Hat Play

When Douglas gets ready to go to work in the morning, he puts his hat on.  That is a cue for Levi that Pop is about to leave.  He signs "hat" and drops whatever he is doing at that moment to say goodbye.  He also started signing "thank you."  When he hands someone an object, he signs "thank you."  Um.  It's the other way around, sweetheart.

The teacher in me saw an opportunity.  So I pounced.

I wanted Levi to say "thank you" whenever someone handed him an object, not the other way around.  I also knew Levi was very familiar with the idea of hats and associated them with his Pop so I wanted to build language around that.

So I unearthed a book from Levi's closet.

 We went through the book, pointing out the hats in the book.  "Where are the hats?"  "Hats!  More hats!"

Then I took out Pop's hats.  He has a quite formidable collection!  We sat on the rug, piling hats onto hats.  Levi gave a hat to me.  "Thank you," I said.  I gave a hat to him.  I did not say thank you.  He gave me another hat.  "Thank you," I repeated.  We continued this game.  He didn't say thank you, but he was soaking it all in.  That ridiculously amazing sponge.

Then things started getting a little crazy.   I started putting some objects on my head that were not hats.  "No, not a hat," I said.   "Yes, this is a hat," when I put one of Douglas' hats on my head.  This went on for a while, and Levi caught on!   He began shaking his head and signed the word "no" whenever I put something on my head that was not a hat.

Hats off to Levi!  We still have to work on "thank you."  How did you teach your child to say thank you?