Fine Motor Development Milestones

Hi Kylie
I thought this article on fine motor development might be of interest. Baby signing is a great way to develop fine motor skills. Just click on the heading to follow the link.
I cant wait to start signing with Harri!
Son

Olivia and Ava

Olivia is almost one now, and the time has gone so fast. She is walking and is signing more signs now. She can sign 'eat', 'dog','fish','bird' which she loves to sign because we have four baby chickens that she and Ava saw hatch, the picture of Olivia with the chickens,you can see she is signing 'bird'. When we are outside and she See's a plane she points and i have started signing that to her as well, although she cannot do it yet she tries to. Olivia has almost mastered 'more' and can sign 'finished' when she wants to. Tonight Olivia signed 'bed' to me for the first time in context, without me prompting her. She was really tired for her day at day care. Both my girls seem to really enjoy learning new signs, they get very excited when they can do it right especially Ava. She says to me "look at me mummy" and does the sign.

Update on Olivia's baby signing

Well it's been 3 weeks since our family holiday at Easter time. Olivia now signs 'bird' without me having to ask her. Whenever she see's or hears a bird she signs it. I think she is so clever and so does she. Ava is also helping me teach Olivia to sign. I have now taught her to sign 'dog' which she does most of the time, when i ask her. I am also in the process of teaching her 'finished'. You can see her trying to sign it but she just does not have the co-ordination yet. I know she is doing it. I have been showing Ava and Olivia our 'Animal' flash card set. They both enjoy looking at the cards together.
I would really like to hear anyone else's 'baby signing' stories. Please feel free to email me at kylie@signingstars.com.au

Olivia signed back!!!

We are all down at Batemans Bay for Easter long weekend. When we were all down the beach on our first day, and when ever i saw a 'bird' i signed 'bird' to Olivia. She would look for a bird. Then on Sunday she signed 'bird'to me. when we were all down the beach. Ava was having alot on fun chasing them. I was signing 'bird' to her and then to my surprise she signed back!!
Also that night when she was having dinner. I was doing the usual ritual of signing 'eat' with every spoonful and then she signed 'eat'. She made me a very excited and proud mum. Now there is no stopping her!!!!

Well what can I say, not much progress has been made with Olivia’s baby signing, but that’s ok she is not going to get it straight away. She loves waving bye bye to Daddy when he leaves for work and the girls at day care where she goes tell me she waves to everyone. So I can at least tell she can do that baby sign! She also thinks she is very clever when she claps her hands
I am changing my approach with teaching her to Baby Sign Language, because she is such a laid back, HAPPY baby. She does not need Baby Signing for communicating. What she wants as she just goes with the flow. So I am trying the ‘motivational’ approach. So now I am trying to teach her signs for toys that she wants. For example she has ‘Sophie’ a giraffe that she loves, so now when she wants ‘Sophie’ I sign giraffe. Also whenever I turn a light on she can see I sign light and when we see a bird I sign bird just to name a few. I am hoping the change to ‘motivational’ signing will help kick start her along. There are no hard and fast rules to Baby Signing; I think trial and error is the key. See what is best for you and your! And to have fun in the process!!!
On the other hand, Ava my oldest loves learning new signs. With the signs she already knows I can do the sign with out talking and she knows what I am saying. For example the other day she was taking food from a table that was not hers and I saw her doing it and I signed ‘no’ to her, she just looked at me I kept signing no and she eventually took her hand away. She was such a good girl.
She knows a lot of signs already. We eventually might be able to have secret mummy, daughter conversations with out daddy knowing!!
I have also noticed her speech is a lot clearer and I believe signing has helped her with this, when she is talking to me she will sign the word, as well if she knows the sign for the word she is saying.
We went to our first baby signing class last week with ‘Tiny Hands Talk’ and Ava loved it. We had a lot of fun!!

Olivia update

Hi,
I was just wanting to give you an update on how Olivia's Baby signing is going.
Well she now waves goodbye to daddy when he leaves for work every morning. she thinks she is so clever, and she has signed "eat" a few times since my last entry. She is going well(i think anyway. Olivia will be 9mths soon. She is growing up so fast.

Kylie

Olivia's baby sign diary

Hi,
My name is Kylie, and I am apart of the Signing Stars team. My interest in baby sign language started about 1yr ago, and now I have started baby signing with Olivia. I started baby signing when she was about 7mths. I noticed she would watch my actions of the sign “eat”. Although she could not do it, she watched me very intently. Now she is just over 8mths, I think she did her first sign to “eat”. I was so happy to see it, even though she has not done it since, she still watches my action and now I also get her big sister to do it as well. Ava is two, and I am also teaching her to sign and she is very good at it. I can say a word she knows the sign for and she does the sign without any prompting. I am hoping she can help me teach Olivia along the way.
Keep a watch out for more Olivia baby signing updates, I will be updating you on her progress

Happy signing
Kylie