Gina Ogden

child passenger safety

Child Passenger Safety Week: Tips for Parents

By / 4 minutes of reading

September 20-26 is National Child Passenger Safety Week.  It’s common practice in our society to use car seats and seat belts, and we tend to think it’s a pretty straightforward practice.  So why do we need to talk about or have an awareness week about child passenger safety? Unfortunately, many of us do not use our safety restraint systems properly.  There is a correct way to use a seatbelt, a car seat, or a booster seat.  Incorrect usage can be fatal in a car wreck.  The National Safety Council reports that a child under 13 years of age is involved …

Child Passenger Safety Week: Tips for Parents Read More »

kids learn the alphabet

Learn to Sign the Alphabet With My Signing Time

By / 4 minutes of reading

You may be asking, “Why do my kids need to learn to sign the alphabet if they know plenty of other signs?” or “What is the point of learning to sign the alphabet?” That’s a fair question, and we have a few reasons to offer in response. First, when signing, we still use the names of people and places. There is no possible way to create a sign for each of these names, nor would it be possible to know them all.  So we spell them.  This is called “fingerspelling”, and it is used a lot in signing.   Fingerspelling is …

Learn to Sign the Alphabet With My Signing Time Read More »

Care about childhood cancer

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

By / 6 minutes of reading

September is a full month for awareness issues, and while we cannot possibly cover every one of them, we’re going to look at a couple of them.  One of September’s titles is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. While childhood cancer is an issue that many of us have not dealt with personally, there are many who have dealt with it quite personally.  And so, it’s an issue that we should be willing to understand in a deeper way. The first way to do this is to increase our awareness about childhood cancer.  The co-founder and executive director of The Morgan Adams …

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month Read More »

How to Keep Little Ones Busy When You Have to Work

By / 4 minutes of reading

School is looming ahead for most of us, and for many of us it doesn’t look the same as it ever has.  The balance of working from home, leading virtual schooling or a new home school, and tending to younger children is a problem many of us have not faced on such a long-term basis before. How do we work from home, help our school aged kids with their virtual schooling, and tend to little ones who want our attention or want to be part of what’s going on?  This has typically been an issue for traditional home-schoolers, but with …

How to Keep Little Ones Busy When You Have to Work Read More »

We Love Music!

By / 3 minutes of reading

Music is an important part of My Signing Time. In fact, when we started in 2002, Signing Time and Baby Signing Time were created using music. Our videos use original songs written by our founder and co-creator, Rachel de Azevedo Coleman and composed by her father and president of Two Little Hands, Lex de Azevedo. Rachel and her sisters (sister Emilie de Azevedo is co-creator of Signing Time) and brothers sing many of the songs in Signing Time. Some of the Rachel & the TreeSchoolers are written and performed by Rachel’s brother, Aaron. So, yes, we really do love music! …

We Love Music! Read More »

Weekly Routines for Summer

Weekly Routines for Summer Fun

By / 5 minutes of reading

We’re on a routine run for this summer!  With the current pandemic restrictions, closures, and cancellations, we all need ideas for making the summer fun for our families.  My own family has settled into lazing around each day, so I’m inspired to implement more structure to our days. One way to do this is to assign an activity to each day of the week.  Some can be fun and some can be practical.  Either way, having a clear “Taco Tuesday” kind of label helps everyone to know what is happening that day.  It gives your kids something to look forward …

Weekly Routines for Summer Fun Read More »

Music and Routines

By / 4 minutes of reading

We’ve seen movies with scenes where someone is cleaning while dancing away to some energetic song, and then we feel inspired to be so carefree and fun while cleaning. Granted, movies show only the dancing, with the cleaning supplies sitting there as props, right?  But could we be inspired and motivated to action with music?   The Science Studies show that music can cause our brains to release dopamine.  While we tend to associate dopamine with pleasure, its actual function is to regulate motivation and goal oriented behavior. Basically, something that brings pleasure or fun (music) causes dopamine release.  Then …

Music and Routines Read More »

Scroll to Top