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+.

Update Letter on My Family

April 8, 2014 By Deirdre

Dear Readers,

Almost every Wednesday since I started this blog, I have written an essay about something JDaniel or I has learned, an activity we have done or what is currently going on at our house. Recently I haven’t been posting those essays.

I plan for them, sit down to write them, and they just don’t come. It isn’t that things haven’t been happening to write about. It just hasn’t felt right to write about them and sometimes these writing sessions lead to bouts of tears.

Here are some of what has been going on.

My mom spent seven weeks in the hospital during the winter. During that time the doctor’s found pancreatic cancer. While she was in the hospital, I tried to visit her every day. I missed about four days, but knew other family members were there on those days.

Mom moved from the hospital to a nursing home that offers rehabilitation. At first she refused to eat, drink or communicate there. She had been better in the hospital. It took several weeks before she made any strides at all. When she did, she learned to walk again, feed herself and write.

Earlier in the year I became her power of attorney and had to make big decisions with the aid of sisters, but not my mom.

The blog and writing posts for it weren’t something that I had a lot of time to do. As you may recall, I went back to work full time in the fall right before my mom got sick. Between work, doing things for my mom, house stuff, being JDaniel4’s mom, and JDaniel3’s wife my plate has been full. I have had to cut back on the number of post that I share each week.

Doing cooking projects, crafts, and learning activities with JDaniel has been a wonderful outlet during this time. Writing posts about those topics has been easier than the more introspective or serious posts.

Things have slowed down a little with my mom. I haven’t had any late night hospital visits to make sure her gall bladder drain is in place in a week. A wonderful hospice group has joined the nursing home team and my family in taking care of her. There are still things like getting her house ready for sale, staying on top of her bills, and working on making memories with her. Thankfully the to do list much shorter than it has been.

I hope to start writing personal essays again! I really miss writing them. They have been a great way to save memories from JDaniel’s childhood.

Until they come without tears when they come at all I won’t be sharing them here. I hope you will stick with me and will find fun thing to do in the posts that you find here.

Many of you have e-mailed, Facebook messaged me, left amazing comments and have sent sweet treasures to my family. I am so thankful for them and for you!

Take Care,

JDaniel4’s Mom

Easter Craft for Kids- Bunny Themed Treat Bags

April 8, 2014 By Deirdre

Bunny bags are a fun Easter craft! We created bunny bags to contain some special treats for JDaniel’s teachers at school. They are really wonderful and we decide to send some yummy treasures their way. This fun Easter craft was super easy to create using materials we had at home. JDaniel’s rabbits fun facial features made his teachers super happy.

Materials Needed for This Easter Craft:

Brown paper lunch bags

White construction paper

Pink construction paper

Pink pompoms- small

Wiggly eyes- large

Magic Markers

Glue Stick

Hole Punch

Index Card

Ribbon

We started by gluing white construction paper cutouts of a bunny’s head to the brown paper bags. I went ahead and cut them out ahead of time. You could draw an outline of the bunny’s head for your children to cut out or have them cut out the bunny head free hand.

Next we glued some pink ear inserts onto the bunny’s ears.

Then we glued on the pink pompom as the nose and the wiggly eyes. Having the eyes and noses in place on the bags really seemed to help us both picture where the other facial features would need to go.

I went ahead and added a mouth to the one bunny bag that I was going to do. It would be a good example for JDaniel. He would be able to make a bag similar to mine was what I was thinking. I was wrong. He created unique bunny faces for each bunny that were more awesome than mine was.

JDaniel’s bunnies ended up with eyebrows, eyelashes, and super fun mouths. One bunny even had hair. They were so cute. I couldn’t help smiling from ear to ear as each one was completed.

We set these fun Easter ideas aside to dry overnight. When we knew for sure that the eyes and noses were solidly in place, we added the treats to the bags. Each teacher got a number of pieces of Hershey’s Easter candy from a box of candy I was sent to use to make Blonde Brownie bunnies. They also received a Blonde brownie bunny.

