We walked into church this week, and a visiting family was sitting on the row right behind where we usually sit. After an initial sigh of relief that they hadn't claimed OUR pew, and made us sit somewhere different for the day (you know you're all the same....) I noticed that they had kids pretty similar in age to ours. We sat down and said hi, where you from, etc. They were from Florida, the whole family was deaf. Their 9-yr old boy and my 9-yr old boy locked eyes, and I swear, before they even said anything, they were instant best friends. Sam has gotten so much more confident signing, and he's turned into a fast fingerspeller. This means that he can express himself about as fast as his mind goes, as long as the person he's talking too is good enough at ASL and English to understand his signing and his wonky grammar. :) Well, Sam's buddy could hack it, and the two of them gabbed for 10 minutes before church started. Part of me thought I should tell him to stop talking and get ready for the sacrament. But I saw so many people smiling at them, I think their instant brotherhood made people happy. It made for a fun day at church! We're so blessed. Remember back when the kids thought moving to the branch was a sacrifice? (And there were some sacrifices...) Now we're on the end where we mainly see the blessings. Like the kids making friends with people they would never have been able to meet before.
Some thoughts about teaching scripture lessons to CODAs in Primary. I've been sitting in some of the little kids' Primary classes lately as the required second adult. Their teacher is a pro. I've been observing her, so I can learn from the best. Something I've noticed that is different from hearing Primary - it takes soooo loooonnng just to name all the people, because the kids aren't really great spellers yet. Many of the Old Testament characters don't have name signs, but fingerspelling Mordecai over and over again is the WORST. So they spend the start of class making up name signs for everyone.
Another observation: sharing is the worst, too. The kids don't understand each other! They don't have the attention span or the interest to pay attention to what any of the other kids are saying, anyway. So if you ask the kids to share what they learned this week....all the other kids check out while one kid chats with the teacher. Fortunately, this gets better as they get older. But at the end of class, when they get to color, a lot of the kids will share spontaneously, and then they can have a good chat with the teacher. Just another one of the ways that things need to be adapted for ASL situations.
