York
Mitali Griffin - 01904 690 038 - Email
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Welcome to Sing & Sign York!!
Because of this I’m thrilled to be teaching Sing & Sign classes in York. My hopes are to work towards providing classes for all over the city. This is an exciting opportunity to befriend others & unwind, to study something different & be encouraged in helping your little one to communicate.
Come along!! You won’t believe how clever your little one is :o)
My Biography:
Originally from London, I came to York in 1993 to study music at the University. After getting my Masters in Music & Electronics I studied for my DPhil and officially became Dr Griffin in 2001. From then on, until Joshua was born, I worked as a researcher within the field of computational neuroscience. This just fuelled my fascination in how amazing we all are, and inspired by Joshua and Miriam, and more recently our little Hannah, has led me into the exciting world of baby signs.
Have a peek at our Miriam in action (aged 15mths).
Teachers:
I am Sinead Camplin and I moved with my family to York in September 2005 after teaching in primary schools in West London for over ten years (with some time taken out for travelling!). In my most recent school, I taught hearing impaired and deaf children and gained Level 1 in British Sign Language. When my daughter Roisin was one, I decided to try baby signing in York. Within a few weeks, Roisin started to pick up everyday signs such as ‘milk’ and ‘more’. It was wonderful to feel we were communicating. As a family we feel signing helps our energetic toddler to communicate with us thereby avoiding some toddler frustration! We have had great fun at Sing and Sign classes and are looking forward to the Poppleton classes.
Hi I'm Annika. A few years ago I moved to York from Germany where I was born and where I grew up. From an early age music has been a big part in my life so I played saxophone in a big band, lead a youth choir and taught children to play the recorder (that was quite an experience I have to tell you). I started signing when my daughter Aimee was 7 months old. From the beginning she really loved the music and the singing, but wasn't too impressed with the signing. But after about three months she did her first sign. It was at bath time when she looked at her rubber duck and signed duck. I was thrilled and I am still amazed when I see the sparkle in her eye and the proud look on her face when she was able to tell me what she wants and what is going on in her little head.I love to work with kids so please come along to one of the classes and enjoy communicating with your little one and just have fun.
Not only has our DVD been awarded but our course has been voted:
Best National Activity for under 2's (2007)
Best National Baby Signing Classes (2008)
Best National Toddler Development Activity (2009)
Thank you Mums/Dads/Carers for all your encouragement over the years & thank you for thinking that we’ve worked hard enough for a place in this years awards too. Do check out www.whatson4littleones.co.uk/awards for more.
Quotes from the Mums/Dads who have come along:
This second term has been fabulous as Sydney has begun signing frantically! We both love signing and is helping her communicate with the whole family! (July 2010)
We have thoroughly enjoyed the course and really try to continue the signing at home. Even after only a few weeks of the course Imogen has started to do a few signs. We want to do the course again! (July 2010)
Mitali has been an amazing teacher! Very patient and kind. Very flexible and able to react to babies’ needs. Dedicated and talented. Thank you. I recommend Sing & Sign to everyone I meet even if they didn’t ask. BRILL (July 2010)
Libby is still very much using her sign language, even though she's talking too now. I recommend it to everyone, I think it's fantastic. It's helped her communication so much. Libby actually signed fairly late. She's a "wait and see" sort of girl. But once she did start, there was no stopping her and she still uses it for all the colours as well as speaking. It's been so great as I can understand what colours she is saying because she signs them too, which has made her very happy and confident. So if someone was thinking that their child wasn’t doing any signing and didn't appear to be getting much from it, I'd just say that it's not necessarily that they aren't getting anything, they're just biding their time! She did most things late, so I think if the child was also slow to walk, crawl etc, but then sort of did it quickly all at once, I'd encourage them with Libby's story that they may find their child suddenly signs loads of things… I'm a big fan (April 2010)
James and I absolutely loved our first Stage One session with Sinead last week! She makes a very good and welcoming teacher. For me it is just so wonderful to return to a S&S Class, which brings back such wonderful memories of very enjoyable time spent singing and learning sign with Evelyn, and then Samuel. And for James, it is lovely to able to bring him along to a class for him to practice with other Little Ones the songs and signs that we ALL still use daily at home! He loves it, and it’s been three years now, with three Little Ones, and no doubt will continue for a long time yet. Our house is always alive with ‘S&S’, it’s absolutely the BEST THING I ever did! (Jan 2010)
Charles really does love his S&S class each week. It is clearly his most favourite group that we go to, I know this because he doesn't sign that he wants to leave, which he does at his other groups - and says good bye to teachers! (July 2009)
I just wanted to say how much we have both enjoyed Sing and Sign. I started with something for us do one morning a week while I was still on maternity leave with Ben and I was amazed when Ben first started signing back when he wanted milk etc. in the early days. It is now a family thing with Ben’s grandparents, great grandparents, Auntie and Uncle (who hopefully will have the next attendee later in the year!!) Ben is now talking away (most of which we understand!) and to be honest I probably put some of this down to us covering different topics in sign & sign too (March 2009)
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The course lasts 10 weeks & costs £55 for the Term. Siblings can attend for FREE.