When the bags were filled, I folded down the top of the bag once and place two holes in the flap with a hole punch. We placed a foot long piece of ribbon through the holes. Onto one end of the ribbon I put a gift card I had made in advance. Each card read “Hopping You Have a Great Day!” Then the ribbon was tied in a bow.

This Easter idea turned out so well. I think the best part of the bags were the facial features JDaniel added to them.

If you are looking for more Easter themed crafts, snacks and learning activities, you may want to visit my Easter board on Pinterest.

Cool Math for Kids- Easter Egg Learning

April 4, 2014 By Deirdre

Simply adding shapes to a paper egg can open the door for exploring several math concepts. That is why this post is called Cool Math for Kids- Easter Egg Learning. We actually covered several math skills in this crafty math activity.

It all started with a cutting a simple egg shape from construction paper. I selected a bold blue color of paper for this cool math for kids activity, but a piece of white paper would have been just as good. I cut the shapes for this activity ahead of time. In hindsight I could have had JDaniel cut out the shapes himself.

I asked JDaniel to create rows of patterned shapes on the egg. If you want your children to have a more opened ended activity, you could have them glue the shapes anywhere they wanted to on the egg. Layering of the shapes is fine too. If you choose to do this activity that way, you may need to remind them to keep some of each shape showing. You will want to be able to see each of the shapes in the creation to count them later. If they can’t see the shapes, this won’t end of being cool math for kids. It would be a cute Easter egg craft.

When all of the shapes had been arranged and rearranged, we glued into place. If you want to reuse the shapes to do this activity again and again, you may not want to glue the shapes down. You can actually move to the next math activity without the shapes glued down.

With the shapes in place have your child or children record on a piece of paper or a shape chart the number of squares, circles, triangles and ovals that were used to decorate the egg. If the shapes have been layered over each other, you may want to help them remember which shapes are layered underneath the shapes they can see. An oval and a circle may look very similar. A square and a rectangle may look similar too.

We glued our egg and shape counting chart to a large piece of construction paper to hang up. You could do that too. You could also glue the egg and the number chart into a math journal. You could also just hang up the egg.

We spent time talking about shapes on the egg after we had glued it down.

I asked these cool math for kids questions:

Which shape did you use the most?

Which shape did you use the least?

How many circles and ovals were used?

How many shapes were used on the egg?

Starting to use math vocabulary words into our conversation as well as a number of math skills help build a strong math foundation.

If you are looking for some other Easter themed activities, you may want to check out my Easter board on Pinterest.

Cool Science Experiments- Making a Rubber Egg

April 2, 2014 By Deirdre

This cool experiment for kids called the rubber egg is probably JDaniel’s favorite of all the cool science experiments with egg we have tried this spring. He spent several days observing the egg as it was transformed. He later had a wonderful time watching it bounce.

We started by putting a raw egg into an old glass tomato sauce jar very gently. One of us was a little worried that the egg would crack and ooze the entire inside of the entire jar. One of us had no worries about that happening. I bet you can guess who was worried.

With the egg in the jar we poured white vinegar into the jar until the egg was completely covered. We were surprised to see bubbles form in the water. The egg started to spin a little too. It was really bizarre. When we looked at the egg later that day, the vinegar looked normal and the egg had settled down.

We left the egg in the jar for three days. The vinegar in the jar had strong odor during that period of time. We thought about taking the jar into the garage, but ended up putting a lid on the jar instead.

We did lift the egg up a little during that time to touch it and get a closer look at it. At first it was just a little soft. Over time the shell disappeared. It totally vanished. There was not any remnants of the shell left in the jar.

On day three we took at the egg and played with it on the kitchen table. It did indeed bounce. One of us decided that we should try bouncing it from eight inches off the table. That was too far! When the egg landed on the table it split open and the inside of the egg went everywhere.

It turns out the outer part of the shell that had become bouncy was very thin. The thin transparent shell area just couldn’t take pressure creating by a large drop.

We had a wonderful time discussing what had happened and when we could try this again. It was also decided that I should not be in charge of deciding how high to drop the egg down from. It turns out that I am not very good at that.

Here are some other cool science experiments for kids featuring eggs:

Spinning Eggs (This post has a printable recording sheet.)

