When we fell pregnant with Aaron we looked into signing as a way of communicating with him before he could talk. Due to a few obstacles, lack of resources on the web and locally, being overwhelmed by the new addition to our family and suffering from PND, signing with Aaron fell by the wayside.
To be honest I didnt even think about signing with Faith until I came across this website!
Wow! What an amazing site. Simple, concise and easy to use, not to mention free, makes this site a win.
So far we have been signing ‘Mommy‘, ‘Daddy‘, ‘brother‘ and ‘milk‘ to Faith. I am going to teach Aaron how to sign ‘brother’. Tonight we will all be learning ‘Uncle‘, ‘Aunt‘ and ‘Granny/Bobba‘ as those three people will be having supper with us.
Oh yes, ‘dog‘ will also be a sign that is used frequently in our house 🙂
I really hope that Faith picks up signing easily as Im pretty certain that it will reduce a lot of frustration between us as she gets older and is able to communicate more effectively.
Edited to add: The sign language being used on the website above is based on ASL (American Sign Language) and that is what we will be teaching Faith and Aaron. Unfortunately I cannot find any effective online resources that are based on South African Sign Language (SASL). According to Wikipedia (see links) SASL is based on Irish, British and American sign language, while both Irish and American sign language seem to be based on French sign language. Perhaps one day we will explore SASL.
Thanks for the link! I used a great site with Isabella that had little animations/videos of each sign but I’ve lost the link. The sign she used most was “no”… I should have known then what we were in for 😉
Wow sounds interesting. I look forward to hearing how it all works and how quickly Faith picks up on it.
Good luck! It seems like a great idea.
I’ve been signing with Mason for about a month now – not as much as I should, but as often as I can. The cool thing is he can do the sign for “milk” now which is awesome! Still working on mommy and daddy 😉
Good luck – I think it’s amazing to be able to communicate with them!
Thats awesome! Cant wait for Faith to start signing back to us… Im really enjoying it myself, think I may try find a local class and actually learn sign language 🙂
I’m fascinated by this baby signing thing! I’m also curious as I haven’t had a look, are there signs for “please” and “thank you”?
Yup, there are..
Please – http://www.babysignlanguage.com/dictionary/p/please/
Thank you – http://www.babysignlanguage.com/dictionary/t/thank-you/
🙂
Brilliant idea! I almost registered for a SL course two years ago. Was about to submit my form when I got a tel call that changed the course of my life drastically. Never did it, but still on my list to do. Might give this a try with Ashlyn and see how it goes.
Do you know we sign with our kids and it’s the best decision I ever made on this parenting journey.
It’s stunning when they cry at night and I get to their cots and the other one’s sleeping, and she can show me she wants “water” or “milk”.
I really love baby sign language! LOVE IT!