I had another post ready to share with you today but I’m going to save it for a future date. When things happen and the little lesson strikes you in the moment it is worth writing down.

While making lunch for Owen today, we had a misunderstanding. At this tender age of 4 it can happen pretty regularly. They are full on conversationalists, say immediately what they think and there is not usually a lot of pause to consider if the message was clear on either end.

During the school year I purposefully only send a half sandwich in their lunch box to cut down on carb consumption and challenge myself to fill their bellies with other choices that are of nutritional value. But I have to say it’s summer and that rule has been a little lax around here. Knowing that Owen had just had a snack I thought maybe just half a sandwich with fruit would work for him, but I know it’s good to check and not just change things up on preschoolers.

“Owen, do you half a sandwich or a whole sandwich?”

“Half.”

Oh good, I thought, he agreed.

Said sandwich arrives at the table and I go back to the counter to finish making my everything bagel, toasted, with cream cheese, adding a layer of pesto and finishing with sliced Roma tomatoes. (I love this delicious lunch when I go to Java Mama to get some work done and have learned how to artfully recreate it at home. It’s really good. You should try it!) about to take my first bite and Owen shows up at my side at the counter. He’s looking for something and I ask him what he needs.

“My other sandwich.”

“I asked you if you wanted half a sandwich or a whole sandwich.”

“Cut in half. I want both of them. Where’s the other one? Did you eat it?”

I can’t even keep up answering him as I’m trying to figure out how this miscommunication happened. When he heard me say “half” in his mind he was thinking ‘cut in half’.

I put my bagel down to fix him the missing half to his sandwich. As much as baby sign language has helped us avoid communication breakdowns, there are still times when we have communication breakdowns.

A little bit of everything is in Eric Carles’ classic children’s book The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

The popular Signing Story Time book is visually captivating and teaching at the same time.

The lessons are demonstrated in such a way that our little ones don’t even realize they’ve picked up the idea of making healthy eating choices. There’s also the counting of the various fruits and learning the days of the week.

I’ve found that if your child loves reading a particular book, then it makes a great book to sign with them. Here I will share with you how to sign The Very Hungry Caterpillar so you can take reading this book to a new dimension.

Many families in my classes subscribe to my YouTube channel so they can feel good about what they are letting their child watch on their tablet or smart phone. If your little one asks you to read this book again and again and again, I encourage you to learn the signs and then when your child begins to mimic you, that’s when you can take turns reading the book.

Signing along is great practice for reading. Studies show children who sign become strong readers. Strong readers tend to be avid learners. When your child loves learning they do better in school and more opportunities are made available to them. And it’s fun!

When was the last time you asked your child to dine with you? Probably never if you’re like most people.

Truth be told, I haven’t either.

In fact I just had a Mommy/Daughter dinner date with my 7 year old and I didn’t even ask her to go to dinner, I just assumed (correctly so I might add) that she would be on board with my plan. In retrospect I think how lovely she would have felt if I had extended a dinner invitation rather than just laying out where we were going. It was Souplantation by the way, and she just happens to love eating a good salad, especially if she gets to build it.

Anyway, I got to thinking about how I’ve used lots of tips I’ve read to help our family enjoy one another’s company at the dinner table, and it transformed our often upside down dinners into pleasant experiences. I want to share those tips with you, because they’ve worked for me when I’ve remembered to use them.

Eat dinner at the Same Hour Every Evening

There might be nothing else more dreaded than the cranky toddler who is hungry and dinner is still 20 minutes out. The funny thing is it’s not just the kids this affects. The adults in the house are less cranky when dinner is at the same time every night as well.

Have your Child Assist in Planning and Prepping the Meal

This one is the hardest one for me to implement with 3 eager-to-do-everything kids. I learned that prepping can also include setting the table. Ever notice how much a child loves choosing their meal from a menu at a restaurant? Just bring that idea home! Type up your 3 meal options, pictures work best for the younger crowd, and when you’re thinking about what to have for dinner and it’s lunch time, ask for your child’s input! Pull out the faux menu and allow them to place their order. I can see this going over really well for birthday dinners!

Create a Colorful Plate

I started being more aware of this after meeting my friend Kia Robertson of Today I Ate a Rainbow on Twitter. It is amazing the difference in appeal of the dinner when it is vibrant and rich in color. One of our old stand by meals hardly ever makes an appearance any more; plain chicken breast, mashed potatoes and frozen corn. Now my goal is to always avoid something that drab looking. If it looks boring on the plate chances are slim that YOU are enthused to eat it, never mind your child.

Have an Appetizer

When we go out to dinner it is almost expected that something will come before the meal to tide everyone over until the dinner arrives. This is actually an easy thing to add to the family dinner at home. The ideal choice here is a variety of fresh veggies, maybe some ranch dip that you make a la Deceptively Delicious. A homemade ranch dip where you sneak good stuff in is smart. It also generally gets kids eating more veggies!

