Welcome to TinyTalk Cambridgeshire & Hertfordshire. I’m Carol your local TinyTalk teacher, mum to one TinyTalker, Isabella.

When Isabella was a baby I attended TinyTalk classes which I thoroughly enjoyed. I started practicing the basic signs with Isabella at home.

When she was seven months old she woke up crying in the middle of the night. I found her sat in her cot signing her first sign – MILK! From then onwards we were hooked! We started making more of an effort to sign at home and by the age of 12 months she was signing over 80 signs - her favourite being milk, water, biscuit, food, home and bird! By 16 months she was signing over 150 signs.

As a family we found it incredible how she would notice things us adults often took for granted, it was a window into her mind.

Now that she talks (a lot) all of her signs have naturally fallen away.

I felt so passionate about the benefits of baby signing that I decided to start up my own classes over two years ago and I now run ten classes in the Huntingdon, St Neots, Cambourne, Histon and Royston area.

TinyTalk classes are 1 hour long starting with ½ hour of singing popular nursery rhymes and action songs with appropriate signs followed by ½ hour social time. This is a chance for the adults to chat and relax with a hot drink and a chocolate biscuit (or two!) while the babies socialise and play with toys. This is also the perfect opportunity to ask questions or for new signs.

Contact me now to find out more about how you can join in the TinyTalk fun!

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Mini Teacher: Natalie Hanlon
I’m Natalie, mum to one TinyTalker, William who is 18 months old. I had already decided to use baby sign language with my son before he was born after having seen the amazing results of my friend using it with her two children. I used to go round to visit them and they would be trying to tell me all these things and they were only 10 and 19 months old. I just couldn't believe how fantastic it was that they could communicate with each other and me. I was absolutely sold on the idea, and started attending Carol's TinyTalk classes in January last year when William was just 10 weeks old.

William signed his first 'word' to his Daddy at 6 months, when after his bath and he started to sign 'Milk' as if to say 'hurry up Daddy, I'm hungry!’. He soon started to add more and more signs and now at 18 months is has a signing vocabulary of around 40-50 words with his favourites being ‘music, ‘milk’, ‘more’ and ‘aeroplane’. I have found signing invaluable, as it has really helped my son through frustration from not being able to tell me what he wants and every day I find it amazing that we can communicate even though he only says a few words.

I feel very passionately that every parent should be given the opportunity to learn these fantastic skills which is why I decided to join Carol in teaching classes in the Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire region. I run a class in Whaddon at 14.15 on Mondays and one in Royston at 10.00 on Fridays.

If you would like to know a little more about my and my classes, why not check out my newsletter?

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