Toddler Sign Language

[cocobean]

I don't know if this is the best place to post this but...
We do sign language with DS. He's doing great with it and we're having a lot of fun. I'm wanting to learn more signs and find that songs are a great way for us to learn. Does anyone have any suggestions about songs to do with signs or places to find songs with signs??

[annettemarie]

Moving to the Toddler forum.

[hakeber]

Old Mc Donald is a good one for animal signs.

The wheels on the bus go round and round.

[tbone_kneegrabber]

have you looked signing time

you can youtube sign language songs as well

[IAMommy]

I agree with the PP. The Signing Time DVDs are great. We can check them out at our local library, and you might want to check on that because they are pretty pricey. I need to check if they are available on Netflix.
One of the things I really love about this series is that they show lots of kids doing the signs, so you can get an idea of what it really looks like when a kid with kid-level motor skills is doing a sign.

[kimellett]

Brown Bear Brown Bear (by Eric Carle) is a good book to use...don't know if everyone knows the tune you can sing it to (maybe Black Sheep, Black Sheep have you any wool?) but it has lots of animals, colors and "see".

I didn't like the signing times videos because they went too fast. Maybe we previewed a "later in the series" video, but the kids in the video knew signs for EVERYTHING, and we couldn't keep up and frankly didn't care about 1/2 the signs they were teaching. My philosophy on SL is to learn/use the signs DC are interested in and that you need for survival (hungry, thirsty, where is...?) We did SL with ds (5.5) and now with dd (15 months) and are finding we need different signs because dd has different interests than ds had.

just my 2 cents...

[AKislandgirl]

My Smart Hands is online. You can download some lessons with songs and signs. We really like them! I think we have baa baa black sheep, old mcdonald, row row row your boat, on top of spaghetti, its raining its pouring...also some that she made up. Check it out!

[indigosky]

We also did TONS of signing with DD -- she uses about 300 signs. She really just started to talk about 23-25 months, so thank goodness for baby/toddler sign language so we could all communicate!

We started off just learning signs from books and http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi , but eventually, we, too checked out Signing Time and loved it. We were able to get most from the library, and bought some later in the process. I definitely recommend going roughly in order: starting with Baby Signing Time, then Signing Time Series One, then Series Two. Lots of wonderful songs! And there are Signing Time CDs, too, so you can sign the songs without watching the DVD.

We'd generally do more than 10 minutes of a DVD per day. Each DVD has lots of short segments, so it's pretty easy to watch just a little bit.

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by kimellett

Brown Bear Brown Bear (by Eric Carle) is a good book to use...don't know if everyone knows the tune you can sing it to (maybe Black Sheep, Black Sheep have you any wool?) but it has lots of animals, colors and "see".

I didn't like the signing times videos because they went too fast. Maybe we previewed a "later in the series" video, but the kids in the video knew signs for EVERYTHING, and we couldn't keep up and frankly didn't care about 1/2 the signs they were teaching. My philosophy on SL is to learn/use the signs DC are interested in and that you need for survival (hungry, thirsty, where is...?) We did SL with ds (5.5) and now with dd (15 months) and are finding we need different signs because dd has different interests than ds had.

just my 2 cents...

Interestingly, we watched the Signing Time dvds and then I'd only use the signs for things that dd cared about, and then she'd start talking/signing about other stuff that appeared in the dvd. Sometimes weeks after we saw the dvd. E.g. there's one where you learn the signs for turtles/snakes/frogs, and I'd sign "frog" all the time since they show up in a lot of her picture books. Then yesterday she signed "turtle", when we hadn't seen the dvd for several weeks and I hadn't been signing it at all.

It's been helpful for her to be exposed to signs/words in advance of having an interest. I've still had to look stuff up as her interest goes outside of the dvds, but having soooo many signs introduced at once let her use them as soon as she cared about a given word.

[kitikatuka]

If you're looking for American Sign Language, I'd also recommend the Baby Signing Time DVDs. They were totally great and my daughter absolutely loved --loves-- them. We only have the first two in the series, and have no plans to get any more, simply because you can look up signs online (the website indigosky shared is absolutely wonderful) as needed. These two have given her an really useful signing vocabulary.

One of the nicest parts of the DVDs is how the signs are repeated, and repeated and repeated, so you, as adult and educator, really get the hang of the signs after one viewing and can start using them daily with your toddler.

Not ASL, but still good, are fingerplays like "The itsy bitsy spider", "Mr Golden Sun", "Three Green Speckled frogs", "My Dog Rags", "Three Little Ducks", etc. which can all probably be found via a google search. They combine finger/hand motions with songs are really fun.

[lactatinggirl]

Sign 2 Me uses real ASL and has a cd that comes with a book of the signs for the songs called Pick Me Up! You can buy it online or I found it at my local library and just copied it. I would definitely suggest taking a class if there's one near you. We just started a class 6 weeks ago and my DD's sign language has exploded. It's fun too to meet the parents who are also signing.

[~cassie~]

We like Signing Time as well. Some songs we sing/sign to are Old Macdonald, Itsy Bitsy Spider, clean up song, wheels on the bus.