. Create cards giving specific situations. Place students in groups of 4 and give each student a few cards. Allow a few minutes for students to think about how to communicate the information. Then let students tell the situation and pose a question to the group.

A variation of this activity is to shuffle all the cards and place them in the middle of the table. Students can be in pairs or groups. A student draws the card and must talk about the situation and what they would do for one minute. There is no right or wrong answer, you just want students to talk for the full minute. If you don’t have time to make your own, you can get 18 conversation cards here.

Using Persuasion in the Second Langauge

This is best done with higher-level ASL students because it takes a lot more language to make this happen. Have students try to persuade people to eat something other than turkey for their Thanksgiving Day feast. Their job is to convince others to not eat Turkey and change this traditional meal into something different.

If you have younger ASL students they might enjoy just practicing ASL through color by codes. This activity can practice fingerspelling, numbers, and vocabulary. Create a code and have students color the image to reveal what the image is.

I hope you have a thankful and grateful November. Try one or more of these activities this month to get students talking.

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