Starting Summer Sign Language

I thought this Sign Language thing this summer was a good idea. No, I'm not giving up yet, but it is not starting off too well.

I started yesterday morning with a 15 minute lesson. I went over the alphabet first. Malea seemed to really like this part. It was a little difficult, but the three oldest got the idea after a couple of rounds. Then, I started to work on a song we all know. The boys were not thrilled. Malea just liked to sing. I went over it about four times then moved on to some signs we can all use with Grace. These included: milk, more, water, please, thank-you, good, bad and hungry. They all liked those and even asked later in the day for some more to use with her.

Now today was like pulling teeth to get them to sit and learn or even review yesterdays lesson for the 15 minutes. Logan said he just likes the way we talk now and doesn't want to have to learn this. I said it's not much different than the Spanish he's been learning in school. He said Spanish is easier.

I had planned on a short lesson each day Monday-Friday where I mostly teach something new at the beginning of the week and review all week long so they get it. I didn't want this to be a chore, but rather something fun we could all do together. Maybe I'll have them help me plan so they'll feel more involved instead of made to learn something.

I do hope I can get this going in the right direction, because I would like to learn too and thought it would help us all with Grace's language development.

Summer Learning-Sign Language

This summer I think I am going to try to teach my kids some sign language. I was taught a little when I was in the first grade and really enjoyed it. I also learned some more at church when my youth group put on musicals. We always sang a song that we also signed to.

I have some sign language software that I have never used before, but thought I might start by teaching them some song/sign combos. I also learned the Pledge of Allegiance in school, and we could also work on that.

I started early with Logan and Carter, teaching them some baby signs. It was very helpful to Scott and me when they were too little to really tell us what they wanted. They learned signs for milk, please, thank-you and more. The girls have never really picked up on it.

I am hoping we will have an awesome summer and maybe learn something that everyone can enjoy along the way. My plan is to pick a song or paragraph to learn for the week, but maybe I should install the software and see what it says about how to learn the language first. I just have to modify it for the kids and thought songs would be a good way to start.