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+.

Last Minute Stocking Stuffers

December 18, 2013 By Deirdre

With Christmas just a week away there isn’t much time to gather the items you want to put into your children’s’ stockings. I thought I would share with you some of the items JDaniel will be getting his stocking as well as some old favorites. The old favorites didn’t necessarily come into our house as stocking stuffers but have been dearly loved.This post contains affiliate links.Spot It! (Color/Packaging May Vary) is one of JDaniel’s favorite card games. We received it as a review item the summer before last. It challenges players to spot pictures identical to the ones on their card to make a match. The first player to find a matching picture gets the card. This is how we play the game at our house. There are several ways to play Spot It included in the directions.Safari Ltd Coral Reef TOOB – Includes 11 BPA, Pthalate, and Lead Free Hand Painted Figurines – Ages 3+s filled with wonderful creatures that your children will love to play with in a sensory bin or sink or bathtub. They are perfect for pretend play.

Crayola Washable Window Markers, Car Window Markers, 8 Count were given to JDaniel for his birthday. He has loved drawing on the kitchen windows with them. I love how easily they clean up.

Rhode Island Novelty Classic Toy Soldiers in Assorted Poses 144 Pieceswere in JDaniel’s stocking last year. He loves building structures for the soldiers fight from. They have also been great to take into the woods to play with.

Toysmith Magnifying Bug ViewerToysmith Magnifying Bug Viewer is great for containing bugs that you want to view up close. I love that you can put an interesting object ( flower, rock, shell, etc..) into the container and look at it up close with having to hold it in your hand or put in on a hard surface.

Firefly Kids Toothbrush, Soft – Kylo Ren Lightsaber has been one of our favorite toothbrushes. I love that it reminds me of how long we need to brush (Yes, I help my son brush his teeth.) and JDaniel loves that the brush looks like a light saber.

These are some of my favorite stocking stuffer ideas.

What do you like to put in your children’s stockings?

Christmas Meals and Snacks for Kids

December 17, 2013 By Deirdre

I haven’t had as much time this year to make JDaniel special Christmas meals and snacks. What with going back to work and my mom being in the hospital things have been hectic and crazy. I decided rather than share a new Christmas meal or snack for kids with you I would share some of my favorites from previous years.

A layered Christmas tree lunch is made of rows of various finger foods for children. The layers could have been served in ham and cheese crackers with grapes and yogurt, but this was more fun.

Last year we made buche de Noel rolls as part of a study of Christmas in France.

A Christmas pasta wreath made from many colored tortellini was served as a snack that both JDaniel and I enjoyed.

A reindeer lunch was served in a bento box along with foods that a reindeer might like to eat.

Last year I served my family a Bethlehem dinner featuring foods like would have been available during the time of Christ in Bethlehem. We each pulled the foods we wanted to try of the various plates and bowls.

Angels are mentioned over and over in the Christmas story as messengers of good news. JDaniel was given an angels we had for lunch meal filled with angels to celebrate them.

A gingerbread man on the loose snack featured raisin bran in a gingerbread cookie cutter with wonderful treat to add to it.

What are you favorite Christmas meals or snacks?

Decorating Gingerbread Activity

December 16, 2013 By Deirdre

Gingerbread men design activity came to mind as a traced cookie cutter shapes to make the number tally math matching activity. There had to be another way to use our Christmas cookie cutters. When we went to a big box craft store recently, JDaniel just had to visit the Crayola aisle. I had told him that all of our crayons were Crayola and he has since decided that he wants to learn about what other products that they make. It was while visiting the Crayola aisle that he noticed Model Magic. He hasn’t ever used it and thought it sounded like fun. I decided it sounded like fun too and I ended up buying a couple of packages of light brown for a gingerbread activity.

Creating Gingerbread Activity

Cookie cutters and creating gingerbread men with Model Magic just seemed to come together as an idea on our way home. I didn’t tell him what I was thinking, though. The brown modeling dough was pushed into cookie cutters and set out to dry without a word to him.

Decorating-gingerbread-men-with-stars
On Saturday I set out the dried gingerbread men and various odds and ends that could be used to decorate and redecorate them. JDaniel’s eyes lit up. He was really surprised.

I had made holes in the gingerbread men with the end of a pencil thinking the odds and ends would fit into them. Some of the odds and ends ended up being a little too big. Thankfully the Model Magic has some give to it. JDaniel was able to push in the buttons when he wanted too.

He made all different kinds of gingerbread men that day. Some had button eyes and others had stars in their eyes. The rubbery dough held up despite the number of times it was used.

