Baby Sign Language Flash Cards: Top Ten Starter Signs
When you first start teaching your baby sign language, pick just three to five signs and reinforce them with lots of repetition. You want to pick words that are meaningful to your baby and that you will get the chance to use a lot during your day. Repetition is the secret behind teaching baby signs.
Here are ten signs that make good first signs.
A – Friends & Family Signs
The people around baby are the most important things in her life, so make great first signs.
- Mom – mom is number one to your baby and you spend a lot of time together so makes a great first sign. Since you are there in person you probably don’t need the flash card, but printing it out might help you learn the sign.
- Daddy – the dad sign is another one that baby’s are quick to latch onto.
- Friends/Family – close family or friends that your baby gets to see a lot of are also great first signs, particularly if they are caregivers for your baby. For example, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, grandmother, or grandfather.
- Pets – if your baby’s collapses into giggles everytime your dog or cat gets near, then these are going to make good first signs.
B – Food
A close second behind family is food. The food signs are also useful because they let you avert tantrums by letting your baby tell you what she wants instead of crying.
- Milk – milk is a natural choice to teach young children whether they are drinking breast milk, cow’s milk, formula, or even goat’s milk.
- More – more is a very practical sign because it lets your baby communicate when she really wants more food, and when she is not really interested any more.
C – Fun Signs
You can also do a few signs for things that your baby thinks of as fun.
- Fan – baby’s seem to have an obsession with overhead fans. They just love them. Similarly, the overhead light is very popular.
- Animals – baby’s enjoy learning anything to do with animals. You up the fun level by making sounds to accompany the signs. Try the signs for lion, monkey, or frog.
- Happy – the happy sign lets your baby share when she is having fun which just spreads the fun around and makes her even happier.
- Book – for children that enjoy story time, this is a sign that baby’s are highly motivated to learn.
Remember, we only want to pick less than five signs to start. The ones I would pick are: mom, dad, milk, more, and something purely fun like dog.
If you found this information useful, check out our award winning baby sign language kit. It includes more than 600 signs, covers advanced teaching methods for faster results, and includes fun teaching aids like 50 board flash cards.
The Deluxe Baby Sign Language Kit, bundles together everything you need to get started with signing in one box, at a steep discount. The kit includes: (1) Baby Sign Language Guide Book; (2) Baby Sign Language Dictionary: (3) Baby Sign Language Flash Cards; and (4) Baby Sign Language Wall Chart.
Baby Sign Language Guide Book shows you how to teach your child how to sign. The book begins with a Quick Start Guide that will teach you your first signs and having you ready to sign in 30 minutes. As your baby progresses, you can delve into more advanced topics like combining signs to make phrases, using props, and transitioning to speech. (Regularly $19.95)
Baby Sign Language Dictionary contains over 600 signs including the most common words, the alphabet and numbers. The dictionary helps you expand your child’s vocabulary, and has the breadth of coverage that lets you follow any child’s natural interests. Each sign is illustrated with two or more diagrams, showing you the starting position, the ending position, and intermediate motion. This makes learning new signs easy. (Regularly $19.95)
Baby Sign Language Flash Cards include 52 sturdy board (4×6 inches) flash cards, covering a variety of basic signs. The flash cards allow you to teach words, such as animal names, that Baby is not exposed to in everyday life. The face of the flash cards shows the word and image for the child. The back of the flash cards show how the sign is performed, a handy reminder for the adult. (Regularly $24.95)
Baby Sign Language Wall Chart includes 22 basic signs, and makes a handy reminder for caregivers. The Baby Sign Language Wall Chart covers basic signs, like eat, drink, and sleep. Hang the poster in Baby’s Nursery to help babysitters, or other occasional caregivers learn and decode the most commonly used baby signs. (Regularly $9.95)
100% Signing Guarantee
Your baby signs to your complete satisfaction, or you get a full refund.
No questions. No time limits. No regrets.
Baby Sign Language Guide Book
Learn the best techniques for effectively teaching baby sign language. Including:
• Quick Start Guide – learn the first 10 signs and the basic principles required to start teaching your baby to sign (Chapter 1).