The Stage 1 course is designed specifically for Beginners. The course Syllabus includes: Basic Signs (Milk, More, Finished etc), Going Out, Bath Time, Nappy Change, Emotions, Help Me, Bedtime, People, Animals & Vehicles.
Our Stage 2 class is run for children who have completed & are confident in Stage 1 and/or are aged up to 2.5 years (NB. If you are extremely keen to come but your child is too old for Stage 1 do contact me for advice). Stage 2 is designed to help children with more progressive concepts and encourages reading & counting. The Syllabus includes: Choices, Colours, Weather, Opposites, Love & Manners, Potty Training, Phonetic Alphabet, Speech Sounds & Numbers.
LATEST NEWS... | ||
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Class Times for Autumn/Winter 2010:
Monday...
9.35am-10.20am Stage 2 The Poppleton Centre (U. Poppleton, YO26 6JT) NOT THIS TERM
10.30-11.15am Stage 1 The Poppleton Centre (U. Poppleton, YO26 6JT) NOT THIS TERM
Tuesday...
9.45am-10.30am Stage 1 Friends Meeting House (The Green, Acomb YO26 5LR) Taught by Mitali
9.45am-10.30am Stage 1 The Reading Room (Church St, Dunnington YO19 5PW) By Jeanine
10.45am-11.30am Stage 2 The Reading Room (Church St, Dunnington YO19 5PW) By Jeanine
2.30pm-3.15pm Stage 1 Friends Meeting House (Friargate York YO1 9RL) Taught by Mitali
Wednesday...
9.45am-10.30am Stage 1 The Reading Room (Church St, Dunnington YO19 5PW) By Jeanine
10.45am-11.30am Stage 2 The Reading Room (Church St, Dunnington YO19 5PW) By Jeanine
Thursday...
10am-10.45am Stage 1 Friends Meeting House (Friargate York YO1 9RL) Taught by Annika
11am-11.45am Stage 2 Friends Meeting House (Friargate York YO1 9RL) Taught by Annika
2pm-2.45am Stage 1 St Marks Church (Howard Dr, Rawcliffe YO30 5UZ) Taught by Annika
3pm-3.45am Stage 2 St Marks Church (Howard Dr, Rawcliffe YO30 5UZ) Taught by Annika
Term Dates 2010:
Spring Term 2010: Begins w/c 18th January. Ends w/c 29th March ENDED
Summer Term 2010: Begins w/c 19th April or 6th May. Ends w/c 12th July ENDED
Summer Time Club 2010: Our PAYG Club for all (Cost £4.50) Thurs 5th, 12th, 19th & 26th August
Autumn/Winter Term 2010: Begins 14th/21st September. Ends 24th Nov/2nd Dec Enrolment open
For more info on our SummerTime Club 2010 click here
For our Autumn-Winter 2010 Term downloadable enrolment form click here
AVAILABILITY: We have places in the following courses (Last Updated 09/09/10)
9.45am Tuesday STAGE1 in Acomb (1 place left)
11am Thursday STAGE2 in City (5 places left)
2pm Thursday STAGE1 in Rawcliffe (4 places left)
Map of Venues in York:
View Sing and Sign York Venues in a larger map
Do contact me through the form below with any questions or queries & I"ll email back ASAP.