Creating shaped Model Magic creation spaces was so easy to do and JDaniel seemed to enjoy the gingerbread men design activity. We will have to make some using our other cookie cutters for other holidays.

{Christmas Craft} Candy Cane Reindeer

December 12, 2013 By Deirdre

I saw candy cane reindeer like this in the hall at my school. I knew immediately that we need to try to make one at home. They were just too cute. I am not sure if it was the hand print antlers or fact that it combined to wonderful Christmas elements. Candy canes and reindeer are such a fun!The ones I saw at school had paper noses and paper eyeballs. Ours needed more of a 3-D effect I decided. Thankfully we have giant wiggly eyes and red pom-poms on hand. Actually, we had everything we needed on hand. I love when things work out that way.

Christmas Craft- Candy Can Reindeer: Kids will love having their hands become reindeer antlers.

If you want to make one at home, here is what we did.

Trace two hands (One right and one left will work best)
Hand tracing will need to be cut out.
Then cut out a red candy cane shape
Next cut out white stripes for the candy cane
Glue the white stripes to the red cane
Cut the extra white paper of the edges of the red cane
One wiggly eye will need to be glued onto the red cane
Glue the brown hand antler in place on the top of the cane
Glue a red pom-pom in place if you want a Rudolph like candy cane reindeer ( A brown pom-pom could be used if you want to make a non-Rudolph reindeer.)

I think our candy cane reindeer Christmas craft is as cute as the ones I saw on display in hallway at school. Our little deer herd has only two deer as opposed to the large herd that is displayed in the hall at school though. Maybe you could make some candy cane reindeer at your house and we could have a virtual herd.

If you decided to make candy cane reindeer, let me know on the Facebook post featuring this craft. You can paste an Instagram link to a picture of yours if you like.

Are you looking for other reindeer Christmas craft and snack ideas?

Handprint Reindeer created for Hands On: As We Grow.

Creating a Reindeer Lunch

Treats for Santa and the Reindeer

Christmas Craft- Candy Can Reindeer: Kids will love having their hands become reindeer antlers. They will also love the pom pom nose and the wiggly eye.

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Kid Made Ornament – Branch Bracelets

December 11, 2013 By Deirdre

The idea for branch bracelets came to me as we were decorating our Christmas tree last week. When we came to a kid made ornament that JDaniel had created himself, he face just lit up. He was so proud of each kid made ornament he had made in preschool or with me at home. It occurred to me that we hadn’t made any new ornament this year and we really needed to. I remembered creating spider web ornaments last year with him and how much he enjoyed weaving the yarn up and down though Christmas cutouts that had been punched with holes. This year’s kid-made ornament needed to have weaving be a part of it.

When I went to school the next day, the kids were all wearing homemade bracelets. Why not my brain thought make branch bracelets for our tree what incorporate JDaniel’s interest in weaving through hole punched holes.

When I go home a noticed a small pile of empty paper towel tubes, they were just waiting to be taken out to the recycling bin in the garage. (I take care of sorting through what we recycle and what could be possible craft item.) Sections of an old paper towel tube would make wonderful branch bracelet Christmas tree ornaments I thought.

With the materials and idea decided on I set everything we would need out on the kitchen table for JDaniel to find. He instantly understood that the craft idea was to randomly punch holes into the section of tube and then weave ribbon through it.

Kid Made Ornaments -Branch Bracelets

I explained that there wasn’t a right or wrong way to make a branch bracelet ornament, but I did show him the one I made. He was thrilled about using the hole punch and quickly had holes all over the tubes. It took a little longer to decide to which holes to weave through. Honestly, I don’t think there was a plan.

After Constructing This Kid Made Ornament More Constructing Was Done

After creating two branch bracelets, he declared the remaining tubes sections and ribbon needed to be used to create a sculpture for under the tree. Who knew that we would end up with kid made branch bracelet ornaments and a free form sculpture by the time our crafting time was done. (To see what the sculpture looks like you will need to visit our Facebook page.)I explained that there wasn’t a right or wrong way to make a branch bracelet ornament, but I did show him the one I made. He was thrilled about using the hole punch and quickly had holes all over the tubes. It took a little longer to decide to which holes to weave through. Honestly, I don’t think there was a plan.

This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock.

{Christmas Math} Candy Cane Counting

December 10, 2013 By Deirdre

$Christmas Math-Candy Cane Counting$

Candy canes and Christmas just seem to go together. Construction paper candy canes created for counting and number matching made a wonderful Christmas math activity.

