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+.

{Bento Lunch} Cracker Sandwiches

August 12, 2013 By Deirdre

JDaniel recently discovered premade lunches in plastic containers while we were at the grocery store. He pointed out that they were filled with foods he likes. “Look! Cracker sandwiches are in them,” he pointed out. “I can make one at home for you,” I pointed out. I really could!This week I set out of make one I knew he would enjoy. Yes, I have made some like this before, but he doesn’t seem to remember them. The theme was cracker sandwiches just as he said he wanted. He ate every bit of it. These are going to be a big part of our school lunches this year.

I think part of what he liked was that the ham and cheese were in muffin cups. For some reason the muffin cups make lunches appear fancy. (A number of the lunches I shared in the {Back to School} Lunches Without Sandwiches had them.) Ours were about $2.50 from World Market.

The crackers for the sandwiches are divided into two groups for no other reason than they seemed to look nice that way. The grapes were added to give the top compartment a side dish. I think they look pretty there.

JDaniel was given a cucumber by his speech teacher. The speech center set up a garden just outside their front door. He has loved having this special cucumber cut up and served with dip. He hasn’t been as into non-speech center cucumbers. Maybe we need to try to grow some Outside Our Front Door Cucumbers.

Cracker sandwiches as I mentioned were a hit with my son. We will have to them for lunch again.

If you like this cracker sandwich lunch, you will love these lunches too:

Apple Chicken Salad Bento Lunch

Lunch Ideas with LEGO

Minion Lunch with Blueberry Overalls

What is your favorite cracker sandwich combination?

Back to School Lunches without Sandwiches

August 9, 2013 By Deirdre

JDaniel is starting back to school in just over a week. This year he will be entering full-day kindergarten. That means he will need to bring his lunch every day. I am looking forward to making him fun or at least healthy lunches for him. JDaniel loves cheese sandwiches of all kinds, but I tend to think that he may be tired of them after a while. I touched base with members of the Kid Blog Network and the Bento Blogger Facebook groups I belong to and asked them to suggest lunches without sandwiches that I could send to school with him.

These ladies and gentlemen are brilliant. They have given me some amazing links to their best lunches without sandwiches. I hope that you will love them and try them out on with your children too.

Lunches Without Sandwiches

Lunch Box Dad – 1 Meal 3 Ways-Mango Strawberry Chicken Salad

JDaniel4’s Mom-Signs of Spring Lunch

Momables– 10 Non-Sandwich Lunch Ideas

Eclectic Lamb– Dinosaur and Volcano Pizza

Lunch Box Dad– Kermit the Frog’s Green Food Lunch

We Should Be Folding Laundry – Veggie Wraps, Apple and Fruit with Veggie Shreds

JDaniel4’s Mom– Despicable Me: Minion Lunch

Keeley McGuire– 20 None Sandwich School Lunch Ideas for Kids

We Should Be Folding Laundry– Mac and Cheese with Fruit and Veggie Sides

What the Girls are Having– Taco Salad

Eats Amazing– 10 Alternative to Sandwiches for Lunch Boxes

Picture used with permission from Healthy Eating Starts at Home

Healthy Eating Starts at Home– Quesadilla Strips with Layered Dip

Feeling a Little Lunchy- Feeling Like Making Baby Calzones

JDaniel4’s Mom– Salad with Bunny Croutons

Bento for My Girls– Delicious Leftovers (includes a Reese Poke Cake that looks awesome)

Keitha’s Chaos– Katy the Caterpillar Lunch (spinach tortellini with a cheese caterpillar)

Healthy Eating Starts at Home– Steamed Salmon Sushi Rolls

Mama Miss– Edible Fun Bento

Life at the Zoo- Simple Homemade Quiche

East Coast Mommy– French Toast in a Thermal Container

Kids Chaos– Garlic Rocket Pasta

You Are The Roots– Kale and Quinoa Nuggets

East Coast Mommy– Cereal for Lunch

Mama Miss– Easter Themed Bento

Inspired by Family Magazine– 10 Sandwich Less Lunches

Here are the other Kid Blogger Network blogs that are participating:

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Read.Explore.Learn is Changing

August 9, 2013 By Deirdre

Read.Explore.Learn. has always been a link up that shares ways people are exploring concepts in the children’s books with children. It has always been up on Fridays and it will stay that way. I have decided to offer the option of linking up your post to the Read.Exlore.Learn. Facebook page instead.

