National Communicate With Your Baby Day

Nestled neatly between National Wear Brown Shoes Day (December 4) and National Cotton Candy Day (December 7) sits a little-known, yet highly important day to celebrate. December 5 commemorates NATIONAL COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR BABY DAY.

Although it is very kind to devote one day a year to this incredibly important concept, communicating with your baby, in Arizona, and around the globe, is celebrated daily by the incredibly large, and ever-growing number of signing families.

Although it is very kind to devote one day a year to this incredibly important concept, communicating with your baby, in Arizona, and around the globe, is celebrated daily by the incredibly large, and ever-growing number of signing families.

One Arizona father shares his experience with communicating through sign language. Scott says, "My son was signing over 30 signs by the time he was 12 months old. It still amazes me that I was able to have 'conversations' with my 1 year old!"

Talking with your baby, before your baby can talk!

The Baby Signs Program is the World's Leading Sign Language Program for Hearing Babies.

Using the BABY SIGNS® Program gives babies a way to "talk" with their parents before they can talk. Babies can communicate about the world around them long before they have mastered their verbal speaking skills!

Babies and their parents can use simple signs to communicate important things - like being hungry or thirsty, hot or cold, afraid or sad - often a full year before babies could otherwise speak.

Research has proven that using the BABY SIGNS® Program has dramatic benefits, including decreasing frustration for babies and parents, enriching the parent-child bond, boosting emotional development, helping babies talk sooner - even raising IQ.

Jenny Hodges has a Masters Degree in Elementary Education. She was the first Certified Baby Signs® Instructor in Arizona. Now, as the Regional Manager for the state of Arizona, she leads a team of over 30 Certified Instructors, teaching parents, caregivers, and teachers how to communicate with babies, toddlers, and preschoolers through sign language. Jenny has written the curriculum for a Baby Signs® class, which is offered nationwide. She has represented the Baby Signs® Program on the NBC TODAY Show, NBC Nightly News, and in LIFE Magazine. Jenny is the founder of the Kids Love to Sign™ Program. The Kids Love to Sign™ Program is now an international program and offers a signing class for children 3-8 year olds, in addition to a variety of signing resource and activity books

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Parenting 101 - Celebrate National Poetry Month With Your Kids

What better way to tip our hats to this 14th National Poetry Month than with a poem by the first Children's Poet Laureate, Jack Prelutsky:

As Soon as Fred Gets Out of Bed

As soon as Fred gets out of bed,

his underwear goes on his head.

His mother laughs, "Don't put it there,

a head's no place for underwear!"

But near his ears, above his brains,

is where Fred's underwear remains.

At night when Fred goes back to bed,

he deftly plucks it off his head.

His mother switches off the light

and softly croons, "Good night! Good night!"

And then, for reasons no one knows,

Fred's underwear goes on his toes.

No wonder kids-and everybody else, too-loves his work, and what better time to celebrate him and other children's poets than right now?

For instance, there's Thad Krasnesky. This Army major has served in Iraq, is currently an instructor at West Point, and writes poetry, too. To his credit: Always Got My Way and That Cat Can't Stay.

And now he has been asked to judge the Paws for Poetry Contest 2010 going on right now. It's open to kids 5 through 12-one original poem per child. The deadline is April 15th, so don't delay. For details, visit their website.

Make friends with other such children's poetry greats, too-if you haven't already--as Shel Silverstein, Bruce Lansky, and Lee Bennett Hopkins. But don't stop there. Just Google or Bing your way to finding the many others who write poems for young people. And once you and your child are in a poetic frame of mind, take out paper and pencils and get set to spin some poems of your own.

To help get you get started, consider following the lead of Shelley Tucker whose masterful Painting the Sky: Writing Poetry with Children offers such suggestions as:

1. "Give a thing a human part, like a voice or heart, and the object will seem like a person.

2. Write the names of things, colors, emotions, or ideas... You might name things you can touch and see, like a can opener or the sky. You might also name ideas, like hope and peace."

She then goes on and provides this example: "The voice of the rain reminded me to carry an umbrella."

Once you're done doing this, all that's left is for the two of you to pick your favorite lines and weave them into a poem--or two or three. Think tongue, elbows, mouth, ear... You get the idea; it's poetry time!

While you're at it, be sure to keep Magnetic Poetry close at hand, waiting for those impromptu moments of poetic inspiration.

And so, with all that being said, it's only natural to end as we began, and that's with a poem. This one is by yet another poet laureate you'll want your child to know about: Andres Fusek Peters.

Dad

He's a:

Tall story weaver

Full of fib fever

Bad joke teller

Ten decibel yeller

Baggy clothes wearer

Pocket money bearer

Nightmare banisher

Hurt heart vanisher

Bear hugger

Biscuit mugger

Worry squasher

Noisy nosher

Lawn mower

Smile sower

Football mad

Fashion sad

Not half bad

So glad I had

My

Dad!

Carol is a learning specialist who worked with middle school children and their parents at the Methacton School District in Pennsylvania for more than 25 years and now supervises student teachers at Gwynedd-Mercy College. Along with the booklet, 149 Parenting School-Wise Tips: Intermediate Grades & Up, and numerous articles in such publications as Teaching Pre-K-8 and Curious Parents, she has authored three successful learning guidebooks: Getting School-Wise: A Student Guidebook, Other-Wise and School-Wise: A Parent Guidebook, and ESL Activities for Every Month of the School Year. Carol also writes for examiner.com; find her articles at http://www.examiner.com/x-6261-Montgomery-County-Wise-Parenting-Examiner For more information, go to http://www.schoolwisebooks.com or contact Carol at carol@schoolwisebooks.com.

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