LATEST STORIES
The Magic of Sign Language
As a childcare centre we value the importance of having everyone feel included and that they have a sense of belonging in their world around them. One of the ways we do this is to incorporate New Zealand Sign Language into our day to day routine as it’s an official language here in New Zealand and there is a significant amount of people who sign and use NZSL.
Over the year we go through a lot of topics with our tamariki following their current interests and then going from there to extend their knowledge and skills. For example, this year we have had many conversations surrounding the butterfly life cycle, planting, rainbows and caring for our environment. One of the ways for us to incorporate NZSL here is through each ‘topic’, we choose at least 4 new signs relating to this as use them. We then incorporate this into our hui time everyday so our tamariki can have that time to specifically learn the sign and then see it used by the kaiako throughout the week. We work hard at naturally integrating NZSL into the learning environment of our tamariki, even if they aren’t in need of using the language on a day to day basis. This is a part of wanting to create confident, lifelong learners and language is massive part of our world. New Zealand Sign Language is beautiful language that all our tamariki should have the opportunity to experience.
We’ve noticed our tamariki especially our older children become very engaged when learning signs as it’s similar to learning actions and dance moves to a new song. This has been another great way for us to include NZSL through music. One of our favorites here at Mt Eden is the ‘Ma is white’ color song, where our tamariki and kaiako have learnt together the signs for the colors.