Ever since my husband put the moratorium on pre dinner snacking (essentially anything after 4pm) I found myself wanting to snack, probably just because there was this rule in place. (We instituted the rule because our kids were often eating just a couple bites of their dinner, claiming they filled up on xyz snack.) Anyway we adapted the rule, veggies and certain fruits are allowed. Veggies don’t kill their appetite. Sometimes when the kids wander into the kitchen they are told they can pick a veggie if they are hungry and sometimes they turn right around and go back to playing. Other times the veggies are gobbled up gleefully.

Share Your Favorite Part of the Day

We’ve been doing this most nights for nearly 2 years. Each person goes around and shares their favorite part of the day. It’s really just a conversation starter. We are in such a groove with “Favorite part of the Day” that Owen, my youngest who’s 4, will begin before everyone is even at the table. Owen loves to share several things he favored from the day, sometimes he interrupts others, eager to get his turn. This practice has done more than get us talking around the dinner table, it is a lesson in manners for my preschooler in waiting his turn, it is a practice of caring as when one person has shared they move on to ask another family member “What was your favorite part of the day?”

It can be a practice in patience, as I mentioned, Owen loves to jumpstart our dinner conversation. When the kids are busy talking and listening to one another, there is less opportunity for them to bicker. I’m glad that we’ve built this into a family tradition. I literally stole the concept from the movie “The Story of Us” where they shared their “high/low” for the day.

Play Signing Games!

This is especially useful when out to eat. If you’ve been signing with your baby, you are about to cash in all the chips with this tip. Often toddlers are not too keen on the activity sheets and crayons the hostess brings for your little one. This can be a problem if your little one is so hungry they’ll eat anything, including crayons! I’m typically not a proponent of “Quiz the Baby” type of activities, but in the scenario of being at a restaurant, waiting for a meal to arrive, asking your baby to demonstrate the sign for objects you know they know can save everyone in the restaurant, including the parents, a bit of stress.

Toddlers were built for figuring out how to use their bodies, hence they do not like to sit for long periods of time. When you keep a baby’s mind busy, engaged in conversation, this leads to greater patience. You get creative freedom here in making up your own signing game. Personally I like to point at objects I see all over the restaurant and ask my toddler “what’s the sign for xyz?” It works wonders! And you might even see your child point out new objects that they want to know the sign for. Great way to take turns and keep building your signing vocabulary!

It occurred to me that part of being a great host is to engage your dinner guest in conversation. Imagine if we treated our toddlers as dinner guests at meal time:

1. Extend a dinner invitation
2. Eat dinner at the same time
3. Include them in the planning
4. Steer clear of boring meals
5. Have an appetizer
6. Favorite Part of the Day conversation starter
7. Play Signing Games

How would dinner look in your house if you implemented just one of these things?

As parents begin to introduce foods to their babies, many of them are giving signals to their baby without even realizing it.  Babies look at the human face for longer periods of time in comparison to other objects. The human face is the primary means for learning at this young age. When we sit down face to face to feed our babies we have extended eye contact and our hands are free from holding baby, so it is a common setting to begin signing with our babies.

Because eating is a novel experience or one that baby looks forward to, it may be an appropriate time to introduce some signs for foods.

Without even realizing it we tend to convey our own thoughts and feelings about the food we’re feeding our babies through facial expressions and other nonverbal cues. Just think about the face you make when something is bitter. How about when something is sweet? And something sour? Have you ever been witness to a baby tasting a lemon slice for the first time? That is something to see! Now, not every food we consume causes us to react with such distinct faces, but those extreme cases surely make an impression.

Have you ever seen the proverbial rubbing of the belly to indicate that something is yummy? Parents might even smack their lips to express food is tasty. I happen to love that the sign for YUMMY is the rubbing of the belly. This is one of those iconic signs, the sign makes sense in relation to the word.

Yummy Yucky by Leslie Patricelli is part of the Sign4Baby Signing Story Time series “All About Food” and I invite you to watch, laugh and giggle with your little one, all while learning a few new food signs!

What food does your child find especially YUMMY?

Just the other day I was in the kitchen and Owen, my 4 year old, wanted a snack. I make it a habit to always offer a fruit or vegetable first, so I grabbed the baby carrots from the fridge and asked “How many carrots do you want?” More often than not, Owen’s answer lately has been 4, because he is 4. This time, however, he asked for 8. I happened to grab 10 out of the bag; I figured I’d eat any he didn’t finish. When I put them in front of him, I thought this would be a great opportunity to practice some mathematical word problems. This is something my husband had introduced to my oldest when she was just 3 years old and she excels in math. Sometimes we forget to implement these same practices with a 2nd or 3rd child. But, it was just me and Owen in the kitchen with no older siblings to jump in with the answer and take away from his opportunity to figure it out.

