Baby Sign

My last post on Sam and Anna's communication left out baby sign on purpose.  I wanted to devote an entire post to this because using sign with Sam and Anna has been and is pretty important to me. 

Here's a little background:  when I was little, my mom sometimes took care of a little girl who was deaf.  So because of that, my mom used signs before it was the "in" thing to do with small children.  Growing up, my mom always signed yes, no, stop, please, thank you, and much more to me and my brother.  (Just a little tidbit: yes and no are pretty handy when you are talking on the phone.)   In college, I took a course on sign language.  I've also incorporated signs including the letters of the alphabet, bathroom, stop, sit down and no into my classroom environment as well.  (The sign for bathroom is one of the first things I teach a new class in the fall.  It is fabulous when you are reading a book or working with a small group.  You don't have to stop what you are doing or saying, just simply nod at the child and they go.  It's awesome.)

So with all that, I really wanted to use baby sign with Sam and Anna.  Since they go to day care because I work full time, I've been a little disappointed that I don't have the time I'd like to reinforce signing to communicate.  They've understood signs like milk for a lot longer than they have been able to do them, but lately Sam and Anna have been showing and communicating through signs more and more, and that has made me really excited!  I realize that they would know a lot more if they spent all day long with me, but instead of being sad about that right now, I am looking forward to this summer (30ish days of school left!) because I have a feeling their signing ability will really start to explode once they spend all day long with me, every day of the week. 

The first sign Anna made was "all done!"  She started signing this at the same time she starting saying it (her first phrase).  She now signs "more" and "milk" as well.  It is so fun to see her use all three throughout a meal.  She uses more to ask for more food, and combines more and milk to ask for her sippy cup.

Sam doesn't use signs as much as Anna (I think he finds it works perfectly well to point with his finger to what he wants) but he seems to be more interested in signs as a whole.  I think he's starting to connect making the sign "dog" to the concept of a dog.  Sam understands "all done," "milk" and "more" but doesn't use them as frequently as Anna.  Sam signs and understands "eat" as well. 

We do have a few Baby Signing Time DVDs and I've just recently broken down and started playing them. (As a practice, we don't have Sam and Anna watch any tv.  Baby Sign is now the only exception to that.)  I'm excited to see how their signing progresses as they learn to communicate more and more!