Whether you’re discussing lunch with a Deaf friend or introducing fruits and vegetables to your baby, you should know the American Sign Language (ASL) signs for these goodies. If you're signing with your baby, say and sign the various fruits and veggies whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Fruits in sign language
Here are a few favorite fruit signs:
Apple: Form an ASL letter A with one hand by making a fist and placing your thumb against your index finger, then place your thumb on your cheek and twist your hand forward.
Banana: Raise one index finger, with the tip pointing to the sky. Then, with your opposite hand, make the movements of peeling a banana, starting at your fingertip and moving down and out.
Grapes: Raise one elbow to shoulder height, and allow the rest of your arm to dangle rag-doll style. Place the fingertips of your opposite hand facedown in the area below the wrist of your dangling arm, and then bounce the fingers down to your dangling hand.
Peach: Make a relaxed-5 hand shape, and then lightly brush your fingertips to your cheek several times.
Berry: Make a flat-O hand shape with one hand and extend the index finger of the other hand. Now gently twist your flat-O hand on the tip of the opposite index finger as if you were twisting the stem off the cherry.
Veggies in sign language
Vegetables are an essential part of a good diet. Here are the signs for various veggies:
Carrots: Make an ASL letter S by forming a fist with your thumb wrapped around the outside of your fingers. Move your fist all the way to your mouth as if you’re eating up a carrot.
Peas: Extend both index fingers and, with the tip of one index finger, touch the side of the other index finger several times, moving from knuckle to fingertip.
Corn: Pretend you’re holding a cob of corn in your hands (in other words, hold your hands out, palms facing each other, with your fingers bent as if grasping the ends of the cob), move your hands to your mouth, and turn your hands like you’re turning a corn cob while you eat it.
Lettuce: Touch the heel of your palm to your head a couple of times. With this motion, your hand is representing leaves of lettuce.