Each post will still be visited and truly book related post will be shared with others. I try to share the posts linked to Read.Explore.Learn. on a variety of social media sites. Lately I have been sharing them on the Read.Explore.Learn Pinterest board, Google +, and Facebook.

I am hoping that I will be working full time this fall. Having some of your post already post on the Read.Explore.Learn. Facebook page will allow other readers to see your post faster.

There will not be a Read.Explore.Learn link up on the blog tomorrow. (I will be participating in a Kid Blogger Network Back to School event. ) Please place your link on the Read.Explore. Facebook page so will not not miss out on seeing your amazing posts. Oh! Please make sure it is about an activity done after reading a children’s book. All other posts will be deleted.

Back to School Traditions Link Up 2013

August 8, 2013 By Deirdre

Welcome to the Pre-Back to School Traditions Link Up Informational Post!

I know some of you have started school already and some will be starting in the next few weeks. I am dying to know
how you celebrate the beginning of school at your house or in your classroom. So starting I am going to open up a Back to School Traditions Link Up next Tuesday.What can you link up?

Back to School Ideas
Family Back to School Traditions (special meals, new shoes, first day pictures, etc..)
Recipes for Back to School breakfast foods or snacks or lunch box meals
Parent Celebrations
First Day of School Themed Books or Activities
Reflections on a Favorite First Day of School for You
Ways to Remember the First Day of School
Great Ways for Parents to Share Your Child’s First Day

What you can’t link up?

Reviews for Back to School products or Giveaways

The link will stay open until September 8^th. Yes, I know it is a big window of time, but I want to give everyone an opportunity to share.

If you would include the badge below on your post or link about to this post, I would be very thankful.

I will be linking my Back to School Related posts during several weeks too. Tomorrow on non-sandwich lunch box main dishes that could be served the first day of school or any day of the school year. I was given ideas and post to share by a variety of wonderful bloggers with first hand experience at making children school lunches.

JDaniel will be attending a New Student Meeting at the school he will be going to this fall tonight. Next week we will be going to Meet the Teacher, and the following week he will start kindergarten. (I can’t believe it.) Each event will probably have its own post.

I have exciting news for those of you that link up this year and for those of you that

leave comments on Tuesday’s post. I have three prizes that I will be sharing with you. One prize will be given to each of the following

The creator of one of the entries in the link up will be selected randomly
A random commenter who leave a comment on next Tuesdays post
A random commenter that leaves a comment sharing with me one post in the link up you left a kind remark on.

What are prizes?

A Kizmos gift pack of kitchen tools for kids
A set of Tiger Tales Books
A CamelBak Water Bottle

jdaniel4smom_camelback

I hope each of you will stop by and participate. The link up will be open until the first week in September. At the end of the first week of September. The winners will be selected and the prizes will be awarded.

Last year the Back to School Traditions Link was my highest visited post. I hope that you will join me in making this years post even bigger.

Please stop by on Tuesday, August 13th!

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Dig Into Treasure Hunting- Back to School Learning Bins

August 6, 2013 By Deirdre

This is the final Dig Into… post this summer. Previously I have shared {Dig Into Gardening} M.O.M. Container Garden, and Dig Into Construction Sites with you. This final post in the series called is {Digging Into Treasure Hunting} Back to School Learning Bins.

Why I Made Back to School Learning Bins

Bethany of Kidding Around Greenville invited me to join her at a Back to School event at our local mall. I helped her share information on the wonderful blog she and her friend Susan run. I was also able to bring some hands-on activities to share with parents and children that stopped by our table. Knowing that I wanted to create a treasure hunting post with you this week I decided to make I Spy Back to School Learning Bins.I created two bins to share along with I Spy sheets for each bin. The children and parents had a blast digging through the bins to find the objects JDaniel and I had hidden. They had fun finding the objects and they also enjoyed re-hiding them.