Floating or Sinking Eggs ( This post has a printable recording sheet.)

How to Make Spider Web Eggs

If you are interested in doing more cool science experiments with kids, you may want to explore my Early Learning- Science Activities Pinterest board.

Deviled Egg Recipe For Kids

April 1, 2014 By Deirdre

This deviled egg recipe for kids is one my son and I put together to use the eggs leftover from our Cool Science Experiments for Kids- Making Spider Web Eggs post. We had to try to decide what to do with the leftover eggs that we would both enjoy eating. Just what to do with them really didn’t take much thought. Here in the south deviled eggs are super popular. Putting together a deviled egg recipe for kids that my kid would like was a little more challenging.

The deviled egg recipe that seemed to pop up most often had mayonnaise, vinegar, and mustard. My son likes a little bit of mayonnaise, but vinegar and mustard are not favorites of his. The traditional deviled egg recipe also has paprika. Paprika would be too spicy for his taste buds.

I found dozens of variations of the traditional deviled egg recipe. Some looked like they might go over with my son and others sounded too bold for his taste.

Finally I came across a deviled egg recipe that replaced the vinegar, mayo and mustard with ranch dressing. That sounded much more kid friendly to me. When we looked didn’t have ranch dressing in the fridge, but we did have Caesar dressing. My son loves to have it on salads. I decided we would have to try it in our deviled egg recipe.

How did we put our deviled egg recipe for kids together:

We started by cutting our hard boiled eggs in half.

Then we cleaned the yolks out of the white section of the egg. My son decided that old baby spoons did the best job of getting all of the yolk out of the egg. He was right! They really did a great job.

The yolks were them mashed up with a fork. Mashing turned out to be a great job for my son to do. He thoroughly mashed the egg. I bet the children in your life will too.

We added the Caesar dressing a few dabs at a time to the mashed eggs and blended the mixtures. I was worried that we would end up with a runny mess if the dressing was added all at one time.

When the mixture was thoroughly blended, it was spooned into the eggs. Our deviled egg recipe created a mixture that was fairly thick, but not runny. It was really easy to move into the eggs.

I decided to make the eggs look pretty by sprinkling a little Italian seasoning on top of the eggs. My son didn’t think that was a good idea. He questioned what it would taste like and if it would change our deviled egg recipe.

I love the Italian seasoning, but we many leave it off next time. Not all kids are open to trying new spices and my son seems to be one of them.

Here are the ingredients for our deviled egg recipe:

Six hard boiled eggs

Caesar dressing

Italian seasoning (optional)

If you are looking for a recipe to try that will use some of those eggs you will be dyeing for Easter, I sure hope you will try our deviled egg recipe for kids.

If you are looking for more great recipes, you may want to check out my Great Recipes board on Pinterest.

Stories for Kids About Eggs

March 30, 2014 By Deirdre

Why a collection of stories for kids about eggs? My son seems to go through stages where he wants to read books about one subject or theme. The latest theme is Dr. Seuss. We celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday just before his sixth birthday and JDaniel has been interested in reading each and every one of his books. I have loved exploring them along with him but thought it might be time to explore a new theme. Using the book Green Eggs and Ham as the impetus. I charted a course towards stories for kids about eggs. Easter is coming up soon and one of the themes of Easter is eggs. It seemed like a great theme to explore.

I jumped onto the library website to see what books they offered with an egg theme and looked through the books that have boxed up from my old classroom library to search for some too. What I found was a wide assortment of stories for kids about eggs! Many don’t have anything to do with Easter. They are just fun books about eggs that I think kids will love.

This post contains affiliate links.

First the Egg is an amazing book that looks at what came first the chicken or the egg. It also looks at other life cycles and sequences with beautifully die-cut pages. JDaniel will love that the book is Theodor Seuss Geisel’s Honor Book.

The Golden Egg Book (Big Little Golden Book) by Margaret Wise Brown is a favorite from my childhood. A bunny finds an egg and wonders what it contains. By the end of the book, he discovers the egg contains someone who will become a friend.

