I absolutely love natural learning. I wish I could spend each day, staying in our cozy home, exploring the world according to what interests my children. Sometimes I can. This last week, sign language has been the topic of choice. It all came about innocently enough... All I did was grab a few
Signing Time! videos from the library to keep the girls busy while I did school with the boys.
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| I Love You |
Then, during one of our many trips in the van, IJ asks, "What happens if you are deaf
and you can't see?" This started a discussion about Helen Keller and the definition of the word
dumb. I happen to have a book about Helen Keller in our vast library...and IJ was off! We've talked about Braille and tried to feel signs with our eyes closed.
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| The Story of Helen Keller |
All of a sudden, all the kids in my house were so totally into signing! But let's take a step back into time to when I first started using sign language and Signing Time! videos. Way, way back, back when S was about 18 months or so, I heard that using sign language helped babies and toddlers communicate when they were unable to communicate verbally. I was having trouble communicating with S; he was absolutely uninterested in communicating with us to the point where the pediatrician wanted his hearing tested and to send him to a neuro-developmental specialist. S passed his hearing test no problem and I decided that I didn't want to go down the professional "special" path with S. So we tried signing with him.
Did it work? No! S wasn't interested in communicating at all; verbally, physically, nothing! But IJ learned all sorts of signs! And when E was a baby, she used sign language better than verbal language. She found that using her hands was easier than taking the pacifier out of her mouth! M and I found using sign language was easier than hollering across a crowded room. M used sign language on his surveys to communicate with co-workers across a loud river. We started using signs with F, but she learned to talk so quickly and effectively she had no use for signs. And this is when everyone forgot...until now.
My kids are amazing! F learned all the letters and signs for
come and
play and
I love you. Her buddy from field trips thinks she is something else, because not only does she know her letters and sounds, she knows how to sign them. Evie is spelling words-mostly the names of her family members. S has a new trick:
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| "I can make an r with my legs!" |
...and the boys are having fun making words, sentences, and learning the difference between American Sign Language and American Indian Sign Language, which fits nicely in our history and Cub Scouts.
