Isn't She Talking Yet? - Times Online - WBLG

Singing Hands - my new favourite thing

I was recently sent THE most brilliant singing and signing CDs and songbooks by Suzanne and Tracy of Singing Hands (above; you may have seen them on Something Special ). I was so taken by the concept and its execution, and by the fact that they were parents of children with special needs who'd done something incredibly positive with the information they were forced to learn, that I emailed them and asked them to write something about what they do, and how they came to do it, for the blog. As some of you may have noticed, I am evangelical about Makaton. Singing Hands is not only a brilliant way of learning some, but it's the most tremendous fun for little children - Nell absolutely loves her books and CDs, and it means she can join in nursery rhymes with aplomb at, er, nursery. I can't recommend Singing Hands highly enough. Their website is here  and there's also lots of detailed info right at the end of this article. An invaluable resource for parents, obviously, but also for speech and language therapists, SENCOs and so on. Anyway:

Hello!  We are Suzanne and Tracy of Singing Hands – we’d like to tell you about the songbooks and CDs that we have produced to help foster children’s early communication skills by introducing them to signing through songs and rhymes.

We are both parents of a child with special needs and began to learn Makaton when our children were a few months old.  As parents, it was then instinctive for us to sign and sing with our children but Singing Hands was only formally established when they were due to attend mainstream nursery in 2003.  Our goal was, and still is, to encourage communication between children with SEN and their peers by fostering an inclusive approach to language.  Our fear was that it would not be possible for our children be fully included in their setting if they could only communicate with their LSA (Learning Support Assistant).  It seemed obvious that the only way forward was to sign with all children to help achieve this goal.  We both felt that this could best be achieved through songs and stories – a natural opportunity to use a fantastic and engaging range of signs that all children could enjoy.

Our aim is to demonstrate how signs can be used in a fun, dynamic and practical way so that music time can become one of the favourite activities of the day.  Produced in conjunction with the Makaton Vocabulary Development Project (MVDP) each signed songbook contains 30 tried and tested songs that we have used in our baby signing classes, toddler groups and nursery and school sessions over the years.

Ooh, new blog

Check out Alpha Mummy, a new blog for mums from some of the Times/Sunday Times's finest. I am, alas, Omega Mummy, but it's a very good read none the less.

Sorry I'm being a bit useless at posting at the moment. It should only last until the end of the week, after which normal service will resume.

Christmas presents

There's under a month to go, which is a bit of a freaky thought. I posted a list of specialist special needs toy suppliers and online shops back in October - you'll find it in the archives. Meanwhile, here are some random toys which I think are totally great and am posting in the hope that they may be helpful if, like me, the thought of hitting a packed, heaving Oxford Street (or equivalent) is more than you can bear. Everything below is available online for home delivery, but get your skates on soonish - most places' last orders are by early December. Apologies if this entry is UK-centric - I realise it's not terribly useful if you're in Bangalore.

I really love The Great Little Trading Co., which has brilliant toys for all ages and pockets. At the top end, there's a rather fabulous 1950s style wooden kitchen, here and in the picture. Also a very good trainset, which becomes even better if you have the space to buy the enormous trundle play table which it could sit on. There's also a shiny red drum kit which my older children would have gone mad about when they were small (NB don't buy this as a gift for your grandchild, godchild, whatever. Parents willingly buying incredibly noisy toys is one thing; being given them is another).

That's the tip of quite a mighty iceberg - the website is packed with excellent toys. They also do a really good school-style bookshelf, where the books sit facing out - much more child-friendly than having little fingers try and pull out spindly spines from a packed normal shelf.

The personalised section is very good too - I'm really glad we got Nell a picture book in which she stars. Get yours here - it involves uploading a photograph to the site - but hurry, because last orders for this particular item are December 8th.

If you're fighting a losing battle against primary-coloured plastic, the Early Learning Centre has a good selection of wooden toys; it also has a nurse's outfit, here, and a doctor's kitbag, here, as well as a doctor's outfit - having a child who frequently visits hospitals, we've found these really helpful and familiarising. Nell gets the concept of injections, thanks to her ELC plastic syringe, though whether that helps when she has blood taken next week is a whole other thing. And then of course there's Happyland, a whole series of buildings and houses and little people, which both Nell and I absolutely love. If you buy this, it's really worth investing in the playmat, because it zips up with all its contents inside when you've finished playing, i.e no bits of plastic person floating around the kitchen for months afterwards.

Urchin is another excellent source of gifts and have very good customer service. They have a lovely pink doll's house; a really sweet doll for very small children called a Snuggle Pod; rather a splendiferous pirate ship, and some more domestic stuff, from melamine plates to children's cutlery. They also have a brilliant piece of equipment called a Learning Tower, a height-adjustable, enclosed platform for children to stand on when, for instance, they're helping you cook - far safer than balancing on a chair, especially if your child isn't massively steady on his/her feet.

Jonny's Sister does really lovely fabric bunting, in your child's name, or whatever, and nice fat padded letters which can either be decorative or act as cushions. If you want something less cutesy, you can buy live stick insects to hatch yourself (blee) here, from Insect Lore (they send you caterpillars in the summer, from May-Sept, which then hatch into butterflies. They also do locust nymphs, should you come over all Evangelical and feel like unleashing, or speeding up,  Biblical mayhem. Also various other interesting creepy-crawlies. Boys love them).

If you're reading this as a friend or relative rather than as a parent, and if you're in a flap because you don't understand what kinds of toys special needs children play with, ask the parents for advice. It's much, much better to give a really good gift, one that's actively useful and wanted, than to feel embarrassed and buy something that's too old, too complex, too hard to operate or whatever. Very often, by the way, one of the nicest gifts you can give is your time - offer to babysit, or have the children for the weekend, so that the parents can have a break. This applies to all parents, but perhaps especially to parents of special needs children. Also, it manages the brilliant combination of being a) free and b) generous. 

I'll post more toys as and when I find them. Meanwhile, if you'd like to relive your youth via your small child, you can buy mini rock band T-shirts here. The Ramones one is pretty cool, I have to say.