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+.

Mama, Can I Buy Lunch?

September 25, 2013 By Deirdre

This is a lunch featured in a earlier post.

I love making JDaniel lunch. It is an opportunity for me to be creative and put together fun meals. Sometimes I put them together the night before and other times they a put together in the morning. I love know that when he sits down to eat lunch at school that he is getting a healthy meal and that he will eat 99% of what is in his lunch. Lately he has been asking to buy lunch.

His school has a cafeteria that serves a variety of healthy lunch options. Super healthy main dishes like black bean burgers and vegetables with hummus. They sound great to me, but I don’t know if you would like them. My plan was just to keeping making him lunch all year rather than having him buy lunch.

We were going to try out different breads, vegetables, and fruits. I have plans for sandwiches cutout with cookie cutters and pinwheel sandwiches filled with homemade cream cheese spreads.

That is still going to happen, but recently JDaniel announced that he would like to try to buy lunch.at school. I am not sure if it is the allure of getting in line and selecting your meal or as he says buying lunch means you don’t have to carry a heavy lunch box.

As I mentioned the lunches are all healthy. The days of tacos with sides of fruit cocktail, tater tots and a cinnamon roll are over. (I loved taco days at school when I was little.) We sat down and looked at the school lunch calendar to select a good day to try to buy lunch. There was a little debate over whether or not certain food selections would actually be eaten or would be thrown away. ( I hated to watch student throw away 50% or more of their lunches when I was a teacher.)

Finally we decide on pizza. JDaniel told me that it looked good on other students lunch trays. I asked if they liked it and he didn’t know. I am crossing my fingers that he likes it. He will be having it for lunch this Friday.

If he likes it, we will trying buying lunch on pizza days. They only happen three times a month at his school. We may even try a few of the other lunch options. I will continue to create lunches on the non-pizza days. That should make us both happy.

What do your children like to have for lunch at school?

This post is linked to Alphabe Thursday.

Fall Bucket List for 2013

September 24, 2013 By Deirdre

I’m a little behind in creating a fall bucket list, but I decided that it wasn’t too late to make one. We started by sitting down at the kitchen table and making a list of things we knew we wanted to have on our fall bucket list. It was no surprise to find that many of the things on our list take place outside or involve time in the kitchen. We spend a lot of time in both of those places.

Rather than hang the handwritten list on the refrigerator I placed the items on the list in Tagxedo. It is a super fun graphic generator. You simply add in your text and the share you want it in and the shape you want the words displayed in. I selected a leaf design and add the stem using Microsoft Paint.

What is displayed on our fall bucket list?

make pumpkin muffins
drink apple cider
visit the pumpkin patch
visit the apple orchard
make applesauce
hike
jump in leaves
paint spider web pumpkins
make apple dips
make Halloween costume

We will probably will do a lot more this fall, but I think our bucket list will give us a good start. I love the way the leaf turned out. It will look great on our fridge.

It is such fun to have ideas we can just look up on the fridge and find. We will be able to decide we want to cross one off our list and just pick one. Having this bucket list up will also give us a reminder of all the fun things we have done in the fall.

We might just have to make a bucket list for each of the seasons each year. I bet some of the activities will change over time and some will be things we yearn to repeat.

What do you have on your fall bucket list?

Easy Sight Word Snacks

September 23, 2013 By Deirdre

Last week I participated in Megan of Coffee Cups and Crayons Coffee Break on Google+. I was an awesome opportunity to share how we made apple chips and to hear about other snacks Mom Bloggers have shared with their children. Kelly of Smart School House shared some alphabet letter chips made with tortillas. They got me to thinking. JDaniel loves cheese on tortillas and I need to work with him on sight words.Why not take out my tiny letter cookie cutters I thought and make him a sight word snack with cheese and tortillas? It would be easy to put together and he would inhale the words after reading them to me.He loved finding them sitting on the kitchen table when he came home from school. The cheese has melted a tiny bit due the warmth of the day pouring into the kitchen window. He liked that unplanned added touch.The success of this sight words snack got me excited. I have been thinking of other foods I could use to create the snacks that spell out sight words.

