Baby Lapsit 1-12-18

First Baby Lapsit of the new year, and the first time in a while that we've had this program on a Friday. There were several new faces today, so before we got started I had everyone go around and introduce themselves, their baby, and tell us how old their baby is. I like to do this with smaller groups, especially with younger kids, because a lot of them are first-time parents without a lot of parent friends. Also, a lot of the caregivers who attend my Baby Lapsit classes are stay-at-home moms, so it's a great opportunity to break the ice and be social with other parents.

As always, first we sang hello to all our friends. Then, our first book of the day was Roar: A Big Mouth Book of Sounds from the My Little World series. This book is fun because it has a short rhyming verse on each page, each talking about a different animal. Before the holidays, I asked our Lapsit families to fill out surveys about what they would like to see from the program, and an overwhelming number said they wanted to learn more sign language for their babies. So in the new year, I am going to try and teach three or four signs each time. During this book, we learned the signs for lion, goat, puppy, and kitten, as well as scared. I encouraged the grownups to do the signs with me, and help their baby do them as well.

Lion

Goat

Puppy (dog)

Kitten (cat)

Scared

Next it was time for our lap bounce journey and it began, as always, with "Bumpy Road." I have a few regulars who have come to Baby Lapsit continuously since their babies were only a couple months old, and they know this chant by heart now. Grownups are instructed to seat their baby facing forward on their laps and bounce along with me as I demonstrate with a roughly baby-sized teddy bear. Here is the chant:

Bumpy road, bumpy road. (Bounce baby on lap)
Smooth road, smooth road. (Move baby smoothly back and forth)
Bumpy road, bumpy road. (Bounce baby on lap)
Smooth road, smooth road. (Move baby smoothly back and forth)
Rough road, rough road! (Bounce baby higher than before)
Bumpy road, bumpy road. (Bounce baby on lap)
Rough road, rough road! (Bounce baby higher than before)
Hole! (Hold baby under armpits and let them fall between your legs)

Because I haven't done this program in a while, I hauled out my classic "Noble Duke of York" for our musical lap bouce. Since it is one of the longer songs and I needed to leave plenty of time for community play time, we only did one lap bounce song today. 

Our second book of the day was I Am Kind by Jen Porter. The main character of this book talks a lot about her dog, so I used this opportunity to refresh the sign for "dog," as well as teach the sign for "mom."

This book is part of Porter's "I Am" series (I Am Tidy, I Am Good, I Am Brave), which are simple rhyming verse stories perfect for toddlers. They model good behavior at a level very small children can understand and will want to emulate. 

In keeping with the effort to use more sign language, we did "Hush Little Baby" as one of our movement songs. Here are the signs I use when teaching this song:

And here is the version of the song I use. It's pretty short, so we usually end up doing it 2-3 times so everyone can get the hang of the sign language. 

Next, we did everyone's favorite body part identifying song, "One, Two Hands" by the wonderful Laurie Berkner. 

And finally, we said goodbye to all our friends by playing Peek-a-Boo, singing our goodbye song, having bubbles, and then having a 15-minute community playtime session with toys. It was a great first day back with the babies!