Each year, the time between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day is designated as National Family Month. These special times in our calendars help us to notice a specific part of our lives, and they help us to do something about what we find. National Family Month is meant to help families by celebrating their strengths and by supporting them in their challenges. So in the time we have before Father’s Day, let’s think about how we can celebrate the strength of our own families. And let’s look at ways that we can work on strengthening our family relationships so that we can support each other in the c ..read more

Sometimes the idea of STEM education can seem daunting. I mean, what if you’re not a math whiz? How can you even care about getting your kids interested in math or science if you’re not feeling capable? Thankfully, it isn’t that difficult to get your preschoolers into STEM activities and thinking. Even if you aren’t into the STEM fields, you can handle these ideas for easy STEM learning for your preschoolers. STEM learning is a major topic in education. This acronym, STEM, stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Now, these may sound a little too lofty for our preschoolers ..read more

Play-based learning is gaining popularity as an important part of early childhood education. And there are good reasons for this. Play-based learning is exactly what it sounds like: learning through play rather than through lectures or drilling. Play and fun are the languages of our children. When we teach in a fun way, our kids retain information better. What better way to learn than through playing? Play-based learning is considered to be a very effective way to help preschoolers develop as a whole. Think about first-hand experiences, hands-on projects and experiments, lots of exploration an ..read more

May is Better Speech and Hearing Month. This designation is quite broad, but the focus is on raising awareness about difficulties in communicating. We’d like to think of this as an equal honoring of all forms of communication, even if they may be different from our own. Our friends with communication challenges are not always respected or treated with dignity. While it’s true that times have changed, many people still face hurdles that the rest of us do not have to face. There’s still room for us to make a difference for those with communication challenges. So how can we help? Be a beacon of r ..read more

Here we are at the end of April already! April has a lot of special celebrations, and one of those is that it is Celebrate Diversity Month. Diversity is a hot topic in our society, but at its heart is the belief that we each carry value, and that this value should be celebrated and cherished. This is a worthy thought for each of us to hold on to. And it’s a belief that is important to teach to our children. So let’s look at 3 ways to teach our kids about diversity. Diversity is defined as the range of human differences. So that includes so many areas of life and living. Basically, it’s OK for ..read more

April is a month full of celebrations, remembrances, and honorable causes. But did you know that April is also National Frog Month? Yup, it’s a month for us to get excited about frogs. So that’s what we’re going to do. We like frogs here at Signing Time, and we love our own Hopkins the Frog! So we’re all set to celebrate National Frog Month, and we’d love for you to get to know Hopkins the Frog this month. Learning about frogs is fun Along with getting to know Hopkins, it’s a good idea to learn about frogs in general. Frogs are really quite fascinating, and your kids could have so much fun lea ..read more

April is Earth Month, which makes it a perfect time to teach our kids some fun facts about nature. We think a lot about conservation during Earth Month, and that is, of course, important. But part of conservation is knowing about nature. When we know how the natural world works, we can have a better understanding of how to preserve it. So where do we start? Let’s think about some fun ways to teach our kids about nature during Earth Month. Kids can really enjoy certain aspects of nature. And there are so many ways to help them enjoy nature. They especially relate to the living things in nature ..read more

Can you believe that April starts in a few days? While we’re all familiar with April Fool’s Day, did you know that the entire month has a national dedication to humor? How fitting that the first day of the month is all about humor too! We know our kids love to laugh, and hopefully we share that love of laughter. Thankfully, having a sense of humor is really good for all of us. So it’s totally worth it to view the world through a lens of humor. As we start, let’s look at the sign for laugh. Hopefully we will need this one this month. What do we mean when we say to view the world through a lens ..read more

March is National March into Literacy Month. If you’ve been around Signing Time for long, you know that we’re passionate about the benefits of signing, including improved success in both verbal and written literacy. And since it’s an official month to focus on literacy, let’s look at a few ways to “march into literacy” with My Signing Time. Kids who learn to sign… Have a better understanding of vocabulary When a child learns to sign at an early age, it brings an earlier understanding of using words to communicate. This early understanding continues to grow naturally as a child learns more word ..read more

Here we are at another holiday time! With St. Patrick’s Day this weekend, it’s a perfect time to work on some new ASL signs with your family. Holidays make it easy to focus on just a few new signs. And they help us to have plenty of opportunities to use those signs during a concentrated period of time. When we are able to use a sign regularly like this, we are much more likely to learn that sign permanently. So let’s learn a few new signs for St. Patrick’s Day! Basic signs to use for St. Patrick’s Day Of course, we should start by learning the sign for green.      You could als ..read more