ASL Vocab 1: Daily activities - milk, eat, bed, play, more

Welcome to week one of our family's ASL vocabulary building! I chose to start with words describing daily activities for our babies - drinking milk, eating, sleeping, and playing - and doing more of all of these!

I am using http://www.mybabycantalk.com/ for the Windows Media Player version, and http://commtechlab.msu.edu/Sites/aslweb/browser.htm for the Quicktime version.

MILK (quicktime)
MILK (WMP)
I'm guessing that this sign will be a favorite with the under 1 crowd. I know it's popular with my girls. And it's so easy to sign!

EAT (quicktime)
EAT (WMP)


BED (quicktime)
BED (WMP)
'Bed' is a little simpler than 'sleep'.


PLAY (quicktime)
PLAY (WMP)
I use this a lot when offering the girls choices. For example, "eat or play?" when they start throwing food off of the high chair, and "milk or play?" when they start wiggling around a lot on the nursing pillow.

MORE (quicktime)
MORE (WMP)
The word "more" can also be used with any of these words and is one of the top words recommended to me by parents who use sign language with their children, so I threw it in here as well.

ACTIVITY: Storytime! Tell your child a story about their daily routine, using the signs whenever possible. For example:

"Once upon a time there was a smart little baby named Iliana. Iliana woke up each morning in her bed, where she had slept all night long (bed). Iliana's mama would lift Iliana out of her bed and carry her to a chair to nurse her (milk). Once Iliana drank enough milk, her dada would carry her to her highchair to eat breakfast (eat). After breakfast, Iliana would play with her sister Lenora and have lots of fun (play). Then Iliana would get sleepy, and would need to get some more rest (more bed), so her mama would nurse her to sleep (milk) and she would take a nap (bed)." You get the idea.

If you are really creative and have the time, you could even create a short book, complete with photos of your baby. An easy way to do this would be a photo album that has one page on each side. Use one side for photos, and the other for the story text. That way, you could change the pictures occasionally. Another way to make a book would be to print out half-sheet sized pages with a photo and text, and then "laminate" them with packing tape so they can withstand a little drooling or chewing.

DOES ANYONE KNOW . . . any guidelines for signing names? I'd like to make up a sign for each of my girls' names, but can't come up with anything. If you have any ideas or know of any rules or guidelines for ASL names, please comment!