Some parents were already working with sensory bins at home. Many were excited about trying them at home. Once I explained how I introduce learning skills through questions as we explore bins, they were really excited.

General Questions to Ask After Exploring BinsHere is some I ask JDaniel:

Can you tell me about the object’s shape?
What color is the object?
What is sound does the object start with?
What is another word that starts with that letter?
Can you find an object that is smaller than this one?
We found three paper clips. What object is there more of in the bin?
What vowel sounds do you hear in the object’s name?

What I Put in the Bins

As I mentioned I made two Back to School learning bins to dig into just as you might dig for treasure. I selected plastic bins that were big enough for two or three children to dig into. Into each bin, I placed shredded brown paper bags. My original thought was I would use brown paper bags since I took my lunch in brown paper bags to school. After some thought, I realized that children might not do that anymore. JDaniel and I had already shredded every brown paper bag by then so, we went ahead and used them. Then we added the objects to be found in each bin.

I Spy Letter and Number Sensory Bin
Into the Letter and Number Back to School Bin I put the letter and number cookie cutters, we have used in in the kitchen. (We happened to have letter and number cookie cutter, but you could easily use letters and numbers from a puzzle, a magnet set, cut out from magazines, noodles or a foam bath play set.)Then I made a worksheet titled Alphabet Sensory Bin Hunt. The worksheet contained all of the alphabet letters and the numbers 1-9. (I guess the worksheet should have been titled Letter and Number Sensory Bin Hunt. Ooops! I will redo it if I get to share the bins again.)

The goal was for the children to find each of the letters and numbers and cross them off as they worked.

I Spy School Supply Sensory Bin

Into the I Spy School Supply Sensory Bin we placed a bunch of school supplies from the Office Depot Back to School Giveaway I offered recently and some school supplies we had around the house. There were probably fourteen objects in the bin.

I made an I Spy School Supply sheet that featured a collage of school supplies that I made on PicMonkey. It was super easy to place pictures the school supplies into the collage and insert it into a Word document.

When JDaniel did a trial run of the activity, he placed the objects on top of their picture on the I Spy sheet. It was interesting to watch the children at the mall. Some of the children just put a check mark on the picture and threw it back in the bin. Some laid it on the picture as JDaniel had and some lined the found objects up on the outside of the bin. One family of four girls worked together to find all the found objects and they had to discuss how they would display the treasures they had dug out of the shredded paper.

What school supplies went into the bin?

a marker (taped shut)
an empty glue stick
a penguin pencil sharpener
three index cards
five pencil top erasers
crayons
three paper clips
a ruler
two pencils
a pencil pouch
brass fasteners
a paint brush

Disclaimer:
I wasn’t sure what to put in the school supply learning bins. I really struggled with what would be safe and kids friendly. Members of the Kid Blogger Network Facebook Group shared their wonderful ideas with me . Kristin of Sense of Wonder shared a link to her Back to School Bin during that discussion. Her bin featured the Eye Spy Chart that my I Spy sheet was based. While both my bin and I Spy sheet look different from her’s I think it important to share that the post on Sense of Wonder inspired this post.

I want to thank Erin of Royal Baloo and Jodi of Growing Book by Book for co-hosting with me in this link up.

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Useful Grilling Gear and Outdoor Products Shared on WSPA

August 5, 2013 By Deirdre

Tomorrow morning I will be on WSPA again. You may remember that I was on WSPA a few weeks ago sharing baby and toddler products and I had a blast. I was given the opportunity to share some wonder grilling and outdoor products. I know what a wonderful opportunity! I am such a blessed lady.

We have really gotten into grilling at our house this summer. Everything from romaine lettuce for a grilled salad to hot dogs has appeared on our charcoal grill. There is just something wonderful about making dinner on the grill. JDaniel asks us grill burgers or hot dogs often and I love them grilled too.Along with sharing the products, I shared with you, I wanted to share information on how to find these wonderful products. Unlike last time I will not be offering a giveaway for these products. Why?! I know they all look great, but shipping is getting expensive and I wasn’t sure about sending some of them in the mail. I should know they are safe to send because they were all sent to me.