Constructing the Christmas Math Game

Each candy cane counting creation was given a different number of stripes. It was a little bit of a challenge to get ten stripes on the final candy cane. I had originally thought about having JDaniel help me draw the stripes on the candy canes. After narrowing the stripes greatly to get them all on a cane, I realized it might have been really hard. I barely got the tenth stripe on the cane for this Christmas math activity.

A simple work mat created on the computer using fun and a little funky font made a great place to match the candy canes to their numeral.It was easy to place the first few numbers. As the number of stripes on the counting candy canes grew, so did the challenge. It wasn’t easy to eyeball the cane and know how many stripes it had. Counting the stripes with a pointed finger was needed.

Playing the Christmas Math Game

Having to count with a pointed finger helped me work on one-to-one correspondence. I think children sometimes jump from concrete objects representing numbers with objects children can hold and touch to abstract numerals too quickly. The stripes on these counting canes give children a semi-concrete representation of numbers.Semi-concrete representations of numbers give children something they can touch to count. I think children young and old benefit from using concrete objects and semi-concrete representations. My students used them through third grade. JDaniel and I will probably continue to use all representations and hands-on learning for at least that long. Maybe will use candy canes for counting in another Christmas math activity.

Here is a copy of the number page: Candy Cane Counting

Do your children use hands-on learning tools for math? What tools do they enjoy?

{Christmas Math Activity} Number Tally Match

December 9, 2013 By Deirdre

$Christmas Math- Activity Number Tally$ JDaniel’s school is focusing the Common Core. One the Common core math skills he has been working on recognizing numbers via tally marks. Since gingerbread cookies are favorites at my house around the holidays, we recently worked on a Christmas math activity that has us matching numbers on pretend gingerbread cookies.

How to Put Together This Christmas Math Activity

I placed numbers on several brown cookie shape cutout I made by tracing the outline of cookie cutters. I then outlined the shapes with white crayon to create a frosting like edge. Several paper cut outs were made of each shape. I placed a set of tally marks on one of each shape. Various numbers were placed on the remaining cutouts of that shape. Only one of the numbers matched the one with the tall marks.

$Christmas Math- Activity Number Tally$

We placed foil on a old cookie tray and the matching started. It look a little bit of time to sort through the numbers. Once the number cookies had been laid out, he quickly matched them.

JDaniel is now five and in kindergarten. Young children would probably have found this more challenging. What he and I both worked on with this activity verbally explaining why the numbers matched. I just love to hear how he explains things. He was able to explain how each stick represents a part of the number. The total number of sticks equals the whole numberWhen we had finished matching cookies, I had him put them in number order from the biggest number to the smallest. Then we arranged the numbers in reverse.

The number cookies with both numeral and tally mark displays could be used in many other ways.

Sort even and odd numbers
Create addition sentences
Create subtraction sentences
Play “I Spy The Number”
Show me the number before
Show me the number after

You will find this Christmas math activity and many more on my Early Learning Math board on Pinterest.

$Christmas Math- Activity Number Tally$
How else could I use these number cookies?

Homemade Christmas Cards- Old Card Stencils

December 6, 2013 By Deirdre

The holidays can be a crazy and busy time of year. There just doesn’t seem to be the time to enjoy small family moments. We have to plan many of them in advance or create a Christmas bucket list of them so they won’t be forgotten. Knowing when we will put up our Christmas tree and work on homemade Christmas cards actually seems to help my family savor the moments rather than rush to complete them so we can move on to something else.

Previous years my son and I had time during weekdays to get some of our bucket list items done or to sit and craft. Since he has started kindergarten and I have gone back to work it is been more challenging. There are only so many hours in a day that we are awake and together much less to sit at the kitchen table and craft.

Homemade Christmas Cards- Old Card Stencils

I recently had some unplanned time think over crafts and projects I wanted to do for Christmas. Over the Thanksgiving break my son and husband went to spend the holiday with his family. My sister Shell and I spend the holiday with my mom at the hospital. (She is at this writing is still seriously ill) While I sat at her bedside, I worked on a list of Christmas themed projects to do with my son.

While she wasn’t able to chat with me, I chatted with her about what I was doing and projects she had made for Christmas.

Our tree growing up was filled with milk weed seedpod ornaments painted gold with tiny plastic holiday themed creatures in them. She made door decorations and put together very unique and special wreaths. I think it was due to seeing her crafting when I was little that I craft today. Because I craft today my son has learned to enjoy creating things with his hands.

