Allows your baby to talk to you before they can talk (Sing and Sign Classes)

Member Name: emuk00

Product:	Sing and Sign Classes
Date:	24/11/08 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Communicate with your baby and understand them

Disadvantages: Trying to remember all the signs can be hard

I was looking for something to do with my little girl and I came across sing and sign, so I looked into it and thought it would be a good class to go to.

I was also chatting away to my friend and it turned out she had also enrolled on it with her little boy.

I was a little nervous and apprehensive about the class when we went the first time on what to expect, but I needn't have been.

Sing and sign is a baby signing program which encourages your baby to use signs for certain things, such as milk, sorry, hurt, food etc. Its a well know fact that babies can sign before they can talk and so this class is aimed to help the parents learn the signs and then teach it to their babies through everyday situations. A lot of parents also use signs without even realising and then baby picks them up.

The class is set out in a fun way, and the signs in each class are kept to a minimum to help mum (or dad) and baby learn. There is a lot of signing to help make the experience more fun. The songs are familiar songs that most people know, but the words have been changed to help with the signing.

In our first week we covered the likes of milk, drink, food and more, including some farm animals. For each set of words we sang to a song, so for example the farm animals we sung away to twinkle twinkle little star, but replaced the words with animal names and noises. It also includes the trademark Jesse cat playing peek a boo, a chance for us all to play musical instruments, and a chance for the babies to pick something out of the bag, which we will then sing and sign about, for example, polly had a dolly.

I went away from the class thinking I will never learn the signs, and to be fair it took me about 3 weeks to become familiar with both the signs and some of the songs.

The good thing is we always repeat what has been covered in past weeks, so it becomes second nature.

My daughter was 6 months when we started and I didn't think we would gain too much, just a chance to get out, meet other mummies and babies and just socialise. My daughter is now 9 months, and she really enjoys socialising with the other babies, and she really looks forward to certain parts of the class, like when Jesse cat comes out of the box. She pays so much attention and laughs when he plays hide and seek, and it was really nice last week to hear a couple of the mummies say how well she has come on in the class.

She doesn't know any of the signs yet to do herself, but I am sure she knows when I sign some of the signs, like 'time to eat' and 'do you want some more'.

At the same time it should be noted that parents have to be quite consistent with he signs at home too for the baby to learn. I have taught my mum the signs as she looks after my daughter when I am at work, I have also brought the dvd for my mum and myself, and my daughter loves to sit in front of it.

One thinig that is nice is to watch the older babies of 12 months+ sign and make the noises, as I know what to expect, and I have also seen some of the babies come on really well with the signing, in the couple of weeks we have been there.


I have booked onto term two now, and I really hope it isn't too long that my daughter shows me her first sign.
The classes are franchise, so the prices vary from area to are, but ours cost £53 for 12 weeks which I think is a good price.
I have also made some good friends there now

Summary: Would recommend to all