Recently while attending a conference on early childhood education I met a young woman from Nebraska who operate a non-traditional daycare for little ones from birth until age four. I was impressed at her demeanor but even more impressed at the advanced communication and expression skills of her three year old. She is a huge fan of our website and started using our materials with her own kids and later as part of the sign language resources for her school. She was super kind and shared excellent ideas that have allowed her to use our flash cards well beyond learning how to sign.
Let’s take a look at a few concepts that you can hopefully incorporate at home with your baby or at the facility that you lead or manage:
Teach a Foreign Language
One side of our durable cards features a realistic image and the word associated to the image in English. To begin teaching a foreign language use printable stickers or permanent markers and add both the word and phonetical pronunciation in front of the card. Work through repetition and identification by calling out the object in a foreign language and having your toddler pick up the correct card. Reinforce the concept by also signing when using the word.
Teach Groupings & Categories
Our thoughtfully designed baby sign language flash card kit contains key objects and groupings essential to early communication. You can work on having your little one group animals, foods, objects, means of transportation and toys. Make it into a game of speed and skill by asking your toddler or preschooler to both sign and pick up the card as he or she identifies the proper group.
Teach Exclusion and Differentiation
Learning to know exceptions prepares your little one to think in the context of order and association and to use logic to eliminate and include concepts into a category. Play a game in which you sign a series of animals and perhaps one object. Ask your preschooler to look for the flash card that corresponds to the exception.
Teach Onomatopoeia
This is my favorite skill to learn and teach. Place all the animal flash cards in front of your baby and have him pick the right one as you perform the sounds of different animals. A variation of this game is to make the sound of a particular animal or means of transportation and have your baby or toddler respond with the corresponding sign.
Teach Beyond Their Context
We live in a city. Our chances to visit the ocean are quite minimal. Through using flash cards we have been able to expand our baby’s vocabulary and include ideas and concepts like whale, island, penguin etc. This has vastly accelerated the way they think and learn.
You can find our flash card set and other wonderful high quality teaching resources in our Baby Sign Language Store