Food Learning Activities Beyond Sight Word Snacks:

small lengths of celery with cream cheese could be used to build letters.
string cheese could be peeled into strings to form letters
small letter cookies
cinnamon toast cut with cookie cutters
cheese cracker Scrabble letters from the store
alphabet cookies from Trader Joes
potato sticks could be used to form letters
apple slices could be cut out with cookie cutters
cold spaghetti could be bent into letters
cookie cutters could be pushed into fruit leather to create words

My brain was reeling with ideas. I think I may have to create a whole series on sight word snacks. JDaniel would love to taste test them for me and I would get to help him work on sight words. Snacks give him a hands on way to interact with sight words and his taste buds get to participate too.

Brace yourself sight word snacks will be appearing on the blog every couple of weeks until I run out of them. If you have an idea for me to try, leave it in a comment below. If you like one of the ideas on the list and would like to see how it could be carried out, you can leave me a comment too.

{Read.Explore.Learn.} Math Activities- Number Recognition

September 20, 2013 By Deirdre

Apples A to Z literally shared facts about apples from a to z. A small fox and his friends fill the fun illustrations with displays of what each page is discussing. Simple concepts like when the apple falls off the tree fruit forms to grafting branches from one kind of tree to another produce healthier trees. JDaniel was fascinated with grafting and how it works. I was impressed that Margaret McNamara found varieties of apples from a to z. I have never heard of the queen cox or the Xavier de Bavay much less the za ber gau.

This book does another amazing thing. It delivers information for each letter of the alphabet that doesn’t seem forced or trite. Each word selected for each letter is interesting and adds to the trip through the alphabet. It does this with humor, fun facts and great pictures by Jake Parker.

How did we explore this book?

Math Activities for Preschoolers

Writing Number Activity

{Read.Explore.Learn.} Math Activities- Number Recognition- Writing Numbers

JDaniel invented his own way to write many of the numbers. Despite being shown how to write them correctly. Now that he is in school, he has to write them using the traditional style of number writing. I decided to create for him some writing number cards.

The cards were created to have two steps. The first step is to trace over the number on each of the cards. The second step is to write the number inside of the apple on each card. So we would be able to use the cards over and over again the cards were placed in plastic sleeves. (If you have access to a laminator, you can laminate the cards. I may laminate the cards later on.)

{Read.Explore.Learn.} Math Activities- Number Recognition- Writing Numbers to Ten

How did I make them?

There are lots of writing number activity sheets available online. JDaniel does worksheets at school and while these look a lot mini worksheets I hoped they would be different enough for him. I simply went into Paint and drew a rectangle. Into the rectangle, I placed a clip art apple and the dotted number. I repeated this process over and over until I had the number 1-9. The pictures were then inserted into Word in rows of three and then printed out.

${Read.Explore.Learn.} Math Activities- Number Recognition- Addition Game$

Apple Addition

Themed work mats are a great place to work on addition facts with counters. I made these apple mats to go along with this book. JDaniel was asked to roll a pair of dice and decide which number would go into which white section of the apple. Then he placed the correct number of buttons into each section. ( The buttons were supposed to look like seeds.)

You will notice that I put a plus sign in the core of the apple. I want to be able to use the mats for subtraction too. Leaving the brown paper area of the empty and writing it on the apple when it was in the plastic sleeve allowed me to write the function we were focusing on when we needed it.

When JDaniel had counted the button on both sides to find the sum, I had him place the number tracing card with the answer beside the work mat.

He did a great job of working with the counters and the concrete numbers. It is so important to hit more than one type of learning when working on concepts. I think these math mats do just that.

I have decided to ask you to link your posts to the Read.Explore.Learn. Facebook page instead of running a link up. I hope you will stop by and share your children’s book related activities there.

Disclaimer: This post does contain affiliate links.

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Running with All You Have

September 18, 2013 By Deirdre

JDaniel’s school held a fundraiser called a fun run last week. We had to help JDaniel find people that would sponsor his run. They could donate a set amount or a dollar amount for each lap he ran. There were various prizes awarded for each monetary level that we reached. He was thrilled with four prizes he brought how before the run. “Look at what I won!” he said as he got the car during pick up. In my mind I thought the gifts should be something fun for parents too. After all my husband and I did the fundraising. I didn’t realize our prize would come during the race.

