songs and more

Songs are a delightful and wonderful activity for infants, toddlers and parents.!! Those with rounds and repeating refrains work wonderfully to teach a sign. The whole song need not be signed just one or more words or phrases that you would like to emphasis. I think of:
The Ants go Marching
The Farmer in the Dell
Mary had a little lamb
This old man
Three blind mice
Three little kittens
Row, row, row your boat.
Twinkle little star
She'll be coming round the mountain
This is the way we laugh and play
If you're happy and you know it.

There are I'm sure, many many more but you get the idea. For example in Mary had a Little Lamb, a parent or educator could decided to just sign 'lamb' and 'white [sign same as] snow' and 'lamb' and 'will go'. It could be extended to 'school' and 'laugh and play'. Or whatever, or how ever many signs you would like to teach, review or use in the lesson.

Using songs as part of a theme is a wonderful way to reinforce the thematic lesson. I once did a six week theme on insects and of course, in it was the Ants go Marching. The kids loved it!

There are so many wonderful CDs out now for children's songs. All of the above songs are very easy to find at any chain book store or through Amazon.com. I also found in my recent research for children songs that they can be down loaded to an Ipod or MP-3 player very inexpensively.

I also found a wonderful site, http://www.nurseryrhymes4u.com/ that has the words for you to print out and the tune of the songs too. It is a terrific site because it also has themes and 'print and do' pages, alphabetical listings of songs, and, it is beautifully done. I think you'll like it.

You will also like the following for the same reasons:
http://www.allkids.co.uk/kids_pages/early_learning.shtml
www.preschoolrainbow.org/preschool-rhymes, www.smart-central.com,http://www.dltk-teach.com/rhymes/index.htm

There are so many but the above also give themes and coloring pages and so much more. To incorporate signing to any of the above just pick the words you want to use and go to 'ASL browser' or 'ASL PRO' and watch the signs until you know them well. Be aware that sometimes one sign does NOT fit all.

For example the sign for 'run' is only for the action of running with your feet. It is not for a machine running, or a the water running or some other act of running but not with feet. Also be aware of some verbs that have directionality. By that I mean that the sign moves in different directions depending on the meaning of the sentence. An example of this is the verb 'give'. This is signed in the direction of the person giving. I give to you you is signed in a different direction than you give to me, or he gives to her.

If you are just signing a few simple nouns like 'dog', and 'sheep' and 'town' this won't be a problem however. Although I do stress that ASL ( American Sign Language) is the preferred method of signing and accurate signing means continuity of learning across all environments, I also want baby sign practitioners to have fun.

So be flexible and be open to new experiences to learn and play with language. Children love to sign and play with their fingers! Songs and more help us to enjoy that play with them.

Creating Reading Language Stories

Ellen Milne has written a paper on "Creating Reading Language Experience Stories to Promote Literacy with Preschool Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children in the Classroom and at Home"

I think the idea and creativity are super! These activities are great for any child but especially great for hard of hearing and deaf infants and toddlers.

In it she discusses ways to promote language using the child him/herself as the object of a story book. She suggests that we use a digital camera and an experience the child is familiar with. It could be story time, or riding to the grocery store, going to Grandma's or any activity. Take quick snap shots of the child as he/she gets ready, gets in the car seat and then doing some activities like, turning the pages, riding in the grocery cart, hugging Grandma and then, either paste the photos on paper, copy them onto pages of computer papers or put them into the acetate photo pages of a 'brag/type book'. Allow the photos to 'tell the story' of the experience. Talk about the experience, allow the child to arrange them in sequential order, select colorful paper and remount them, maybe add text under the photos, or number the pages.

She offers that we add text directly relating to the photo on each page and to enlist your child's participation as much as possible. Ask questions such as: Who is this? What is he/she doing? Where is she/he going?

You could name the books such as "Billy likes to play with blocks" or "Amy has puppets". Review the completed pages and make cover pictures or make a cover photos.

Share the books by facing the child and sitting across from them with the book in your lap facing the child. Make sure the child can see the book page, your upper body, and face Or seat the child in small chairs so that you are at the same level. Discuss what your child thinks the book is about. Point out the title of the book and the author reminisce about the experience and making the book.

