Making a Difference

international day of sign languages

Celebrate the International Day of Sign Languages!

By / 3 minutes of reading

The United Nations has set September 23 as the International Day of Sign Languages. It’s meant to be a day to celebrate and support all sign language users, and this year’s theme is unity. The idea is to unite our world by recognizing national sign languages as part of their countries’ linguistic identities. In other words, we’re hoping that sign languages will be accepted as mainstream languages. This would open doors for so many more people in our world. So let’s look at how we can celebrate the International Day of Sign Languages. There are more than 300 different sign …

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celebrate world kindness day

Will You Celebrate World Kindness Day?

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World Kindness Day is celebrated on November 13th, and what a great time it is to celebrate kindness! As we head into Thanksgiving season and the following holidays, would a focus on kindness help your family? I know it will help mine. So maybe we can use November 13th to kick off a season of kindness that can become part of our lives.  In 1997, Japan held a gathering of kindness organizations from around the world in an effort to start a global kindness movement. The World Kindness Movement was formed there in Tokyo, and then launched the first World …

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change the world

A Day to Think About How You Can Change the World

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Nelson Mandela International Day is a day to remember that each person can have an impact on the world. It is observed on Mandela’s birthday, July 18, each year, and it has been celebrated officially since 2010. While Nelson Mandela was a controversial figure, he did indeed positively change the world, and your kids can learn good things from his historical work in South Africa. The purpose of Mandela Day is not to be a huge public holiday. Instead, it is a day to honor Mandela’s legacy and his values through community service. It’s a day to think about how …

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bring more kindness into our world

Let’s Bring More Kindness into Our World

By / 5 minutes of reading

Kindness can be an overlooked character quality. Sometimes we think it’s an automatic thing, so we don’t work to develop it in ourselves or in our kids. Unfortunately, we’ve seen more than enough evidence that kindness is not always valued in our world. So how can we bring more kindness into our world? Can we make kindness become part of our culture? Part of our culture? That sounds like a very tall order. Can we really change our culture with our own families’ values? It does sound a bit overwhelming, doesn’t it? But don’t let that discourage you from making …

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Do you know the colors of the Rainbow?

By / 4 minutes of reading

One of my favorite Signing Time earworms (i.e. song that sticks in your head on repeat) is “The Rainbow Song“. It’s a great song for practicing basic color identification. It’s fun to sing, easy to remember and relates colors to everyday items in our world. “The Rainbow Song,” like any earworm, is not without it’s hazards. If you are a ROYGBIV fan, like I am, beware. This song comes with the added challenge of not using spectrum of light to define color order. The lyrics mention purple before blue. Even so, this song will have you ready to grab a …

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live out Earth Day every day

Let’s Live Out Earth Day Every Day

By / 5 minutes of reading

Special days on our calendars help us to teach our kids about the bigger world around them. April is full of these special calendar days, and since Earth Day is celebrated on April 22, April is considered to be “Earth Month”. This is the perfect time of year to watch Extraordinary Earth on My Signing Time. In this episode our treeschoolers explore what makes the earth so special and how we can be stewards of our planet. It’s great to celebrate Earth Day and Earth Month. But beyond these celebrations, we can help our kids know how to take care …

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healthy drug free kids

Red Ribbon Week Celebrates a Healthy, Drug-Free Life

By / 3 minutes of reading

The wearing of a red ribbon can represent different causes. During October 23-31 each year, it is dedicated to awareness efforts to keep kids drug-free.   We don’t really like to think about substance abuse, especially in reference to our children. However, our discomfort with the subject does not change its reality.  Substance abuse can affect every segment of the community. It can pop up in any age group.  While it tends to be associated with only certain types of communities, the truth is that it affects all communities.  And yes, it can reach our kids. Red Ribbon Week is about …

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Care about childhood cancer

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

By / 6 minutes of reading

September is a full month for awareness issues, and while we cannot possibly cover every one of them, we’re going to look at a couple of them.  One of September’s titles is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. While childhood cancer is an issue that many of us have not dealt with personally, there are many who have dealt with it quite personally.  And so, it’s an issue that we should be willing to understand in a deeper way. The first way to do this is to increase our awareness about childhood cancer.  The co-founder and executive director of The Morgan Adams …

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Down Syndrome Awareness - Signing Time Foundation

Down Syndrome Awareness Month

By / 4 minutes of reading

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]October is National Down Syndrome Awareness Month and the Signing Time Foundation is proud to be a long-standing supporter of children with Down syndrome and their families. Signing Time Co-founder Rachel Coleman has often be found at National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS) Buddy Walks around the country, and we’ve been working hard to build a great database of resources for you to use when signing with children who have Down syndrome. The goal of the Buddy Walk is to promote understanding and acceptance of people with Down syndrome. “My September and October weekends are filled with Buddy Walks!” says Rachel. “At each …

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Signing Turns Your Child’s Brain On

By / 2 minutes of reading

All of our children have normal hearing and don’t have any behavior or physical conditions. But we wanted to communicate early with our babies, and give them the tools to communicate with us.  And it worked! When our first daughter was about 6 months old, we introduced her to the first volume of Baby Signing Time. She loved the show and began signing to us. We also signed multiple things to her.  By the time she was 1 year old, she could sign 50 words. Over the next few months, she learned 100 more! We were so impressed. It really helped …

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