Learn a Few New Signs for St. Patrick’s Day

By / 2 minutes of reading

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, …

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inspire curiosity in our preschoolers

Celebrating Our Kids’ Ideas in March

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So it turns out that the month of March is International Ideas Month. What a great topic to explore with our kids! Children tend to be full of ideas, but they aren’t always given the chance to take off with those ideas. So let’s challenge ourselves to be noticing and to be celebrating our kids’ ideas. Here are some areas where we can welcome our children’s ideas and help them to implement them. Projects Our kids are full of ideas for projects. They love to build and design and create everything. So let’s think about ways that we can support …

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practice mindful parenting in March

Practice Mindful Parenting in March Madness

By / 4 minutes of reading

The slower pace of winter is coming to an end. As we head into the month of March, we can feel life get busier with the coming of spring. From longer daylight hours to the discomfort of our “spring ahead” weekend (coming very soon), March brings an increase in parenting chaos. And so, this is a good time to think about the practice of mindful parenting in March. When our lives get busier and schedules change, we parents definitely feel the pressure. So as we move forward into springtime and its increased activity or changes, here are three ways to …

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Let's Help Our Young Kids Make New Friends

Let’s Teach Our Kids to Stand Up to Bullying

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We don’t like to think about bullying, and we certainly don’t want to think of our little ones as being capable of bullying. Yet, rather than decreasing over the years, bullying has increased in our society, and so has its drastic effects. Since International Stand Up to Bullies Day is coming up, we figured it’s worth looking at how to teach our kids to stand up to bullying and how to avoid being bullies themselves.    Why focus on this effort? It does seem that bullying tends to decrease as kids get older. But in the United States, one out of …

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ways to encourage independence in our preschoolers

Super Fun Learning Times with Gumdrops

By / 4 minutes of reading

Consider the humble gumdrop. With so many candy options available to us, we can forget the classic gumdrop. And believe it or not, there is actually a national day committed to gumdrops. Yes, February 15 is National Gumdrop Day. And here’s another fun fact: with all their varieties of colors and flavors, gumdrops can be a great learning tool. Since there are so many educational things you can do with gumdrops, let’s look at some super fun learning times you can have with gumdrops. Why learn with gumdrops? Well, it’s the middle of February, and it can become a time …

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make a difference for those with communication challenges

Create Some February Fun with Signing Time

By / 3 minutes of reading

February is full of reasons to celebrate. And this is good, since for many of us, February is the last month of varying degrees of winter. After the colder weather, we can look forward to spring, but for February, it’s STILL winter. So, as we wait for longer daylight and warmer days, let’s appreciate all that February has to offer. Let’s create some February fun with Signing Time! February is of course known for Valentine’s Day. But it’s full of other notable days as well. February is Black History Month, which allows for tons of learning for our kids. This …

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Help Our Kids Learn to Adapt to Changes

Let’s Help Our Kids Learn to Adapt to Changes

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It’s a New Year! The beginning of a New Year is a time that we all think about changes. As we consider what needs to change, we set new goals and resolutions, hoping that we can stick with these changes. And so, as we think about our own changes for this new year, let’s think about changes that we would like to help our kids make. Then, let’s look at how we can help our kids with these changes, and how that helps them learn to adapt to other changes they will face in their lives. We can use small …

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teach preschoolers the joy of giving

Choose a Focus for the Holiday Season

By / 3 minutes of reading

Here we are at the holiday season again! It seems that as a society, we are especially excited to jump into our holiday celebrations this year. And why not? We could all use a reason to celebrate and enjoy our days a little more. So as we head into another holiday season, let’s look at a few things we could add to make it a little more special for our families. And then let’s choose one as a focus for the holiday season.   It’s always fun to add a little extra during the holiday season. However, with all there …

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teach our kids to set boundaries

Can We Teach Our Children to Be Truly Tolerant?

By / 3 minutes of reading

November 16 is the International Day for Tolerance. While many adults would say that they are open and tolerant, our news reports and daily interactions often say the opposite. How often do you consider the validity of a different perspective than your own? On this International Day for Tolerance, let’s consider our own willingness to hear a different perspective, and let’s think about how we can teach our children to be truly tolerant too.   Tolerance is a hot word in our world, but what does it look like for regular people in our everyday lives? Here are 3 ways …

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grow your family's reading habits

Grow Your Family’s Reading Habits This Month

By / 3 minutes of reading

November is known for beginning the holiday season with Thanksgiving. But did you know that November is also National Literacy Month? We all know that reading is a really important skill for our children. It’s also a really great way to keep our minds sharp as we grow older. So this is a great time to grow our family’s reading habits! Plus, My Signing Time has lots of beginning reading resources to help your kids. What is National Literacy Month? The point of National Literacy Month is to get families to enjoy reading together. There is a special emphasis on …

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