Children watch everything

Aww, Sam was so cute tonight during Family Home Evening! And I can tell he's been watching his mom and brother a lot...

I lead the music in Primary. The way I learn a song is to watch the video of the song in ASL (I don't do my own translation, I'm nowhere near that level!) and write down the signs they use. This is called "gloss". There are writing conventions that the pros use, but mine is pretty simple and homespun. For example, this is what "I am a child of God" looks like in (my) gloss:

I (formal) God his child
I he done sent here
Earth live with mom, dad, those-two kind, dear.
Lead, show-me, walk-beside
Help-me find way
Teach-me all things I need do
Someday live with him can

Lige leads the music in Sacrament meeting. He does it a little differently. Since we sing to the church's recorded music (with the voices - it makes those of us singing along feel less like we're singing a solo. And I almost always sing along because I'm holding a baby and can't sign or else she'll wriggle away. I'm actually sort of ready for this phase in her life to be done...) ANYWAY, since we sing to the recorded music, Lige takes his (my) tablet with the video of the song in ASL, plugs it into the speakers so the sound plays for everyone, and copies the signs on the video. (He practices in advance, obviously.)

Tonight, Sam got to choose the song for Family Home Evening, and he wanted to do it in ASL. I pulled up the videos, and he ran to get a sheet of paper. He picked a song and sat down by the tablet, starting and stopping the video every 10 seconds and writing down the signs he saw. I suggested that maybe he didn't need to write down all the signs, since he could just copy the video, like Lige does. But he wanted to have a gloss, "just in case."

And here it is! My favorite thing produced today:

I feel like he's *starting* to get the feel for spaces between words. I love how he copies the way I write "I (formal)". I love all the mistakes - he writes, "I God his child prove right can", and the actual signs are, "I God his child inspiration get can". He writes "no" instead of "know". He's 5 and he's learning ASL and English, and it's all mashed up together into one adorable, barely readable gloss. We'll say it "requires translation".

Here's the song:
As a Child of God



And by the way, he did a GREAT job of leading the song for Family Home Evening. (Without using his gloss even once...) I think we have a future Sacrament meeting song leader on our hands!