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Our First Few Days of Signing

Looking for The Lactivist? She's retired. But you CAN still find Jen blogging. These days, she's runs A Flexible Life. Join her for life, recipes, projects and the occasional rant.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

My ASL for babies sign language books showed up early last week, so I thought I'd give you all a quick update. I only just started signing with Elnora on Wednesday and she was gone from Friday evening until this afternoon, so she's really only had about 48 hours of signing so far.

So far she's picked up "baby" and "more" and has signed "drink" and "jump" once or twice. Turns out she was already making the signs for "wait" and "brush your teeth." I think she finds "more" to be quite handy. ;)

I've started incorporating the following phrases into our every day interactions...

what
more
done (finished)
wait
no
eat
drink
milk
baby
jump (she LOVES to jump)
book
bird
cat

I occasionally throw in a few others, like mom or dad, but mostly, we'll wait until she starts to pick up some more and then we'll add them. I don't want to overwhelm her. ;)

I've also been devouring the books I bought (including Signing Smart) and I'm just fascinated by this whole babies and sign language thing. Totally pumped about it.

Also found a fantastic site that has a dictionary of more than 7000 ASL signs. It's searchable by letter and when you select a word, it actually plays a video of someone making the sign. Very, VERY handy.

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  1. Anonymous Anonymous | 3:56 PM |  

    I'm working on a term paper about the effectiveness of baby sign language and the later effects on language development. Could you post a list of the books you've been looking at?

    (I became interested in baby sign language when I took an ASL course last year, and I'm just beginning to use some signs with my six-month-old....so I thought this would be a good topic for my Linguistic Anthropology term paper.)

    Thanks!

    Jen Goble

  2. Blogger Mama Seoul | 1:33 AM |  

    I've just started doing a few signs with my 6 month old. He seems to understand "up" and maybe "milk".

  3. Blogger Kind of Crunchy Mama | 7:49 AM |  

    I LOVED doing sign language when my daughter was between 12-24 months. It made communicating so much easier and saved us sooo much frustration.

    I'm just starting it with my son now that he is 8 months.

  4. Anonymous Anonymous | 4:11 PM |  

    We are using sign language, too! My daughter is almost 8 months and I believe she knows "milk" and "drink". The new Einstein signing video is out and I have been contemplating buying it. We aren't big TV watchers but it could be a fun way to get all of my kids and hubby involved too!

  5. Blogger Anne | 7:39 PM |  

    I am doing sign language with my 18 month old son. We got a few books, rented various vidoes from the library and are now in a sign class run by Signing Smart. We love it; especially since the class teaches you how to recognize the baby versions of adult signs. I missed out on so many months and got frustrated because I didn't think he was signing back to me so be aware of that when you start signing to Emmitt. The signs really cut back on his frustration since he isn't talking much, and I hear it cuts back on tantrums! ; ) The best video series I found was called Signing Time, and the best book I found was Teach Your Tot to Sign by Stacey A Thompson (we bought this b/c it was so handy). The new "einstein" video is complete crap and a waste of time; about 1/3 of the 28 minute video is wasted in credits and titles and the signs are really basic so you can pick them up from ANY book without a problem. Good luck!

  6. Anonymous Anonymous | 8:45 AM |  

    I've been signing since I was very young and you have no idea how special this can be with your kids.
    I have 3 children and all 3 of them sign. (ages 9 to 14 months) It is awesome across rooms and in "quiet" situations, or while you are in "adult" situations and dont/cant be interupted.
    I think its awesome that so many ppl are wanting their children to sign! just remember to work with their verbal abilities also!! Many parents focus on signing soooo much that they forget about teacing thier kids to talk too!! LOL!!

    Good luck!!

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