Every few days we would get a recorded reminder about the need to fund raise on the phone or we would receive an e-mail or written reminder. After hearing from every grandparent and aunt we thought we would get donations from, I disregarded these reminders. We have done what we could do.

The question after all they hype, prizes, and fund raising was would JDaniel be able to run thirty five laps. The Fun Run course wasn’t sure long, but thirty five laps seemed like a lot. He likes to run, but would he like to run this much. I wasn’t sure. He seemed excited, but he might decide half way through to just walk.I was so glad that my husband and I could both attend the run. JDaniel didn’t seem excited about us both being there though until he passed us during his first lap. He gave us the biggest smile. We gave him big whoops and cheers. As the run continued he continue to smile and we continued to cheer, whoop, and shout out supportive words.

Round and round he ran. “You might need to walk a lap to rest,” my husband called to him as JDaniel swept by us. “Can’t Dad! I have lots of laps to go,” he called over his shoulder. He continued to run and run. He ran with his water cup in hand and water sloshing everywhere. I have never seen him run so much he is whole life.

Thankfully the DJ playing music to inspire the students to run and keep upbeat announced a few laps that everyone had to walk from time to time. I think JDaniel even move fast during those laps. He feet were on fire and so were his cheeks each time he flew by us.

The final lap was declared the “Parent Walk with Me” lap. JDaniel was so proud to hold both of our hands as we walked the lap together. (In that moment I was thankful that we are both still job hunting.) We were both able to make a kindergarten memory all with him that we will all carry with us forever. ”

The fun run was so worth the money we raised for the school. JDaniel had a sense of accomplishment and pride that I haven’t seen in him in kindergarten so far this year. He had the drive and sense of purpose that I hope he will carry into other challenges that he comes up against.

I believe that running with all you have is possible when you have a sense of self, the drive to complete a task, others running with you, and a cheering section. I am so glad that I get to be a part of the cheering section for my very special runner. Getting the see that broad smile and receive a huge hug of thanks for coming to his run was priceless.

Apple Chips Recipe

September 17, 2013 By Deirdre

Apple season is in full spring here in South Carolina. It seemed like the perfect time to try an apple chips recipe I found online. Well, actually I found two apple chip recipes online. Believe it or not they were both different from each other. After reading through both recipes, I decided to follow a couple of directions from each one and add a twist of my own. I have mentioned to you that JDaniel shares most with me about his school day when we sit down after school and have a snack this looked like snack he would like.Ingredients
3 large Gala apples
4 tablespoons of cinnamon1/4 cup of melted brown sugar1/2 cup white sugarDirections

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees F.
Line two cookie or baking sheets with parchment paper.
Create a mixture of the cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl and set it aside.
Lay an apple on its side.
Slice apples thinly or as thinly as you can cut them. My slices are on the thicker side. When I tried to cut them thinly I didn’t end up with complete slice.

I just used small leaf shaped cookie cutters to make fall themed apple chips.

Place the apples onto the baking sheets in rows.
Melt the brown sugar in the microwave with a little water for about 35 seconds.
Brush the melted brown sugar onto the apple slices.
Sprinkle the apples with mixture of the cinnamon and sugar.
Bake for 1 hour and then flip the apples over.
Bake the apples for a second hour.
Turn of the oven and let the apples sit in the cooling over for 30-45 minutes.

Some of the apples may be a little chewy and some may be a little crunchy. It will depend on the thickness of the apple slices and how hot your oven tends to run.

My guys think that I need to try this apple chips recipe again. They really loved these. It is probably due to the two kinds of sugar and cinnamon. They both love sweet snacks. I love that we are getting fruit along with the a sweet treat!

What is your favorite fall treat?

{Bloggers Go Orange} Moms Fighting Hunger

September 16, 2013 By Deirdre

September is a time for orange on trees, Bloggers Go Orange, and Hunger Action Month. For the second year in a row, several mom bloggers have gotten together to teach their children and others how to fight hunger. Jen Fischer of The Good Long Road and Stacy of Kids Stuff World launched the campaign last week. You can visit their sites for a way to join the fight against hunger.Quite honestly I had forgotten about this campaign until I came across Jen’s post on Facebook. I didn’t mean to forget, but as you know we have had a lot going on at our house this fall. Despite all that, I didn’t want to forget to acknowledge and celebrate it this wonderful way to serve others. It is really important that JDaniel understands and remember that there are people that go hungry every day.

