Hi! I am Kim Taylor-DiLeva and today I wanted to share with you a story that I loved to sign with my daughter when she was a baby and I still continue to use this book during baby classes that I do as well as with preschools when we're doing the bedtime theme. This book is called 'Time For Bed' by Mem Fox.
The two signs that I used in this story are Bed, both hands up by your head and rest your head on your hand. This is the sign for a bed and then sleep as an open hand that closes around near your chin. Once you've passed over your eyes, you're also going to put your heads in the side and close your eyes as if you are going to sleep. So this is bed and this is sleep. Those are the two signs that I primarily use in this story.
Of course, in no more words you can sign more words. You can't overwhelm your baby by using too many signs with them, but to start off with, I recommend staying consistent. You definitely have to stay consistent, consistency is the key. So, in order to do that, it's okay to just pick two words that repeat in the story and just sign those two words. That will help you to stay consistent with the story and with those signs.
Then you can always add more later on. That's exactly what I did. When I was learning to sign, when I would do this book with my daughter, we'd start off just by saying bed and sleep and then I want to learn more signs, we would just add more and more signs, each time we read this book again.
So it goes like this:
"It's time for bed, little mouse, little mouse,
Darkness is falling all over the house.
It's time for bed, little goose, little goose,
The stars are out and on the loose.
It's time for bed, little cat, little cat,
So snuggle in tight, that's right, like that."
That repeats, about halfway through the story, and then it changes to,
"It's time to sleep, little bee, little bee,
Yes, I love you and you love me."
So then changes to, "It's time to sleep", in a repetitive motion in the story.
So those were the two signs that I picked for this story. It's one I love and one the kids love, because the animal pictures are so dynamic on each page as well. So, again, you can add the animal signs later or the other bedtime words that are used in the story, you can add later. But just start with bed and sleep to stay consistent, so that your child will learn those.
Remember that I have a free video, where I reveal my number one secret to how you can drastically minimize and reduce baby's crying and toddler's temper tantrums at BabySignLanguageOnline.com. I will see you soon. Thanks! bye!
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