Green Eggs and Ham is the book that I used to divert us from our exploration of Dr. Seuss. I thought it needed to be included on this list.

The Egg Tree is a Caldecott-winning book about creating an egg tree. A little girl finds old eggs created by her grandmother while searching her grandmother’s house with her brother for eggs. Those eggs become part wonderful egg tree.

Duck & Goose is a really fun book about a duck and goose. They both come across what they think is an egg. They both think it should be theirs to care for. During the story, they learn to work together and they learn that it contains something they hadn’t planned on at all.

The Talking Eggs is a wonderful version of Cinderella. There is an unkind mother and sister along with a sweet hard-working one. When the two sisters come across an old lady with special eggs. Their natures affect the way they interact with the older lady and the eggs. You will love the picture in this Caldecott Honor book.

Rechenka’s Eggs (Paperstar)tells the tale of a kind older lady who takes in a goose that needs tending to. When the goose knocks over the dyes the lady had planned to make her annual collection of awarding winning eggs, the lady is dismayed. Then something wonderful happens! The goose creates beautiful eggs for the lady to share.

An Extraordinary Egg is a little like the story of Duck and Goose. This time three frogs find an egg that they believe is a chicken’s egg. When it hatches, they learn that many animals hatch from eggs. This story for children about an egg is from Leo Lionni. He is a favorite of mine.
The Easter Egg Farm is such a fun book. It just had to be part of a collection of stories for kids about eggs. The story it tells is of a group of hens that are working to create enough eggs for an egg hunt. One hen name Pauline has trouble laying eggs. She has trouble with the pressure of laying eggs. When she does lay an egg, it is super unique. This is a really fun book.

Hank Finds an Egg is a wordless book that shares how Hank works at getting a fallen egg back into its nest. A librarian at our local library shared this book with me. We loved getting to make up our own stories as we looked at the book’s pictures. It also gave us the opportunity to talk about the setting, characters, problems, and solutions in our own words.

The Easter Egg is written by one of JDaniel’s favorite authors Jan Brett. This wonderful story shares how a bunny named Hopi finds a wonderful colored egg to give to the Easter bunny.

I hope you find one or two in this collection of a dozen stories for kids about eggs that you are interested in sharing with the children in your life.

Did I miss one of your favorites? Share the name of your story for kids about eggs in a comment below.

Cool Science Experiments- Making Spider Eggs

March 29, 2014 By Deirdre

This cool science experiment for kids that creates a spider web on a cooked egg has that wow effect that kids really enjoy. This experiment definitely fills children with wonder. JDaniel kept turning the egg over and over to check out the web effect.

While you could probably use a variety of different fruits or dyes to create the spider web effect on, we used blueberries. They happen to fruit that we buy a lot of at my house. (They are a favorite.) In fact, I had to hide the blueberries we used for this experiment in the freezer. The large container I had purchased of them was disappearing very quickly.

Before creating spider web eggs with your children, you may want to read a book that features spiders. Here are some of my favorite books about spiders.

Links below are affiliate links.

How do you make spider web eggs?

The first thing we had to do was gather all the ingredients or science supplies. We took several eggs out of the fridge and placed them in a saucepan. Then we added enough water to the saucepan to cover the eggs. Finally, we added a cup of frozen blueberries. I don’t think you would have to use frozen blueberries. Ours were frozen because they had been hidden in the freezer.

With all the ingredients in the saucepan, you are now ready to boil them. We let ours boil for about 10 minutes.

Then we took the eggs out of the water and blueberry mixture. The eggs were then rinsed off with warm water. After rinsing the eggs, we lightly cracked them on the counter. Even with trying to crack them lightly we ended up with some big cracks.

The now cracked eggs were placed back into the water and blueberry mixture. We let them sit in the blue liquid for about three hours. You may want to experiment with the time at your house. The longer they are in the darker the web may be on your eggs.

When the egg sitting time was up, we removed the shell from the eggs. Viola! The interior of most of the eggs had a spider web effect. Some of the eggs ended up with big bluish purple spots. We guessed that that was due to the thinness of some of the shells. The blueberry color had probably soaked through the shell during the boil.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, this cool science experiment for kids has a wow effect. JDaniel keeps turning the eggs around and around to check out the spider web pattern.

