Play Group - Neighborhood Signs

This week we had a Play Group at Hana House for the current and former Baby Signing Time students.  The theme was built around common neighborhood signs - store, doctor, P.O., etc.

 We watched a couple of clips from the Signing Time Neighborhood DVD to help get the idea of common variations of the signs.

 For our activity we went around the "neighborhood" (to different signs in the room) while practicing signs like "where" "restaurant".

 At each place there was a stamp with a letter of the alphabet related to the sign.  For example, the office had the "O" stamp since you make the "O" hand shape to sign it.  Each student had a paper with the corresponding finger spelled letter upon which to stamp.
Since essentially all of the kids in my classes are under 18 months old and the moms are learning both sign language and a foreign spoken language (English) we don't touch on finger spelling in class.  I try to include a little bit in each play group so that by the time their kids reach 3 years old they have enough exposure to not fear using it.  Finger spelling can be a huge help in teaching preschoolers about letters and kindergartners about reading!

Here are some of the materials we used for the Neighborhood theme play group.

Next play group will most likely be in November or December.