As I’m sure you have found out, babies just love to be sung to and with. After learning the basic first sign language signs such as food, milk, etc. you will want to move on to some fun signs too.
Sing & Sign
Try learning some signs for animals. Although that may not seems like fun signs to you, your little one will sure enjoy it. It doesn’t have to be a huge slew of animal signs just a few farm animals will do such as cow, pig or duck. I know you know “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”. To a sign a song you don’t need to sign all the words, just some of the keywords, in this case, sign just the animal signs as you sing.
You can start out with just 2 or 3 animal signs depending on the attention span of your baby, then add more animal signs and make the song longer as your baby’s attention span grows. He may even start signing right along with you. Come on, I dare you to try this and not have fun doing it.
Need some other song ideas? You might want to give these a try: One Potato, Two Potato, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Six Little Ducks. I’m sure you can come up with several more.
Make Story Time Come Alive!
Story time is a most loved time and wonderful bonding time too. I enjoy it with my kids. Want to really hold their attention though, give this a try, animate the story. Animating a story will hold your child’s attention better than just reading out of a book most times. What a great opportunity this is to continue or teach your baby sign language. Try short little stories or nursery rhymes to start out with. Personally I try to see what stories my kids enjoy me reading to them then we incorporate the signs into the stories. We read and sign for such stories as The Three Little Pigs, The ABC song (which not only helps them learn the alphabet signs but also helps them learn their alphabet by hearing the song and each letter). Nursery Rhymes are great fun too. Pick out a few and give it a try. I’m sure both you and baby will enjoy story time a lot more with a little action going on. Have fun signing!
Nanette Gomez is owner of http://www.BabyTalk-Learn2Sign.com Your online resource for information and products to help you teach your baby sign language and http://www.TheMommyCircle.com ~ Helping Moms Make Money Online.