After observing the physical changes to the outside egg, we talked about all the physical changes that had happened inside the egg. We ended up having a good science discussion and a really cool snack.

Other cool science experiments featuring eggs:

Spinning Eggs (This post has a printable recording sheet.)

Floating or Sinking Eggs ( This post has a printable recording sheet.)

If you are interested in doing more cool science experiments with kids, you may want to explore my Early Learning- Science Activities Pinterest board.

{Easter Ideas} Empty Tomb Rolls

March 26, 2014 By Deirdre

One of the fun Easter ideas we have tried is creating empty tomb rolls. This cooking project helps children to experience the Easter story as they bake. I have found that story themed cooking lessons help my son understand stories and concepts. The story of the stone rolling away and Jesus’ tomb being found empty while wonderfully miraculous can be hard for some children to grasp.

Easter Ideas- Making Empty Tomb Rolls

Here is how I made the story the resurrection story more than just an Easter idea for JDaniel and the boy next door:

We started by talking about the events leading up to Jesus’ tomb being found empty. Both boys are very familiar with the Easter story and they were able to take turns filling me in on the events. If you have class or children at home that aren’t familiar with the story, you may want to take out a children’s bible or an Easter storybook and read it to them.

Then we took out a broiler pan. We could have used a cookie sheet, but I reached into my pan cabinet and pulled out the first thing I could grab.

I had purchased a package of five ready to bake rolls in a cylinder knowing that I wanted enough for both boys to get two rolls and have one left over for me. If you were doing this with a larger group, you may want to get a larger roll of rolls.

Each boy placed his rolls on his side of the broiler pan as I explained the next step. It was really hard to not want to squish and squash the rolls. One of the boys, in particular, lost this battle and ended up squishing his rolls.

It was more challenging to do the next step of the activity with squished rolls, but it was not impossible. I told the boys to pry open their rolls in the middle and place a marshmallow in the center. The rolls we had purchase advertised that they had many layers. That made it easier to place the marshmallow in them.

The rolls I explained to the boys represented the cave that was used for Jesus’ tomb. The marshmallow represented Jesus’ body wrapped or shrouded with burial cloths. By placing the marshmallow in the rolls we were replaying what had happened to Jesus when he was buried.

With the marshmallow in the rolls (tombs) we sealed the rolls closed just as Jesus’s burial place had been closed off. The closed rolls were then placed in the pan.

Talking About the Story the Rolls Tell

We talked about how the disciples and other followers of Jesus knew he was safely behind a rock that had been rolled in place. The marshmallows were just as safe in the rolls we all agreed.

After the rolls had been in the oven for the amount of time recommended on the package, we took them out. We immediately saw that something had happened to some of the rolls. I had hoped it would happen to all of them, but it didn’t. What had happened? The rolls and had a small opening in the front and we could see inside them. Much as the tomb had opened and those that came to visit it could look inside. What a great illustration of one the central Easter ideas!

There was also only a small amount of marshmallow ooze at their entrances. We talked about how the followers of Jesus’ had found the white wrappings that had been placed on him. They were all that was left in the tomb.

The boys bit into the rolls to see if they would find the marshmallows in the rolls that had stayed closed. There wasn’t even small marshmallow ooze.

We talked about how the marshmallows had probably melted into the rolls while it was cooking. That made sense to both of the boys. They were in awe of how the marshmallow melting had created enough steam to push a hole in the biscuit in an attempt to get out.

The boys were astonished by this Easter idea. They would have never guessed that the rolls would have become empty. I bet the disciples and Jesus’ followers were astonished too.

Here are three other Easter ideas that help children learn about the true meaning of Easter:

Easter Story Cookies

Legend of the Dogwood Hand Print Craft

True Meaning of Easter Rocks

If you are interested in more Easter related crafts, snacks, and learning activities, you may want to visit my Easter board on Pinterest.

