The See 'N Say Toy by Mattel

Hands down one of the best toys for a one year old is the See 'n Say by Mattel. Heck, Amberly is 4 and enjoys it now and then with Owen! Right now Owen's sign for HORSE and COW look exactly the same so I'm glad he makes the moooooooooo sound. He knows the difference because if I ask him to point out the cow he gets it correct most of the time. Now that Owen is able to manipulate the handle readily he is so excited that he doesn't wait for it to finish and pulls the handle again and again. In case you have this toy at home I wanted to be sure you are using it in conjunction with your signing.... and if you don't have this toy at home, I highly recommend it, it lets you off the hook from making all the animal sounds.

Hullabaloo was a hit as usual!

We've been making it to the Hullabaloo concert at Kennsington Library 3 months in a row now and it is always fun! Today I saw some moms I haven't seen in awhile and new babies joining our playgroup too. I kinda snuck up to the front when Owen wasn't paying attention because I love to sign "Little Bird" but then he got sad and came looking for me. Every time he went down the slide he clapped for himself and looked around to see who else would cheer him on. When his two top teeth first came through and it looked like he might have a gap I was bummed, but now I think it makes his smile that much more contagious. He'd sorta lay at the end of the slide with the sun in his eye and have this incredible squinty grin like he'd rather be doing nothing else. What is sweeter than that?

Owen played "what's that animal?" with me today

No adorable pictures to go with this one (but be sure to check out the Gorilla picture from the previous post). We were sitting in the playroom and I was picking up toys (as usual), and Owen brings over his Melilssa & Doug boxes that have all sorts of animal pictures on them and begins pointing at ones he does not know the sign for, specifically skipping the ones he already knows the signs for which I thought was awesome because he clearly knows how to ask for vocabulary now. For those of you who have yet to reach this milestone with your baby, it is an incredible jump in the words your child will begin signing when they are basically asking you for the signs. His favorite today was ZEBRA which he demonstrated pretty well with the stripes part of the sign (skipping the horse part) and he just kept doing it over and over again as if to say "Look mom, now I can talk to you about this cool animal!" Need help with the sign? You can find it on www.lifeprint.com and scroll through Z and Bill gives you a little explanation about the sign as well, that's why I love this particular resource when I need to recall a sign.
A big thank you to Luana for those adorable animal boxes that make for a fun new game with Owen!

Here monkey monkey monkey!

Recently we went to the San Diego Zoo with our Sign4Baby Playgroup, it was so fun to see the Koalas and Kangaroos. Upon arrival Owen spotted a huge picture of a Gorilla and was telling me all about it (plus giving me the gorilla sound which sounds curiously glose to his rendition of an owl). Through our tour I thought it interesting that Owen was not nearly as excited by the other living moving animals as he was the picture of the Gorilla that he could not stop showing me. Then it occurred to me that he knew how to express himself and engage in conversation for Gorilla and thus could show me how much he enjoyed it, he just did not yet have exposure to these other animals or their signs for that matter to be able to have a like of them yet. All of my kids have loved the Eric Carle book "From Head to Toe" and we go on and on about the gorilla on the cover who thumps his chest (that is the actual sign for Gorilla ; ) and they LOVE IT! When we were exiting Owen did not skip a beat in pointing out this picture above. Yes, it is not HUGE, it is a different picture than the one he spotted earlier and I had more time to grab the camera. At times I wish a videographer could follow us around and capture these fun moments when he was going crazy for GORILLAS! For our next zoo meetup check our playgroup calendar. I am sure it will fill up so rsvp early. www.meetup.com/sign4baby-playgroup

For some fun practice signing animals try reading and signing along with me: