Deirdre, Author at JDaniel4s Mom

Deirdre Smith writes/owns JDaniel4’s Mom. After twenty years as a elementary school and technology resource teacher in Northern Virginia, she became a stay at home mom in upstate South Carolina. Her blog features ways she and her 5 year old are exploring learning, crafting, creating healthy meals and living life to its fullest. Deirdre can also be found on twitter as @jdaniel4smom and on her blog's FB page. You can also check her out on Google+.

Living with Cancer- Cherishing Moments

June 25, 2014 By Deirdre

In March after spending seven weeks in the hospital recovering from liver and kidney failure along gall bladder drainage issues followed by several month in rehab my mom had to make a huge decision. While in the hospital she was found to have pancreatic cancer, now after all that recovering time she had to decide what to do next.

Some things were decided for her. She had to move to a nursing area of the senior community she had a patio home in. People were going to have to help her dress, bathe, and use the restroom. She would probably only live a short time. It was going to be sad to watch her lose the ability to care for herself and be around others who were just waiting to die too.

My sisters and I shared with her our thoughts about chemotherapy and radiation as well as cancer surgery. Each would lengthen her life by a few months maybe. Each would be rough on her and could diminish her quality of life.

We all came to the consensus that making memories and cherishing moments was what was most important. We would hand over the time mom has leftover to her living her life with cancer. God would decide when to take her home and until he did we would love on her.

While I moved forward with getting her house ready for sale and helping get her affairs in order, my mom worked on living. She has taken it super seriously! She has left people in awe of her strength and peace.

Despite knowing that she has a disease that is killing her she learned to dress herself, go to the bathroom on her own, and walk fiercely with a walker. She showed so much improvement that she has moved from the nursing wing on the retirement community into an assisted living apartment.

Thus far she has had a few stomach pains, but has not lost her appetite as doctors tell us she will. She has in fact gained all the weight she lost in the hospital and rehab. Honestly if you look at her you would never know she had cancer.

Some days I forget she has cancer for a few hours. Some days we go over to play bingo with her in the dining room and she looks just like everyone else there. Some days she calls to remind me that I need to buy her boxes of tissues and toilet paper and I buy the bundle of six boxes of tissues and twelve rolls of toilet paper.

She will slow down and she will pass on. We told the decline will happen fast and could happen without warning. That hasn’t stopped us from making plans for her birthday in August and a visit with all her grandchildren later in the summer.

Until her passing comes she is living! She is encouraging us to live! She is changing the lives of people around her who can’t explain why she has lived seven months since her initial diagnosis.

I am so thankful that she is my mom and my teacher! I am so glad she decided to fight through rehab and live!

This post is linked to Pour Your Heart Out on Things I Can’t Say.

Kids Write- Summer Journal Prompts

June 24, 2014 By Deirdre

There is something special about reading the words kids write in their journals. When you read through a journal entry you can see what they are hearing as spell words, what they understand about sentence structure, and what is need to work on. This post contains several tips for helping kids write during the summer and a printable list on journal writing prompts called Capturing Summer Memories (Click on the link to right to get to the writing prompt printable.)

My son started journaling in kindergarten this year. Each month I looked forward to him bringing home his journal for us to read in home. I loved getting to see how his writing progressed during the year. It didn’t make sense for him to stop writing during the summer.

Like most kids who are not totally into writing my son has claimed that he couldn’t think of anything to write about in his summertime journal. I decide to create list of writing prompts that he could use to inspire his journal writing thoughts for the day. He hasn’t had to use any of the prompts on the list if he can come up with one of his own. Having the list has really helped on those day that ideas just don’t come to mind.

The summer journal prompts are kept right inside the cover on his writing journal. They are just placed there. They aren’t stapled in place. I wanted him to be able to move the list to place across from the page he is writing on. I didn’t want him flip back and forth.

Tips for Helping Kids Write

Pick a writing spot that will aid kids in sitting up and holding their pencils correctly.

Have kids brainstorm out loud what they will be writing.

If not knowing how to spell a word will keep your kids from writing, help them sound out the word or have them brainstorm with you words they need you to write on the page opposite each day’s journal page.

Let kids know what your expectations are for their journaling.

Examples:

Getting thoughts on paper

Capital letters at the beginning of sentences

Punctuation at the end of a sentences

A certain number of words each sentences

A certain number of sentences

Correct spelling of all or most words.

Make writing a part of your daily or weekly summer schedule

I hope that you find having your kids write will help them hone and grow their writing skills.

Summer Learning Series

I am teaming up with several wonderful bloggers for the next three weeks to share great tips for summer learning.

This post is part of a collaborative three-part summer learning series hosted by Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas.

Be sure to check out these other great ideas:

15 Ideas for Summer Reading at Home- Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas

Summer Reading Picture Graph- Busy Kids=Happy Mom

Choice, Games, and Family Time – Home Literacy Blueprint

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree Activity – Lalymom

I am a week behind the other blogs in this series. Another post in my summer learning series will be up this Friday. It will look at finding math facts in your everyday life. I hope you will come back on Friday to check it out.

Cool Games- Button Golf

June 23, 2014 By Deirdre

As far as cool games go, JDaniel thinks this is one of the coolest. After playing the basic version on the game for awhile and some versions of his own, he announced that we need to keep this game for a long time. I just love it when I find a learning activity that he really likes.

Button golf and the cool games JDaniel came up with to make it his own really work on fine motor skills, eye hand coordination, estimating force and well so much more. I love games that have kids learning while playing.

Let me walk you through how to create a button golf game and then the various cool games JDaniel and I came up with.

Creating a Button Golf Game

You will need the following supplies to put your game together:

Paper towel roll
Toothpicks (nine)
White construction paper
Markers (various colors)
Scissors (pointed end scissors)
Tape
Buttons (Some with raised edges and some smooth edged)

Directions for Creating the Game

Place marks at one and a half inch intervals on the paper towel tube. I did this around the whole paper towel tube.

Cut from one mark in each section to the next going around the tube until you cut out that section of the tube. When it has been cut out, it should look like a napkin ring.

After you have all your paper towel rings cut out, cut out nine small triangular flags or pennants from the white construction paper.

Number the flags from one to nine with marker. We used a different colored marker for each number.

Place two small horizontal slits on the large end of the triangle.

Weave a toothpick through the two slit in each flag.

Tape the bottom of a flag to the back of each of the paper towel rings.

These rings will be your golf holes!

Cool Games to Play

Basic Button Golf

Place the golf rings out on a table or the floor in any configuration your like. Make sure you have enough space between rings to flip the buttons.

Starting with the golf hole number one trying flipping a button into the ring by placing a top button on the edge of a bottom button and pressing down. The pressure from the top button will make the bottom button fly.

Once you have flipped a button into the first golf hole, move onto the next hole.

Button Golf Line Up

Put all of the golf ring holes in a line and try to move quickly from one hole to the next. This version of the game doesn’t require moving around a table or on the ground to get to the next hole.

You can make this game challenging by taking out and ruler and measuring out a distance you will need to flip the button from.

Sum! Button Golf

You can spread the golf rings out as you did in the basic version. One player can call out an addition fact and another player can try to flip their button into the golf button ring with the sum.

For more learning games you will want to check out my Early Learning Pinterest board. It is filled with them.

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom’s board Early Learning on Pinterest.

Other Cool Games

Lego Count and Move

Gold Coin Vowel Sound Drop

15 Outdoor Activities for Kids

Cool Experiments for Kids-The Sunday Showcase

June 21, 2014 By Deirdre

The Kid Bloggers Network of bloggers is a really tight network. Recently Crayon Box Chronicles had a very special little girl who is fighting to live. You can learn more about Savannah by visiting a Facebook page that has been set up for her. While her mom is with her in the hospital, I thought it would be great if we supported her by visiting and sharing some of her awesome blog posts. After these posts, you will find a round up cool experiments for kids shared on The Sunday Showcase too.

Cool Experiments-The Sunday Showcase

Crayon Box Chronicles has created something I have always wanted to make for JDaniel. Her DYI Geoboard is really wonderful.

This arctic sensory bin with super fun slides would be great for pretend play.

Another wonderful project from Crayon Box Chronicles is this DYI Fireman Air Tank! It would also be great for pretend play.

Carpet squares have such wonderful textures. I would have never thought about painting with them. I am glad Crayon Box Chronicles did.

Here are Some Cool Experiments The Sunday Showcase:

Cool Experiments- The Sunday Showcase

Planes Trains takes a mini sand play set to the beach and experiments with track and bridge placement. Sand can be an unstable environment. There is a lot fo planning that goes into building a successful track.

Little Bins for Little Hands shares 25 Classic Science Experiments. What fun it will be to try each one!

Planet Smarty Pants shared an open ended summer science activity! Creating potions looks like a lot of fun!

Coffee Cups and Crayons makes a liquid a solid when she makes ice cream in a can.

Link Up Information

If you are here for the first time please read this informational post on Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas’ site for the full details. Anything kid friendly and/or child centered is welcome! You are welcome to share more than one post, but we don’t accept links for giveaways, shops, or downloads for purchase, etc. They will be deleted.

An InLinkz Link-up

signature

Frozen Olaf Cup Craft for Kids

June 19, 2014 By Deirdre

We didn’t see Frozen when it was in the movie theater last winter. JDaniel was introduced to Frozen Olaf while watching in on DVD at a friend’s house recently. He was definitely JDaniel’s favorite character from the movie. I decided it would be fun to make Frozen Olaf at home and we hunted through our craft supplies and under the kitchen sink for cups to make him.

We ended up not having white Styrofoam cups under the sink so, I borrowed some from my mom. (I had purchased a large supply of them for her last week so, I knew she had some.) We found the rest of the supplies among the craft elements in our crafts closet.

Here is what we used to make Frozen Olaf:

Styrofoam cups (two)
Black felt
White felt
Orange construction paper
Black pipe cleaner
Glue stick
Scissors

How we put Frozen Olaf Together:

Cutting Out His Facial Features

The first thing we did was cut out the mouth and eye components out of felt. The eyes are made of two small black circles and two large white circles. The mouth is made of a large fun filled sort of pocket shape made with black felt and a white tooth. We looked carefully at the tooth Frozen Olaf had in the movie and decided it had rounded sides rather than straight sides. (You could probably make the tooth either way.)

The second step was to cut out a large triangle out of orange construction paper. Our nose is a little bit wider than Frozen Olaf’s nose was in the movie, but I think it still looks great.

Gluing on His Facial Features

Once we had all the facial features ready, we glued them on to the cups. The mouth components were glued to cup that sits right side up. The mouth seems to look best right below the rim of the cups we used. You may want to try them in various places on the cup before gluing them down.

The eye components were glued at about the halfway point of an upside down cup. Frozen Olaf’s eyes are really close to his nose. By placing his eyes halfway down the cup it gave us the look we wanted.

Frozen Olaf’s nose had glue placed on only the top half of it before it was added to his face. We wanted to be able to disassemble cup craft and stack the cups together when we stored it to enjoy later.

Giving Frozen Olaf Hair

Frozen Olaf’s hair was made of a pipe cleaner cut into fourths. After cutting the pipe cleaner into fourths, we poked a small hole in the bottom of the cup with the scissors. The hole was just the right size for pipe cleaners to fit it and not large enough for them to wiggle around it. When all the pipe cleaners were in place, we twisted the ends inside cup together to keep them in place.

Three Fun Things About Our Frozen Olaf

One of the fun things about our Frozen Olaf craft is that you can turn the cups back and forth until two cups are placed where you want it to be. It is fun to try to balance the cups just right.

The second fun thing about it is that you can stack the top part of the head into the bottom part of the head. This makes them great for traveling from school to home. It also makes them easy to store for later.

The third fun thing about keeping the two sections separate we didn’t have to worry about attaching them. (That might have been tricky unless we want a tape them together on the inside or back. We decided not to have tape appear on or in the craft.)

Other Fun Children’s Art Projects

If you are looking for other children’s art project on the Children’s Art board displayed below. It is a group board contributed to by top kid bloggers.

Follow Debbie Clement’s board Children’s Art on Pinterest.

Kids Activities- Gold Coin Vowel Sound Drop

June 17, 2014 By Deirdre

Working on the different sounds vowels helps children who are learning to read master the sounds. Interacting with vowels sounds in fun pirate themed kids activities helps children identify words that they know that contain each of the vowel sounds. It also helps to reinforce the vowels sounds children already in their auditory memory.

This is one of those kids activities that children can play a number of ways. They can work on long vowel sounds, short vowel sounds or a mixture of both. We focused on long vowel sounds when we explored this activity

These game could be played inside or out. Kids activities that can be played both places give you the option of playing this game in various learning and playing spaces.

Supplies Needed for the Kids Activities

Large plastic container
Construction paper to create a skull and crossbones
Heavy duty glue stick
Toy gold coins
Permanent marker (black)
Container for coins

Creating the Kids Activities Container and Coins

I hand drew the skull and cross bones for the outside of the large plastic container. You could easily print out a coloring page with the skull and cross bones and have your kids color it. When they are colored in, you could glue the picture to the container.

The gold coins we used came from a party store. On each gold coin I wrote one of the letters that is a vowel. It was a challenge to write the letters on the bumpy surface of the coins. Some letters came out much clearer than others.

How to Play Gold Coin Vowel Sound Drop

We took the coins and coin drop container out into the back yard. JDaniel was encouraged to stand straight and tall and try dropping the coin in the container after telling me a word that had the vowel sound featured on the coin. (He started to drop the coin from a lower height after having a few coins barely miss the container.)

I encouraged him to stand up straighter and hold the coin up at about waist height. He found that the coin ended up going into the coin drop container more easily when he wasn’t bent over. It was also a whole lot more rewarding.

It was actually harder to get the coin in the container then it was to come up with long vowel word to match the letter on the coin.

You will find more outdoor activities on my Outdoor Fun for Kids Pinterest board.

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom’s board Outdoor Fun for Kids on Pinterest.

Fine Motor Activity- Fold and Thread Necklace

June 16, 2014 By Deirdre

Children of various ages benefit from working on fine motor skills. This fine motor activity actually creates the opportunity for children to work a several fine motor skills. I have called this fine motor activity Fold and Thread Necklace, but there are really several other skills that children will work on while creating the necklace. I will tell you more about them as we go along.

Supplies Need For the Fine Motor Activity

Construction paper (red, blue and white)
Scissors
Hole punch
Ruler
Pencil
Yarn (red)

Directions for the Fold and Thread Necklace

I went ahead and drew vertical lines one inch apart on front of pieces of red, blue and while construction paper. On the back on the construction paper I drew horizontal lines three inches apart.

JDaniel cut the vertical strips out first. It was hard to cut the strips perfectly straight. Some strips ended up a little wavy. They looked really cool with a little bit of wave. If you really want super straight strips, you may want to fold the paper in half horizontally. Children will have much shorter strip to cut out. Don’t worry about creating a crease in the paper. Children will cut along the crease when they make the horizontal cuts.

When the long strips had been cut out, JDaniel turned them over and cut the strips along the horizontal line I had draw on the paper. He declared this much easier to do.

The next step was a little bit hard to do. Each strip need to be fan folded. That means folding a portion of the strip down turning the paper over and folding another portion of the strip down. This process continues until you reach the end of the strip. That is about four folds.

When you have strip fan folded, you will use a hole punch to create a hole in the center of the fan folded paper. This can be a little challenging too. We found that if you used thin construction paper for this fine motor activity it was easier to punch holes through.

Keeping the strip fan folded thread a piece of yarn through its holes. Once the strip is on the yarn, you can open the fan fold a little or a lot. It is so much easier to thread the yard through as a collapsed strip then it would have been to thread the yarn through each hole.

You will need to repeat the fan folding, hole punching, and threading steps until you have a number of strips on the yarn. We chose fold and hole punch all the strips before threading, but how you complete these three steps is really up to you.

While creating this fine motor necklace, kids have worked on cutting, folding, hole punching, and threading. Combining of all these skills gives kids the opportunity to create a really fun necklace.

Feel free to try a variety of different types of paper, foam or material to create a fold and thread necklace. The key is the thickness of the material you decided to use. The thinner the material is the easier it will be to hole punch. Warning: If the material is too thin, it could tear while children are trying to cut or thread it.

Here is another fine motor activity we have tried. Weaving ribbons through a dish drying mat help children work on planning, creating, and threading. We had a lot of fun fine motor weaving.

Watch for more fine motor activities this week and a huge giveaway here on Friday. When I say huge I mean huge, you won’t want to miss it.

Playdough Recipes for Fun (The Sunday Showcase)

June 14, 2014 By Deirdre

Making your own playdough is super easy when you use the playdough recipes I am featuring on The Sunday Showcase today. The posts I am sharing include playdough recipes and activities that you can do with your home playdough.

We make playdough often at my house. It is a great indoor activity on rainy days, high pollen days, or days when your children just need to slow down and have some “home” time. One of wonderful things about these playdough recipes is that you will probably have many of the ingredients already in your pantry at home. When you need something fun to do with your kids, you just need to open your pantry door and grab them.

Playdough Recipes for Fun

My Nearest and Dearest has created a coffee bean playdough recipe. Making this playdough recipe looks like it was as much fun as playing with it.

Ocean Cloud Playdough was also shared by My Nearest and Dearest on the link up last week. My son has tons of ocean creature figures. They would be great to play with in this dough.

In the Playroom created a color matching activity with moon dough that looks like fun. The creations shared in this post are super cute.

Munchkins and Moms shared a secret ingredient you can add to the traditional moon dough! I was suprised by what it was. You will be too.

Construction equipment toys let your dig into a construction sites made of playdough. If you have child that likes construction equipment, you may have a small set of construction equipment toys at home in your toy bin.

Chocolate shadow playdough has two shades of brown and a great scent. This post shares how I make playdough. We made it for Groundhog Day.

Creating playdough in fun colors and with fun names that match a favorite author’s books is a playdough recipe for fun. This post shares several Dr. Seuss themed playdoughs.

Link Up Information

An InLinkz Link-up

Kids Fun- Fine Motor Weaving

June 12, 2014 By Deirdre

There are so many skills and concepts that kids work on while fine motor weaving. Kids don’t necessarily realize that when they are weaving. Kids fun activities don’t have to feel like work. They can just feel like creating.

Open Ended Kids Fun

A simple dish drainer and some colored ribbon were all that we used for this kids fun fine motor weaving activity. I left this activity open ended. There wasn’t a set of directions put out with it. It was more of an invitation to learn and create.

A yard of each of the colors ribbon was placed in a plastic bowl along with the dish draining mat on the kitchen table. ( I found the mat at Dollar Tree!)

I sat at the table doing something else and JDaniel wandered in and started weaving. Due to the fact that this kids fun activity was open ended we were able to chat as the ribbon went up and down through the slats of the dish drainer. When one ribbon ran out, a new length of ribbon was used. I think it ended up looking great.

Younger children may need quiet as the weave. Chatting would distract them and may even frustrate them. Putting the material out of a workspace and letting them find them would be fine.

Skill Focused Fine Motor Weaving

You could easily give oral or visual directions to children as to what you want them to create.

Here are some ideas I came up with:

They could weave every other row on the dish draining mat.
You could have them weave three rows in each color of ribbon with an empty row in between each color.
You could cut the ribbons into one-foot lengths. The kids fun might we creating an ABC, AABC, or an ABBC pattern with the shorter lengths of ribbon.
Kids could create vertical patterns with the ribbon.
The ribbon could be woven vertically and horizontally.
Kids could have fun replicating designs that you have taken photos and put out for them to look at.

As you can see the possibilities are endless. I bet you can come up with your own ideas of how kids can use these materials for fine motor work.

Other Kids Fun Weaving Materials:

We used ribbon to weave through the dish draining mat. I like how easily ribbon slips in and out of the slats.

Here are some other materials you could use to weave with:

Tall weeds from the yard
Pipe cleaners
Yarn
Strips of construction paper
Strips from a paper bag
Rick rack

The thinner the material you use to weave with the harder it will be to weave. Kids will really have to work on their pincher grip to weave with yarn or weeds. I selected a wide ribbon because it would be easier to hold. A thin ribbon would be challenging to weave with too. Patriotic colors were chose for this kids fun activity, but you could select any colors or pattern you like. You could put out different themed patterns during different times of the year.

If you don’t have a Dollar Tree near you or drying mat you can use, you could use a cookie cooling rack. We used a cookie cooling rack and pipe cleaners for a similar activity.

Both activities work on fine motor skills, focus, patterning, planning, and visual discrimination.

If you like this fine motor activity, here are some more you will want to try with your children.

Paper Plate Octopus

Magnetic Astronaut and Tape Rocket

Homemade Drop Box

Letter and Number Literacy Webs

Spider Web Fine Motor Activity

I have a number of fine motor and other early learning activities pinned to my Early Learning Pinterest board. Feel free to check them out!

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom’s board Early Learning on Pinterest.

American Flag Craft for Kids

June 11, 2014 By Deirdre

Using a few simple craft materials you can create an American flag craft mobile that can twist in the breeze or decorate your child’s room. It is super easy! We made this mobile two years ago for a guest post on the blog Not Just Cute. I thought you would love to see it!

A flag mobile like this one would be great to hang up on Flag Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day or the 4th of July. We have had it hung up in a tree in our yard on bright sunny days lately, but we take it in a night. It isn’t weather safe. It has spent the most time in JDaniel’s room hanging from one of the arms of his ceiling fan.

How To Make Our American Flag Craft for Kids

The first thing you have to do it so gather your supplies.

We used:

Cardboard box ( Colored poster board could be used instead)
Paint (Red, white and blue)
White construction paper
Fishing line
Plastic hanger (red)
Scissors
X -Acto knife

Directions for creating the mobile:

Trace the outline of a flag and mark off six stripes of equal length.

Draw wavy lines to separate each of the stripes.

If you are using poster board for your stripes, cut out the stripes with scissors. If you are using cardboard, cut out the stripes with an X-Acto knife.

Cut a four inch length from three of your stripes. The short stripes with be the blue area of the flag.

Now it is kid’s time! Have the kids color the three short stripe sections blue. Two of the long stripes and one of the shorter stripes will need to be painted white. Two of the shorter stripes and two of the long stripes will be painted red.

While the paint is drying, cut stars out of the white construction paper. We have nine stars on our flag.

When the paint is dry, glue the stars onto the short blue stripes.

Thread a needle with fishing line.

Use the fishing line to connect each of the small blue stripes to one of the medium sized or shorter stripes. Then connect the blue stripes to the red hanger with fishing line.

Next use fishing line to connect the longer stripes to the coat hanger.

Make sure the stripes will have enough room to spin.

Hang your mobile up and watch it spin.