Giving to our local food pantry has been our way of helping fight hunger. It isn’t JDaniel’s favorite place to go. He is bothered by the sometimes empty shelves we find there. I confess that it sometimes bothers me too. It would be wonderful if they were filled or overflowing.

My husband and I are both job hunting and while we have been faring well so far there are many around us who haven’t. We know a lot of people that have been laid off and haven’t found new jobs. They want to work as much as we do and for one reason or another, they haven’t been able too. Being able to stop by the local food pantry and pick up healthy things to eat it really important to them.

This year I decided to head to a nearby grocery store and pick up some of JDaniel’s favorite orange foods to take to the food pantry just as we did last year. I also purchased some of them for our family to make JDaniel an afterschool snack. The snack was shared along what it symbolizes. Edible object lessons or talks are always delicious.

If you plan to join the fight against hunger here are a few tips:Many people reach into their food pantry and grab a few cans to add to hunger-fighting events this month. While that is a great idea, it is important to check the end dates on the cans. I have heard horror stories about food pantries have to throw away huge amounts of donated food because they are long past their expiration dates.

Taking your children to the store with a photo shopping list of items food pantries need helps them feel more apart of the giving process.Hunger isn’t an easy or comfortable topic to discuss. It can make people uncomfortable. It does need to talk about and shared. I think it shares this issue with him helps him understand how grateful we are to have food at home and to be able to share it with others.

More Information
The two blogs I mentioned at the beginning of this post are spearheading the Bloggers Go Orange: Moms Fighting Hunger events. Please stop by their blogs for ways that you can help or participate in their campaign. You will also find information on No Kid Hungry and Feeding America.

ChallengeWill you pick up two can or boxes of food for each member of your family? Can you take those can to a food drive donation site this month? If you answered yes, you will be helping to fill the shelves of your town’s food bank.

Simple and Fun Reading Strategies- How to Teach a Slug to Read

September 13, 2013 By Deirdre

Links below are affiliate links.

How to Teach a Slug to Read shares the steps a slug goes through to learn to read. If you want to teach a slug or child how to read, you will easily be able to follow these steps. They are simple and fun reading strategies.

Simple and Fun Reading Strategies- How to Teach a Slug to Read

Without giving to much away here are some of the steps:

Put labels on his favorite things.
Read books your slug will be interested in.
Show your slug words that they will see over and over again.
Help him sounds out the words in the book.

We loved the commentary between the slug and his mom on each page. They have the best chats about each step. The pictures in this book are wonderful too. I confess we have giggled a lot as we read this fun book.

What did we do to explore this book with reading strategies?

We looked at several simple and fun reading strategies from the book and from my experience as a teacher.

Highlight a Page from a Book

The book suggested that highlighting favorite words in a text. Rather than actually highlighting in a book I found a passage online about slugs for JDaniel and I read together. I read JDaniel the text and he highlighted fun slug related words.

We will try this activity again. I may photocopy a page from a favorite book or find passage online again. It is a great way to work on building vocabulary and learning new words.

This same activity could be used to find sight words or words with specific sounds in them. You may decide to keep a journal of found words or maybe even create a homemade dictionary of them.

Slug Reading Guide

A paper slug glued onto a stick made a simple reading guide. What is a reading guide? Well, it is a pointer or flat tool that can help children focus on one line of text at time. The guide was put together so that the slugs slime line would be right under the text. The slug’s eyes could be used to find and point to particular words or areas of text by holding the stick so the slug’s eyes are lined up with the words. This is great way to look for sight words.

Reading guides are so easy to make. You may want to make different guides for each theme or unit of study you are doing.

Slug Tracking Guide

Learning how to track your finger while reading text can be done using a folder with solid lines where the text would be. Dotted lines connect the solid lines and mimic the movement your fingers would making as they move from one line to the next. The lines can me drawn in any color you like. I chose yellow so the lines would like like slug slime lines. Yes, my guy got to run his finger right over drawn slime! How cool and gross at the same time. This activity is great reading warm up and help put into muscle memory the flow of text in a book.

Anticipation Building

We did one more activity to go along with this book. I will be putting it up next week. It was such fun I thought it needed a post of its own.