“How many carrots do you have?” Owen counted them out carefully pointing at each carrot and smiled at me with his answer.

“How many carrots did you ask for?” I asked. He replied, “Eight.”

By now he had already begun eating his first carrot and I had grabbed one too. Then I asked if he knew how many extra I had given him. Looking at the baby carrots on the table and knowing one was in his belly and mine was just about gone, he began to count on his fingers and thumbs to figure this out. It was a fun observation to watch him find an alternate way to solve the problem all on his own. He eventually figured out that I had given him 2 extra. We played out a few other word problems using his carrots and sometimes he used the carrots as instruments to come up with the answer, and other times he used his fingers and thumbs to count out his answer. In either case I was witnessing how the tactile experience was what helped him conclude his answer.

Owen has always been fascinated with signing the numbers, at least 1 through 5. He learned in preschool the common way that kids learn to count to five, which contradicted the way I had shown him in ASL. At least the number THREE, so I’ll show you how to count to ten in sign, and share a great tip in this video.

Teachers agree that children who are encouraged to use their fingers to solve simple math problems have math concepts stick better. Part of that may be that it is visual, part of it may be that it is tactile. Either way, teachers now know that this is an effective tool for their students and not to discourage it. Children who sign are already accustomed to using their hands to convey ideas and concepts. So, could it be argued that signing with children makes them stronger in math? I believe so.

What ways do you incorporate math into your children’s activities?

Before having kids I was an avid Super Nanny fan. Now that I have 3 children of my own, I find that what she may suggest to a family may not always work for everyone and I can hardly stand to take advice from someone who is not themselves a parent. To say the least, I don’t bother watching these days.

There is one tip though that seems to be weaved into every episode (or at least the ones I’ve caught). When talking to your child, get down at eye level with them. Eye contact is super important in delivering a message and seeing that it is received. Too often parents forget to do this and wonder why their child hasn’t done what was asked of them. I was also advised by a preschool teacher that a physical touch such as a hand on a shoulder, in addition to eye contact is important for boys. I’m not sure of the science behind it, but from my own experience in when I remember to use my “parenting tools” it is definitely effective. The trick really is practicing the technique often enough that it just becomes habit. We’re still working on it and my oldest is 6!

What is funny is my children even know that fostering eye contact is a great way to get their message delivered. There are times I’m busy typing away at the computer and my daughter, Amberly, is hungry for an after school snack. I’ll tell her to give me 5 minutes to wrap up and she’s often times come into the office to remind me that she’s hungry. She taps me on the shoulder, (the automatic response is to stop and look at the person) and then she signs EAT while reminding me that she is hungry. I suppose from signing with my kids and facilitating that eye contact while communicating a non verbal language, it taught them inherently to get eye contact to deliver important messages. It makes me really happy when I see this result instead of a tantrum about “Mom, you forgot you were going to get me a snack!” (which I won’t lie, has sometimes been the case).

Obviously, it is necessary to have eye contact to effectively introduce a sign to your child. Some situations that present themselves may make it difficult to retrieve you toddler’s attention. One such example is visiting a WATER FOUNTAIN. Most toddlers are in awe of water fountains and can’t take their eyes off it. Ideally you’d want to sign WATER FOUNTAIN before you get anywhere near it, before they are totally mesmerized by it. Having signed it a few times before going to visit a water fountain though can curiously prompt them to then look at you as you say it while standing at the water fountain and they then will look to you to check out the sign they recall you demonstrated just a few minutes before. I’ve used this technique several times and more often than not it has worked. I encourage you to make a trip to a nearby water fountain and practice this technique. Luckily, Amberly agreed to let me take this video of her demonstrating the sign. Check back and let me know how it went!

Do you sing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” or “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to your little one? Most of us do because we can easily remember those lullabies from our childhood quite easily.

Babies respond well to music and especially soft melodies like these because they are calming and the world around them can be a bit much to take in. Simply giving your child’s brain a new direction of focus can alleviate the stress a baby feels from their environment.

As parents we need all kinds of tools at our disposal to get through those rough patches of a baby’s crying fits. Singing can be one of the easiest tools to utilize, and for parents who have been SIGNING together with singing, they report a quicker response of calm in comforting their baby.

I first discovered this with my first baby, Amberly.  She was what is lovingly referred to as a high needs baby (as opposed to high maintenance baby) and she was also very alert, meaning she had a hard time tuning things out and would become over stimulated. By singing and signing to her I found I could focus her attention on one thing, the song. There is something about the tactile experience of the movement associated with the songs that probably made a deeper imprint in your brain.

