When Jenni Yang was a child, nursery rhymes didn’t make sense. Sitting in daycare, the gestures of “Itsy Bitsy Spider” made her feel lost.

“I wasn’t getting it in [American Sign Language],” Yang, who is deaf, said through interpreter Angie McSwain. “Those hand movements that generally go with those songs are not ASL.”

Because of that itsy bitsy spider, Yang has undertaken a massive project. She and another Utah deaf creator, Jojo Savea, have translated 32 hours of the popular children’s show “CoCoMelon” into ASL, as part of what SignUp Media says is the “largest ASL translation effort in entertainment history.”

The project is a partnership between SignUp and Netflix. The collaboration will result in a 200-hour library of shows featuring 73 titles and 41 franchises.

All of the performers taking part in the project are deaf, native signers or advocates, and will sign characters such as Pikachu from “Pokémon” and Ms. Frizzle from “The Magic School Bus.”

SignUp, a free Google Chrome extension that provides interpretation for titles on streaming platforms like Disney+ and Netflix, was founded by then-17-year-old Mariella Satow during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Satow, while learning ASL, realized there was little to no language interpretation in film or television. She raised the initial funding for her project by walking dogs in her neighborhood and is now a student at Stanford University.

“When I started SignUp, I believed the Deaf community deserved access to entertainment in their language at the same scale everyone else takes for granted,” Satow said in a news release. “Partnering with Netflix to deliver 200 hours of kids and family content is that vision made real and it’s just the beginning.”

Instead of just interpreting the show, Yang and Savea will add their lived experiences to their performances, something they do in their work as educators, mentors and interpreters.

The duo first met while working on a filming project several years ago and had an immediate connection because of their cultural backgrounds — Yang is Korean-American and Savea is Samoan.

As a child, Yang’s parents spoke Korean. When they learned Yang was deaf, they had to figure out how to instill English, ASL and Korean culture in her.

That’s partially why Yang also interpreted for Netflix’s blockbuster hit “KPop Demon Hunters” with SignUp.

“The biggest thing that impacted me was the Korean culture. There just isn’t much of that out there, Deaf Asian representation,” Yang said.

Savea got involved with SignUp when she saw a post that they were looking for a Pacific Islander to interpret “Moana.”

“I’ve always been interested in kids’ shows, and that’s always just one that I held really dear to my heart because that was part of my lived experience,” Savea said. For her, it was rewarding to show her work to the Utah families with deaf children that she mentors.

As a mother of a 2-year-old son who is hearing, Yang thinks back to her childhood often. It’s what inspired her to make sure other deaf kids didn’t have the same experiences she did, and that kids like her son have access to different languages.

Now, as their work on “CoCoMelon” is ready to be shared with the world, the duo is excited to help children everywhere.

“I’m just excited to make sure that kids could enjoy that and be able to see, enjoy the show, and have access to the language as well,” Savea said.