Use lots of body language and facial expression when reading/signing the story. Use a variety of voices and intonation if appropriate.

Share the books we as many people as possible.

Possible experience books are:

My family Book
We Can Book
Our School Day Book
The Places We'll go Book
Our Cook Book
Going to the Grocery Store Book
Going to the Farm, Zoo, Park, Apple Orchard.... etc....Book
We are Friends Book.
Our Pets Book
Our Halloween Costumes.

Hand and Voices.Fall Edition

Recently, I browsed through the fall editions of "Hands and Voices" and found an article that just made me cry. I usually find interesting things int he newsletter. If is full of workshops, research, parent letters, happenings and products. It is put out by a great organization available to parents of children with hearing loss. It is call Hands and Voices. It is a parent driven, non profit organization which gives unbiased support to families with children who are deaf or hard of hearing. They put out an outstanding newsletter and their website is: www.handsandvoices.org.

The support, wisdom and hilarity of parents, for parents is just wonderful. This month, there is a sweet article called, 'Jumping Naked: Texas Toddler Goes Natural'. I saved it to my file because it so eloquently states the challenges and humor in raising a wonderful baby who has a hearing loss. The mother talks about the difficult decisions parents need to make and about her struggle. She says and I quote, "So my husband and I did what was natural for us as a family - we talked, we signed and we tried to ignore all external voices loudly telling us how badly we were screwing our son up, how confused he would be."

This lovely young parent did it all. She tried everything and did what was right and comfortable for her and the end result was that at the age of eighteen months her son brought her to tears. It seems he had just had a bath and she had put him in his crib, dry but naked while she quickly turned down her dinner as the timer buzzed. When she came back, she laughed and said, "What are you doing?" Her beautiful son smiled and spoke. He said, "Jumping naked."

I cry right along with her.

Wise advice - Follow your heart, your gut and laugh........... or cry.

Second Workshop Huge Success

The second baby sign workshop given at Washtenaw Intermediate Schools by Barbara Leonard and Sherry Warden was very enthusiastically received! Participants were coached in American Sign Language (ASL) by the two veteran teachers, Sherry and Barbara. Barbara comes from a signing background and Sherry received her masters degree from Gallaudet University. Both have been using and speaking with ASL for over thirty years.

Then, the eager child care providers, teachers, administrators and parents rolled up their sleeves to take what they knew and put it to good use. They used stories, games and songs that they already are doing in their settings and added signs and gestures to make them more clear and language rich.

One group who works with little, little ones used mostly simple food signs for the hungry caterpillar book and included activities to crawl through a fabric tunnel and touch various textured food items that would be velcroed inside. How clever!

As a group we learned the alphabet song and If you are Happy and you Know it Clap your Hands. We also reviewed many color, animal, food, and activity signs. Everyone wanted more! So in January we will have more.

We will do mostly activity based groups. The requests have been heard and there will be more songs, more basic activity signs, like: clean up, line up, and share. All the groups really appreciated the sharing and creativity that they saw in their neighboring groups so there will be time to share and take away the lessons and signs that we all create.

This session also included a critique of the package deals that are avaiable as far as how to learn signs on your own. Of the kits, the presenters liked the lessons and activities in the BABY SIGN (r) kits but noted they do vary from ASL. The Joseph Garcia, kit, PICK ME UP is great. It has fewer lessons and activities but it is cheaper and is pure ASL. SIGNING TIME (r) is also great but as far as this reviewer is aware, there is not a kit to learn lessons and to teach parents as a group. The SIGNING TIMES are very nicely done in ASL though.

All are great. Participants are cautioned to check out the signs they want to teach their class and parents by looking a ASL PRO or ASL BROWSER for accuracy. We noted in the signing sheets that were handed out that each sheet had a slightly different picture for 'town'. All were correct if you already know the sign, but, looking at the two- dimensional drawing, the groups came up with very creative interpretations for this sign before Sherry and Barbara could come around to help the out. Consistency is the key. If a child learns to sign 'bird' at preschool and sees a person on TV signing it, it should be the same.

Next post will include many photos as the groups, plan, sign, and make it and take it.