• Advanced Teaching Methods – use teaching aids like books, flash cards, and toys to keep lessons interesting and challenging (Chapter 5).
• Phrases – teach your baby to combine signs and communicate more complex thoughts (Chapter 6).
• Taming the Terrible Twos – reduce frustration and tantrums by enabling your toddler to communicate (Chapter 7).
• Transitioning to Speech – use sign language to expedite and improve speech development (Chapter 8).
Sarah learned her first 10 signs at six month and it made our lives much easier. Instead of screaming, she could tell us when she was hungry, thirsty, or tired. She learned another 50 signs by nine months and that was a blast. Now she is talking much earlier than the other children in her preschool and we think it is because of her signing.
We can’t imagine missing out on all the little things she shared with baby sign language. Thank You!
- Bennett & Melissa Z., CA
Pediatrician Approved
“It’s easy to see why so many parents swear by it, why child care centers include it in their infant and toddler classrooms, and why it has become so commonplace as an activity of daily learning … we approve.”
Heading Home With Your Newborn (Second Edition)
Dr. Laura A. Jana MD FAAP & Dr .Jennifer Shu MD FAAP
American Academy of Pediatricians
Baby Sign Language Flash Cards
52 high quality flash cards (4 x 6″). Featuring:
• Clean Images – real life pictures, isolated on a white background to make learning easier.
• Signs on the Rear – diagrams on the back illustrating the signign motion in case you need a reminder.
• Baby Friendly – printed on thick stock so little hands can play with the cards and they will live to play another day.
I was thrilled to see how easy the signs were for Abigail (3) and Eden (21 months). Much to my surprise they could figure out many of the signs from the flashcards on their own.
- Carrie P., TX
Study: Signing Enriches
“The Sign Training group told us over and over again … [signing] made communication easier and interactions more positive.”
“these data demonstrate clearly that … [signing] … seems to “jump start” verbal development”
“can facilitate and enrich interactions between parent and child”
Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development
Dr. Susan Goodwyn, Dr. Linda Acredolo, & Dr. Catherine Brown
Journal of Nonverbal Behavior
Baby Sign Language Dictionary
The Baby Sign Language Dictionary includes :
• Words (500+) – learn signs for nearly every topic of interest.
• Letters – sign the alphabet and teach basic spelling.
• Numbers (0-10) – introduce counting and basic mathematics.
Nicholas loves his signs and it lights up our lives every time he shares one of his little secrets. He is so observant, and we would miss it all without the signs.
- Donald Family, NY
Baby Sign Language Wall Chart
The full color wall chart (24 x 36″) includes 17 everyday signs. Use the wall chart for:
• Caregivers – help babysitters and other caregivers learn the basic signs so they can understand baby’s signs.
• Family – teach family the basic signs so they can join in the fun.
Everyone thought I was nuts when I started. A month later, all my friends saw Michelle’s first signs. Then they wanted to know how they could start.
Michelle is talking now and doesn’t sign much anymore, but it gave her a headstart over other children her age. Everyone says she talks like a three year old. Now she is helping me teach her baby brother Jordan how to sign.
- Adelaide S., CA
Study: Better in School
A group of second graders who signed as infants, performed better academically than a control group six years later. The signers had a 12 IQ point advantage.
Longterm Impact of Symbolic Gesturing During Infancy at Age 8
Dr. Linda P. Acredolo (Professor, U.C. Davis)
Dr. Susan W. Goodwyn (Professor, California State University)
100% No Regret Guarantee
Your baby loves signing, or a full refund.
As you can tell, we love Baby Sign Language. It transformed the way we interacted with our children, and we want every family to have the opportunity. Baby Sign Language will make a difference for your child. Give it a try.
If for any reason you aren’t completely blown away, we will cheerfully give you a complete refund, including standard shipping. No time limit. We are that confident!
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a wonderful site! I can’t wait to use it, for myself and my friends as well as my new baby when she comes!
We have been signing with our daughter since she was 7 months… she is now 17 months, and know’s tons of signs! This is a great site – and I will be sharing it with a girlfriend who just had her first child. It makes it so much easier to deal with communication issues and frustration when she can TALK to me using her hands!