My guys got back on Saturday and I started working on a homemade Christmas card stencil project that I had come up with while sitting by my mom’s bedside. JDaniel had I have the best time making cards for my mom. They are not fancy or even keeping to one Christmas theme. They are special because we made them together. Taking the time to sit and work on Christmas projects despite a busy schedule means we will have Christmas memory or Holiday “MOMent” to carry forward.

Snowman card is the one I made and the one JDaniel is touching is his.

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

You will find more Homemade Christmas cards and other Christmas crafts on my Crafts for Kids board on Pinterest.

What is one of your Mom moments? Have you ever made homemade Christmas cards?

Displaying Restaurant Manners

December 4, 2013 By Deirdre

Two weekends ago I went a friend’s birthday party at a very nice restaurant not far from my house. I don’t go to very nice restaurants very often so, I was excited about getting dressed up to go out. Our group was set to sit in a section of the restaurant that had room for large tables.

Just to in front of our long table sat a family sitting at two large round tables. One table was obliviously the kid’s table. There were eight children from the age of four to about nine sitting there. I was amazed at how quietly the children sat the table. They got up to visit their parents and grandparents at their table from time to time, but for the most part they stayed at their table. The joked around a little, but not too much. The friend sitting next to me commented that they must have a lot of practice in sitting nicely at the dinner table of nice restaurants. JDaniel doesn’t have a lot of practice. I think he might have forgotten to use an indoor voice from time to time.
Behind us were three rows long tables. They remained empty for about 45 minutes. Then they filled with a large group of fraternity brothers and their date. The guys wore ties and their dates wore pretty cocktail dresses. I wish I could say that they acted like the grown up version of the children sitting at the children’s table in front of me.

They were loud. Two guys shouted back and forth down the table the most up to date sport scores as they read off their smart phones. Loud teasing was tossed from table to table. Not everyone was loud and rude, but they ones that were out shined the quiet ones.

As dinner went on the children sat quietly and visited more with the adults in their family. The college students remained loud and after a while started stumbling to the bathroom. I was told not to go near the bathroom by one of my friends. The floor near the bathroom stalls was awash with sticky and slimy substances.

Somewhere near the end of the evening I bent my head in prayer. I sent praise for the parents that had done such a good job getting their children restaurant ready. I sent petitions for the college students from a very good private college needed to work on their restaurant manners. I prayed that my husband and I would help JDaniel be restaurant ready as a child and later as an adult.

I know that he may try different thing in college, but I sure hope and pray that he doesn’t leave napkins on the floor along with silverware or sit on the edge of a table tipping it forward so glasses on it smash to the floor. That if he chooses to drink that he will do so responsibly. Having people get to see him stagger through a restaurant or rant about a manager who had cut him off from alcohol purchases is not something anyone needs to see.

This post is linked to Alphabe Thursday.

Christmas Activity – Balancing Pom-Pom Tree

December 2, 2013 By Deirdre

Green colored craft sticks of various lengths glued symmetrically onto a green craft stick make a wonderful Christmas tree craft and a science experiment. Yes, a science experiment. We could have simply glued the stick together and then glued pom-poms on the trees branches. We could have, but we didn’t.

What I did ask JDaniel to do was to try to pick up tiny pom-pom is chopsticks that were strapped together with a rubber band. When a pom-pom was gripped between the chopsticks, I asked him to try to put a pom-pom on each branch.

Getting the pom-pom to balance on the sticks wasn’t easy. If you placed them down just a little bit off they fell onto the table. It took a lot fine motor work to pick up the pom-pom and release it onto just the area of each branch. We found if the pom-pom was held near the bottom of the chopsticks it had a shorter distance to fall to was more likely to stay on the branch. If the pom-pom was too far up, we risked having it bounce off the branch and onto the table.

Christmas Activity- Balancing Pom Poms

How did we make the tree?

Cut each of four color popsicle stick in descending lengths with a sharp tool.( I used a hand held pruning tool.) We had a 2 inch stick, a 3 inch stick, a 4 inch stick, and a five inch sticks.
The sticks were lined up on a full length stick horizontally.
When we thought they were symmetrical, the sticks were glued into place.
The tree was left to dry for a few minutes while we wrapped the rubber band around the chopsticks.
Small pom-poms were placed in a cup while the tree was drying.
Then we started the balancing activity. As I mentioned, this Christmas activity was a little tricky. It took a lot of focus and finger control to balance pom-poms on a tree. The branches sit on the fulcrum base and can wiggle.