I know you still want to know about them so, here is the information on the grilling gear:

Fire Starters are packets of fire starting material that burns hot and clean without toxins. It will burn hot for about 10 minutes. That should be plenty of time to get your fire going. They are so simple to use. You simply place them under charcoal and light one of the packet’s corners. 18 Fire Starter packs retail for $8.99.

Flare Down is an all natural spray that brings down grease flare up. It contains no toxic chemicals and is safe to use near food. A bottle of Flare Down retails for $5.99.

Grate Chef Grill Wipes attach to the bristles of grill brush and contain a grilling oil that keeps your food from sticking. The wipes can be applied to a cold or hot grill. I love that it is no flammable and keeps little bits of food from sticking to the grill. Cleaning those little bits off it just not fun. 18 wipes retail for $8.99.

Trash-Ease is just wonderful. Many of our local state parks don’t have trash can out. I guess they don’t want animals getting into them. We end up putting all our trash in our lunch bags when we had out to have a picnic. Trash-Ease is a portable trash bag holder that attaches to your picnic table. When you are not using it, Trash -Ease is easily stored in your trunk. It is so easy to clean up a whole table of food or have people place their trash in it when they have finished. It uses standard 13 gallon and 33-gallon trash bags. That is another plus. Trash-Ease retails for $14.95 (13 gallons) to $17.95 (33 gallons) and it comes with two trash bags.

Thermacell Outdoor Lantern is something we use often. It is great for that night when the bugs come out in force and there is still a little outdoor playtime. It repels mosquitoes and other bugs and gives you some light to play by. This would be awesome on camping trips when you want to hang out in a bug-free zone before you head to sleep. It is non-toxic and is DEET – free. It retails for $31.99.

If you like camping or grilling or both, I hope you will check out these useful grilling gear and outdoor products.

What is your favorite grilling tool or product?

Math for Kids- Measuring Really, Really, Big Dinosaurs

August 2, 2013 By Deirdre

The Really, Really, Rreally Big Dinosaurby Richard Byrne is such a wonderful book. It is about a little dinosaur who has in his possession a jar of jelly beans that another bigger dinosaur wants. Actually he doesn’t want it, he demands it. He won’t settle for one jelly bean. No, he wants them all.

Math for Kids- Measuring

The little dinosaur tries to point out that they are not his beans. The bigger dinosaur doesn’t want to hear about them belonging to a friend. He struts around touting his strength and power.

In the end the little dinosaur draws him close enough to his friend’s mouth that the bigger dinosaur for the much bigger friend to clamp his teeth down on him. Thankfully the bigger friend is a herbivore who loves jelly beans.

In the end they all agree to share and the not be greedy. I bet he stop being a bully too.

What did we do to explore the book?

We did two math for kids measurement activities. One used non- standard measurement tools and the other used a ruler.

Non-Standard Measurement Tools

We measured three dinosaurs I created to resemble the big “greedy” dinosaur. Wooden cubes were used to measure each of the dinosaurs. The blue dinosaur is really a half a block shorter than we measured him, but we didn’t have half a block. I told my son we had to go up to the next number rather than go down to the number that would be a little short.

When we had measured the each dinosaur from the foot near its tail to the tip of its horn, we counted how many squares tall each dinosaur was.

Standard Measurement

A standard ruler was used to measure the dinosaurs. We used the inch side of the ruler rather than the metric side. It was much easier to measure using the ruler. The ruler had markings between the inches that allowed us to measure the dinosaur to the 1/2 and 1/4 inch.

We had an interesting discussion about non-standard and standard measurement. It was decided that the standard measurement was much more accurate. If we are measuring something and we want to know its exact measurement we will need to use a ruler.

Here are some more math for kids activities:

LEGO Fraction Games

Free Printable Interactive Math Sheet for Kids

Measuring in Farm Units

You will find more math for kids activities on my Early Learning Math board on Pinterest.

How did you explore books this week? If you have a post you would like to share, please link it up below. Once you have added your post, please visit at least three others.

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Disclaimer: The book featured in this post was sent to me by Tiger Tale Books. This post contains affiliate links.