As a new mom I didn’t know a lot of lullabies, but I knew the ABCs and Itsy Bitsy Spider and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star just fine… so I sang and signed those… a lot! It seemed to make sense that since I was already signing with her to be able to communicate with Grandma (my mom is deaf) that I would use ASL rather than gestures.

There’s one reason I love a rainy day – the chance to sing and sign Itsy Bitsy Spider with the kids, both at home and in my classes! Enjoy this video demonstration – remember – few of us are born with star quality voices, but our kiddos enjoy it so sing and sign away!

We’ve had an unusually warm winter here in San Diego. In fact some days I’ve seen many Facebook posts bragging with photos of the temperature gauge in their car or an app from their smart phone… and lots of spontaneous beach days! Ah, the beach, a place full of adventure and endless sand for little ones. Many adults dread going to the beach because of the sand… but children can play in it for hours! Have you sat at a park and watched a baby who’s placed in the sandbox for the first time? Their curiosity of course leads them to put it straight in their mouth most of the time. And one handful is usually not enough! These moments are not only precious moments to sit and take in, but they offer as incredible learning opportunities for little ones. It seems that when a novel experience presents itself, a key (we’ll call it curiosity) unlocks the gateway to learning. Immediately their brain becomes thirsty for knowledge. These are the experiences I most loved in teaching my children a new sign. SAND is perhaps the epitome of this example.

I can distinctly remember the first time Kyle got to sit in the shade under a slide and enjoy the cool sand all around him. It dawned on me that I wasn’t sure of the sign for SAND and I turned to my husband thinking I’d lost one of these teachable moments. Instead he gave a quick response and said, “It probably looks something like how you sift sand through your hands.” Well, that was good enough for the moment to not be wasted and it looked vaguely familiar when he showed me his sign. I grew up in Minnesota, and although my mom is deaf, I just couldn’t picture the sign in my mind. I figured the least we could do is show Kyle the sign and if we needed to correct ourselves later, kids are quick studies and could easily adapt. Kyle was indeed curious about my going on and on about the sand and showing him the sign as well as playing with the sand through my fingers. He was not yet at the stage where he’s copy a sign after seeing it just one time, but I could see the wheels turning in his head.

While we have yet to make a winter’s run on the beach, we did recently go to Sea World where I took advantage of the bright scenery by their sand box to take a little video to teach you the sign for SAND. What other novel outdoor experience would unlock the gateway to learning a new sign for your baby?

The first time I heard the book read at a toddler story time, I fell in love with My Many Colored Days. The way the colors and animals give children a connection to the meaning of the feelings described on each of the pages is simple yet profound. It is seemingly written for that tender toddler age.

As a baby steps (no pun intended) into toddlerhood they have a full range of emotions to grapple with, partly in relation to their reach towards independence. Another part of that is the attempt at effective communication that is often times cute and often times frustrating. Consider for a moment a baby who has graduated the world of cruising and now toddles towards things they want. Sometimes those things are off limits as we protect our baby from danger. Yet, from their perspective, the other walking people seem to have full reign and few limits. A whole new world is open to them, yet invisible boundaries still limit them. On the flip side, exhilaration abounds at all the new achievements toddlers experience; in part due the novelty of being able to do something they once could not do. So often times the feelings are felt in a big way.

Just as babies are not born with all of their teeth and teething seems an unfair painful experience, toddlers must undergo a lot of trial and error as they progress in their verbal language journey. And so baby sign language has been a tool of choice for the modern day parent. I knew right away that I would utilize this lesser known book of Dr. Seuss’ in my Sign, Play & Learn classes as a tool to show parents how a book can connect the dots for complex ideas such as feelings.

Here I share with you a reading and signing of My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss. Let me know which of the signs you plan to show your baby/toddler.

It is no secret that babies get a kick out of seeing animals and hearing the unique sounds they make. This is probably why there are so many children’s books that incorporate animals; babies and toddlers are engaged by them easily!  One of the classics is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle.

In this video I’m capitalizing on the rhythm and cadence of this prose to introduce the signs for each animal and its color. This particular version of the book is great because as the story progresses to introduce the next animal, there is a peek-a-boo window that shows the next animal.

Babies and toddlers in the Signing Story Time program I have all over San Diego have been prompted to sign along, especially when we make the sound of the corresponding animal as a group. Being silly is a great way to get your child to imitate you, and that’s exactly what we want them to do when we are teaching them new signs.

Many of the parents in our classes have shared with me that they will read the book at home alongside this video as an additional way to practice their signs at home. Practicing your signing through reading books is a wonderful way to grow your child’s interest in books and it also enhances their language acquisition. Try it out with your little one and let me know if they enjoy it!