If the covid lockdown taught parents one thing, it’s that teaching children is HARD WORK. Wow, trying to make sure just one kid does their homework is a full time job, I can’t imagine how teachers manage over 30 of the cheeky little monsters.
But Covid also helped me realise that keeping up with learning at home, deploying some of the same strategies as school, can help our little girl pick things up faster and increase her desire to learn in more enjoyable ways.
I love that computers now play a part in her education. She has time at a screen every week in school, and part of her homework projects is online maths and english apps where she learns on one of our laptops. The apps she uses are surprisingly fun and even I find them engaging. Building robots, helping horses, tarting up your own unicorn – for her it’s all fun, for us it’s like hiding thedog medicine in a bit of cooked sausage. We’re so happy it’s working now, but we know one day she’ll notice the penecillin inside and spit the homework out. So while she’s engaged, we like to encourage her.
She’s been pretty poorly recently, and managed to bring those germs home with her and spread them amongst us too. I don’t know about you, but when I’ve got a cold or flu-like symptoms the only thing I’m interested in is the blanket and shut-eye. But with her home it’s not an option, we have to make sure she’s ok, of course, but we also know it’s important she keeps learning. It left me with a bit of a conundrum – how do I keep her engaged without constantly dumping her at a screen.
Enter Makaton.
What’s Makaton?
Imagine a simplified version of sign-language, and you’re pretty much there. Makaton is a way of communicating with your hands without learning the complete BSL. As our daughter was mute until nearly 5 and still struggles to communicate now, Makaton has been an effective alternative that we use at home and at school.
I decided to try and learn some more myself. I had the basic questions, letters and feelings, but I thought it might help if I knew more. You Tube videos were the easiest to follow, because in print you can see the movements. Although there are quite a few out there, Singing Hands is the account I use most regularly. Why? Because they do most of their Makaton to a song. Brilliant! Especially at this time of year.
So, sometimes with my daughter’ we play the videos and I learn the words alongside the music. I have to say, it’s not only been fun, but it’s helped our daughter enormously. Admittedly, her ASD stops her wanting to sign from time-to-time, but she still watches the signs I show her, and finds it relatively easy to respond to them, sometimes verbally, sometimes using Makaton too.
Using Christmas songs has given us many words that seem fun, but when joined into a sentence they are also broadening her vocublary. Reindeer, misteltoe, christmas tree, father christmas, snowman, presents, turkey, brussel sprouts, fireplace, cheers, holly, we’ve done them all.
Finding learning fun
I thought I’d write about Makaton for 2 reasons.
First, this is now principally a blog to help anyone with mental illness or chronic pain find help or have a laugh. I promote distractions regularly as part of my Creative Coping Strategies campaign, and learning Makaton has become one of my own projects. This is a distraction from the status quo, and an effective distraction too!
Second, I wanted to talk about the positive impact learning something new can have, especially when you find a subject you enjoy. My degree is reaching the final year and, as the study got harder, my enjoyment started to plummet with it. It’s a necessary evil of getting a decent grade and not feeling like my time stuck indoorshas been a waste, but I desperately wanted to learn something else that didn’t add to the stress pile. Makaton, with it’s attachment to songs we love and ability to expand communication with our little one, has been just the ticket.
Who knows, maybe one day I’ll branch out to full Sign Language – that would certainly be something to be proud of!
If you are interested in giving Makaton a go then the Makaton Charity has a page dedicated to how to start using Makaton. There are lots of resources on their website, but Makaton books are rare and/or expensive, so I recommend YouTube. Specifically Singing Hands have a selection of popular songs from the national anthem to ‘This is Me’ and Team Nobles Makaton for Beginners has several videos with the essentail signs – we started with these and found them simple to follow for a child too.
The picture
Continuing my festive drawings for the holiday season, this picture is a winter cartoon of a mum and baby deer in a snow covered forest. There’s even a finch nearby chirping away.
And yes, thankfully I DO know the makaton for ‘Reindeer’ – you simply put your outstretched hands at the top of your head like antlers and move them outwards. Simple.
Thanks for reading 🎄🦌🦌💜
Creative Steph 