Reading tools and strategies can help young slugs and young children learn to read. Do you have a favorite reading tool or strategy for helping children learn to read?

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.

Kid Talk – My Teacher Says….

September 11, 2013 By Deirdre

I remember being called down to the office when I was just beginning my teaching career to take a phone call from a parent. ( We didn’t have phones in our classrooms back then.) The parent on the phone sounded anxious and frustrated. She was hoping I would do her favor. I replied that I would be happy to help her in anyway that I could. Here is how the conversation continued:“Could you tell my son that I can do math?” she asked.“Sure I can! I replied ( I was hoping and praying she could. Actually I knew she could. I was teaching her son second grade math.)

“He doesn’t think I know anything about the math problems in his homework,” she explained.“What area does he think you don’t understand?” I probed.

“Well, I think two digit addition has changed its terms since I was girl. I know all about carrying numbers from the ones to the tens place, but regrouping the numbers is new to me,” she answered.

“They really mean the same thing, but the term regrouping appears in our text book and will be on the state test,” I clarified.

“Well, I keep slipping up and using the old term when he is doing homework. Could you please tell my son that the terms mean the same thing? He doesn’t believe me! I really want to help him with his work,” she said with a deep sigh.

“I will first thing tomorrow unless you think I need to talk to him now,” I told her.

“Tomorrow will be just fine. (deep sigh) Thank you! I feel so much better,” she said as she hung up the phone.

Last Wednesday JDaniel and I were sitting having our afternoon snack and he shared with me a song he was learning about short vowel sounds at school. I know it was about short vowel sounds, because I heard the sounds in the song. I honestly couldn’t understand any of the other words. After singing the song, he announced that it was homework to practice the song. How can I help him practice a song if I don’t know the words I thought. If we practice it the way he is singing it, he is going to put it into long term memory all jumbled up.

When I asked him to help me unscramble the words in the song I didn’t understand in the song, he said that is just the way the teacher does it. That statement made me remember that phone call from so long ago. I didn’t call or even e-mail his teacher, but I did think about it. I would love to know how the song is really suppose to go.

Have you ever wanted to share during your kid talk that you knew about something they only thought their teacher says?This post will be linked up to Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday.Follow JDaniel4’s Mom on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Dip Recipes – 5 Apple Dips

September 10, 2013 By Deirdre

There is just something wonderful about dipping a fresh fruit into a refreshingly delicious dip created using a super easy dip recipe. While any fruit can be dipped, apples are wonderful for children and adults to hand dip. They are hold dip well and are easy for fingers to grasp. The wide assortment of apple varieties available provides people with many tart to sweet options.

Recently we tried four super easy dip recipes for apples at my house. They ranged from tangy to sweet. We each picked a different dip as a favorite. By making four we didn’t end up with anyone not liking a dip although we could have just made them one at time. None of them was voted yucky by any of us.

Here dip recipes for the dips we made:

Apple Cider Dip

½ a pint of sour cream
1 package of hot apple cider mix
1 tablespoon of powdered sugar

Place all the ingredients in a bowl and stir them with a spoon. Refrigerate overnight to give the dip a stronger flavor. Serves 4-6.Apple Cream Cheese Dip

3 tablespoons of finely chopped apples
1package of cream cheese
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
2 tablespoons of apple juice

Place all the ingredients in a bowl. Cream the mixture with a fork for a chunkier style dip. Mix with a hand mixer for a creamier style dip . Refrigerate overnight to give the dip a thicker texture. Serves 4-6Apple Yogurt Dip

1 cup of vanilla yogurt
2 tablespoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
2 teaspoons of powdered sugar

Place all of the ingredients in a bowl and stir them until they are well blended. This dip was ready to eat immediately. Serves 4-6.Apple Cream Cheese Dip

¼ cup of applesauce
1 package of cream cheese
2 tablespoon of cinnamon

Place all the ingredients in a bowl. Cream the mixture with a fork for a chunkier style dip. Mix with a hand blender for a smoother dip. Placing it in the refrigerator overnight will allow the dip to have a thicker texture and deeper flavor. Serves 4-6We made dips that created servings for a small group of people. The dips could easier we doubled or tripled for larger groups or to have on hand for afternoon snack time.