Science Experiments for Kids- Spinning Eggs

March 25, 2014 By Deirdre

Egg Experiment: Spinning Eggs is the second experiment in a series of five egg science experiments for kids I will be sharing with you. I know the idea having children spin eggs might be a little scary. Well, it might make you worry less to know that one of the eggs in this experiment is cooked. Yes, that means one of the eggs is raw or uncooked. Don’t worry I will share with you tips on how to make working with this eggs less scary to spin in this post.

Before we started spinning eggs, I asked JDaniel to predict which egg he thought would spin the best on the table. When he had given me his answer, I asked him to tell me why. With predictions made we talked about the rules of spinning eggs. While they may seem obvious, it was good to go over them.

Egg Spinning Rules

Don’t put all your power into the spin. Why? It might cause it to sail off the table.
Place the egg in the middle of the table. Why? Placing it near the edge of the table could cause it to fall off the table.
Placing your arm up as a barrier to keep the egg of the table is a great idea.

Outcome

We had a hard time getting either egg to spin on its end. We tried and tried. Each time the eggs slipped to their sides.
The cooked egg would spin in around, but we had trouble getting it to stay in place. It tended to wobble off course a little.
The uncooked egg really didn’t like to spin. It preferred to roll. It liked to add a little flair to its roll by adding a turn at the end of the roll.
We talked about why the uncooked egg didn’t spin well and decided that liquid inside the uncooked egg was sloshing around and causing the egg to move different ways on the inside effecting the outside movement.
We talked about how the cooked egg doesn’t have all that liquid moving around. It is so much easier for a solid object to spin because of that.
Then my son recorded the result of the experiment on a recording sheet.

writing out the experiments results

After several attempts to spin the eggs on the table, JDaniel decided that the egg experiment of spinning eggs needed to be moved to the floor. This turned out to be a great decision. The eggs were able to move around without encountering places that they could fall off of.

Here are the links to the Science Experiment for Kids- Spinning Egg worksheets:

Science Experiment for Kids- Spinning Eggs

If you like this spinning egg experiment, you may want to check out our Science Experiment for Kids- Floating or Sinking Eggs.

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Butterflies in Crafts and Activities

March 24, 2014 By Deirdre

We haven’t seen any butterflies since the temperature here started to yo-yo back and forth so, we made a cupcake liner sun catcher butterfly to remind us that spring is here. We can’t see the butterfly flitting around the yard, but we can see it superimposed over the view of our yard as we look out the window. Maybe when the temperature warms up we will be able see our sun catcher butterfly and a real live butterfly at the same time. I hope it warms up enough for that soon.

I cut out the outline of two butterflies and shapes on their wings. JDaniel could probably have traced my outline and done some cutouts himself, but I was inspired to do this after he had gone to bed one night.

The trickiest part was having the paper stay folded as I cut out the each shape. I didn’t want to end up with lots of crease lines in the paper. Had JDaniel been awake he would have told me that wouldn’t matter or we could have taken turns holding the paper for each other.

I found a super fun set of cupcake liners when I went to JoAnn’s to get the materials for the Easter Egg Toss Bottles project. I knew that they would be thin enough to let light shine through them and colorful enough to make pretty sun catcher. They were also super easy to cut.

The tricky part about using the cupcake liners was that it was hard to cut them to fit the cutouts perfectly. The smaller cutouts were easy. It was the long cutouts at the top of the butterfly’s wings that offered a challenge. At first we tried to cut the outside edge of the cupcake liner to see if it would be long enough. It wasn’t long enough. The arch in the liner kept it from working. The only way to make it work was to layer to sections of cutout cupcake liners. We really weren’t sure how that would look, but it end up being okay.

A wonderful attribute of cupcake liners is that they have a smooth flat section and a fluted section. The areas we used the fluted section on ended up having a really wonderful texture to them. The texture wasn’t too noticeable, but was just enough to add a little bit of a funky flair to the craft.

Cupcake liners have been a wonderful crafting tool at our house. We have made a cupcake liner bouquet and pumpkin craft with them so far. I am thinking a decorated Easter egg may be in our future.

Here some other crafts and activities featuring butterflies we have done: