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+.

Angels Among Us

December 25, 2013 By Deirdre

While we totally celebrate Jesus’ birthday on Christmas day, it is the angels like the one displayed in this craft JDaniel made it school last year that are on my mind. I know that God sends his angels to look over us. The Bible shares numerous encounters with angels.

I have never seen an actual angel with wings and halo. They don’t seem to make appearance much anymore. Last week I did encounter a doctor that spoke to me the way I think an angel would.

My mom is in her fourth week in the hospital. I have talked with dozens of nurses and doctors during that time. They have almost all been kind and all have been very caring, but one really stands out.

Dr. H stopped in to check on Mom and I was sitting in a chair beside her. He updated both of us on how she is doing. (She hasn’t walked in weeks and can’t use her hands. They don’t know what started her decline and still are not sure what the cause of her current issues is.) Many doctors have done that with my sisters and I.

What made Dr. H different? He took my hand and said, “Thank you so much for coming to sit with your mom. Being here makes such a difference.” I was floored. What a kind thing to say! It is hard to know when some aren’t speaking clearly if you are making a difference.

What a gift his words were to me! I would continue to visit her daily anyway, but hearing his sweet and thoughtful words really made my day.

It isn’t easy to leave work each day, rush to the hospital for a few hours, rush home to eat dinner with my guys and try to get caught up with all the house and life stuff. (Thankfully my husband has been doing a lot of the things I normally do.)

Visiting with mom is the right thing for my family to do and I am so thankful Dr. H thinks so too.

Five Little Christmas Trees Craft and Song

December 22, 2013 By Deirdre

Five Little Christmas Trees Song and Craft

Have you heard the five little Christmas trees chant or song? My son loves the five little pumpkins chant so much that I searched and searched to find a Christmas themed chant that he would enjoy. I found one called the five little reindeer while searching. It is really cute, but I decided to keep looking. When I found the Five Little Christmas Trees chant, I knew it was the one. I just love that each of the trees finds a home.

Here is the chant or song:

5 little Christmas Trees
Standing all alone
Their hearts were very sad
’Cause they hadn’t found a home.
Then chop went the axe
And down fell the tree
And off they went with a happy family!
(Continue from 4-1 Christmas Trees)
No little Christmas Trees
Standing all alone
Their hearts were very happy
’Cause they all found a home!!!

Beyond just repeating the chant I really like when we can act it out or retell the rhyme with a manipulative or craft. We have made egg carton pumpkins for the five little pumpkins and handprint turkey puppets for the five little pumpkins. This time we made handprint trees with fingerprint ornaments.

When the trees were dry, they were glued to construction paper to make them a little bit sturdier. In hindsight I should have backed them with thin cardboard and added a cardboard stand for them. Things here have been a little upside down and construction paper seemed easier.

We lined the trees up on against a wall. When it was each trees time to fall, it was tipped over. We didn’t eliminate a tree after it was tipped over. It was just left lying on its side. We should have had one of JDaniel’s Fisher-Price people carry it off.

The five little Christmas trees is such a fun chant. I hope you will try it with the children in your life.

{Christmas Ornament Activity} Positional Words

December 20, 2013 By Deirdre

As you get ready to put away our ornaments, you may want to try this activity. It asks children to place objects in an ornament storage frame based on position words that I wrote on index cards. Non-fragile ornaments in our Christmas ornament collection worked out best for us. Many of them are ones that JDaniel made himself.

What relative positions are on the cards?

There are words like:

·Above

·Below

·Beside

·In front of

·Behind

·Next to

·To the left of

·To the right of

Exploring Positional Words with Ornaments

How do you play?

· Place one of the ornaments in the center of the storage grid.

· Turn one card at a time.

· Place an ornament in the position called for on the card.

· When you turn over the next card, you can decide if you are going place next ornament

by the first ornament or the second.

·Continue placing ornaments until every section of the storage grid is filled.

Exploring the Word Over with Christmas Ornaments

Working with position words and manipulatives is a core skill. I think I saw a similar activity done using a worksheet. Using objects and a cardboard grid seemed like it would be more fun. We really enjoyed it. In fact, we had to take out the ornaments and do the activity again. Working on relative position trumped getting the ornaments cleaned up.

Christmas Themed God’s Eye for Mom

December 19, 2013 By Deirdre

Years ago my aunt made a Christmas themed God’s eye as a gift for my mom. When I tried to come up with some Christmassy to hang in my mom’s hospital room, that craft from long ago came to mind. God’s eyes are said to have the power to see and understand things unknown. I am not sure that the weaving that I created with yarn has the power to do that. I do believe the God does.

Displaying the God’s eye craft in her room acts as a reminder to me and hopefully to her that God is ever present in her room and with her. My sisters and I have tried to be there a lot of the time. There have been times when we needed to go home to sleep or do things for our children. I sometimes feel guilty that I can’t be there all the time, but I try to remember that I am not leaving her all by herself God is with her.

She had been unresponsive since she had surgery a week and a half ago. We talk to her, play music, and read to her hoping that she will in some way know that we are there. We have hoped and prayed that miraculously she will be able to communicate with us. We got our miracle last Thursday. She was ready to ask for water and wanted to get out of bed. By Friday she had solid food and talking in complete sentences.

Her future is unknown. She has several things the doctors are watching and there is little doubt that her body is probably too weak to deal with a huge battle. We are thrilled to have this time with her and will be cherishing every moment we have.

It has been a hard time for my family and most especially for my mom. I am not sure she knows that Christmas is coming. She has some homemade Christmas cards from JDaniel and me on her wall. The God’s eye craft is hanging up there too, but she can’t see all the signs of Christmas being viewed around our town.

One of the joys of Christmas is celebrating the birth of the Savior. Simple reminder’s like this God’s eyes remind me of why it is a time of great joy. God’s eyes are on us and he will not forget that we need him to be present in our lives.

I haven’t talked much about my mom’s hospital stay on the blog. Updates have appeared on my Facebook page. If you want to keep up with what is going on, you can follow them there.

This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock’s blog.

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?