This is such an interesting site. Well done. I’m going to print out the flash cards to start teaching some basic sign language to my son Steven who is 8 months old. I’m sure this will help me and my family communicating better with Steven.
Just getting started … woo!
Thank you for a wonderful website. It is clear, consistent, graphically pleasing, and well organized! And free! We have been using sign language with our daughter since she was 6 months old. She’s now 12 months old, and I love that she can tell me quietly and discreetly that she wants to nurse. Thanks again!
Great website. My baby is almost 5 months old and i’ve being looking for websites where i could learn and teach my baby, but nothing really convinced me. I am so happy to have found you, even more happy because i get to learn and tech for free!! I’ll share this website with my friends !!!
My husband and I started teaching our (almost) three-month-old baby this. I’m excited to see results.
Great site–the videos really help; thank you!
My husband and I are using as many signs as we can fit in a day with our 7 month old. We started at about 5 months to help us get in the habit. We can’t wait until we can start seeing results! Thank you for the wonderful site, I love the big pictures and clear definition of movement.
i love this site, my baby boy is 3 years old and is autistic and dont talk, printing the picrtures and the signs are great thanks
My son is over 16 months old and I can’t even get him to wave goodbye! I’ve been trying to teach him things like “more” and “all done” since he was just a couple of months old, but he refuses to do it. Lately, he’s been pointing at things and saying “Da?” (we figured out this means “what’s this?”) but he never tries to do any signs or say anything. He only knows one word (“Hi!”), and has said “ducky” and “mama” once and then never again. He appears to be developing fine in all other areas (motor skills, etc). Is it possible that he’s just really stubborn? Or is something wrong?
ADMIN – Hi Sarah,
Children can have very different language development windows, the times when they become most receptive to communicating both via signing and speech. 16 months is on the later side, but not unheard of particularly for a boy. Does he react to hearing certain words? – that is a developmental milestone we would have expected him to have hit by now.
Whenever in doubt, I would take him along for a visit to the Pediatrician. It may be that his language window is just going to open a little later, but if it is something more serious you will be glad you found out early. And if it turns out to be nothing, then it will be a relief and you can stop worrying.
this site is awsome I was about to pay 50 dollars for another similar site.
Want to say a sincere thanks. We started our child pretty much during his first week. Between 9-10 weeks he appeared to be making the ‘daddy’ sign, though we put it down to coincidence in his movements. He’s 13 weeks now, signs ‘daddy’ quite noticeably and is beginning to use ‘mommy’ when she’s not about. We’re going to reinforce those till the end of this month while introducing ‘hungry’. We’ll then begin introducing other signs, one per month, to build his vocabulary. Its fantastic stuff. Our thanks again for the access to the info and the help.
This site is great! We just found out that our 21 month old son has a speech delay and we are starting to teach him to sign as part of his speech therapy. I love all the video’s, they really help our family with performing the correct signs! Thank you so much!
LOVE THIS SITE!!! I am trying to teach my 11 month old sign and this is the best site I’ve found as far as showing you the signs with photos and describing them too…!!! And for Free!?!?! Love it!!!
I am so glad I found this site. My son just turned 1 last week and I have been trying to find educational and, most importantly, fun activities I can start doing with him. This seems so great and I am excited to begin working with him. I only wish I would have found this sooner! :)
My daughter is 14 months and 4 weeks now I have been trying to teach her how to sign for a week now, but is it to late to teach her to be effective?
Not at all Ashley, in addition to helping little ones with early communication skills baby sign language allows toddlers to become more expressive and adept in the usage of gestural communication. This is a valuable lifetime skill. Go for it!
My little girl, Alyssa Ashley, learned to sign as early as 8 months old. Now that she is 20 months old she already know alot of ASL. She is now potty trained with the help of signing. We do not have problems with her speech as she is speaking a few fluent words now like “KOKO KRUNCH” “ASH-LEY” “COKE” “HAM” “MOMMY” “TEN” etc… Every day is a fun filled day for us. I am a proud momma because my little girl knows how to communicate with us even before she speaks.