Math Kids- Hallway Numbers

August 1, 2013 By Deirdre

We don’t have a lot of room in our house to spread out and work. The hallway that leads from the front to the back of our house is one of the few spots. I would like JDaniel to be one of those math kids that loves numbers and exploring them.One morning while he was finishing his breakfast I grabbed a roll of masking tape and headed into the hallway. I had know idea how I was going to form the numbers with tape. The plan was just to make the numbers from 0 to 9 with tape.

I got to the number 4 when he looked in to see that I was doing. We were both excited about how they were turning out. I was thrilled that we both recognized what each number was supposed to be.After he finished breakfast, I explained some of the ways I thought we could use these numbers. There were ten ideas I came with that I will share with you in a minute. I would like for you to put on your thinking caps and see if you can help me come up with more. We are likely to have them on the floor for awhile and I would love the use them a lot.

Here are the ten math kids activities that I came up with:

Blow a cupcake liner down the number line with a straw and count as it lands on each number.
Blow a cupcake liner as hard as you can down the number line and shout out the number it lands on.
Drop a cupcake liner from the stairs above and tell the number it falls on.
Toss a beanbag down the number line and whisper the number it lands on.
Toss a bean bag over your shoulder and see what number it lands on.
Hop down the number line and say each number as you land on it.
Trace the inside of the numbers with highlighter to work on number formation.
Roll a toy car in each number and count up to that number. ( This won’t work for zero.)
Work on the concept of length. Lay objects over the numbers starting at one and see how long it is.
Pick a number and fill it with objects. Count how many objects will fill that number up.
Practice skip counting by jumping for a number.

What ideas do you have for the hallway numbers? Here are some other learning activities that use masking tape:

Fire Ladder Activities

Let’s Create a Graph on the Floor and Gather Data

19 Ways to Use a Tape Learning Maze

Science Experiment- Keeping Balls Afloat In Puddles

July 31, 2013 By Deirdre

Saturday morning started with pouring rain that drenched the grass making it swamp like and creating a huge puddle in our driveway. This is not unusual for us this summer we have had many mornings, afternoons and evenings that have been filled with rain. Normally JDaniel just jumps around in the puddles. Last Saturday I decided we would do a science experiment called keeping balls afloat.

Science Experiment

We have lots of play ball in our garage. There are real golf balls, plastic golf balls, ball leftover from having a ball pit, rubber bouncy balls, and a small rubber basketball leftover from a baby game of JDaniel’s. I quickly went inside and grabbed a few of them.

I asked JDaniel to drop all of them at the same time to see what would happen. He announced that they would all be pulled down by gravity. ( My husband has done several gravity activities with him.) “Beyond being pulled down,” I asked him.

We both watched as the balls make big and small splashes into the puddle. The heavier balls like the golf ball made a large splash. The lighter ball like the ball pit ball barely made a splash. “Well, they made a splash!” he announced.

“Beyond a splash,” I asked him. We kept our eyes on the balls and noticed that the golf ball was slightly submerged. Several of the others stayed afloat and started to float away from the landing spot.

“Can you keep them moving by jumping near them?” I asked JDaniel. “Let’s see!” he said. Sure enough, they all moved little and some moved a lot.

Can you keep them moving by running through the puddle?” I asked JDaniel. “Wow! I made a big current!” he announced.

“Did the balls that were floating continue to float or did they start to sink?” I asked him. “They continued to stay afloat and ran into the grass!” he commented.

We didn’t look at what would make the ball sink or push them under the water. We did talk about the weight of each ball and whether it was solid or air filled. I love talking science with JDaniel.

This science experiment looking at keeping balls afloat wasn’t planned. It was just a learning moment that came to mind as I watched JDaniel stomping through our wet yard. Sometimes unplanned lessons turn out to be really fun and filled with teachable moments.

What lessons are you learning this week?This post is linked to Alphabe Thursday.

8 Ice Cream File Folder Games for Learning

July 30, 2013 By Deirdre

JDaniel will start kindergarten in a few weeks. I decided to create 8 file folder ice cream games to review skills I thought he would be learning or reviewing at the beginning of school. On Friday I shared two of the ice cream file folder games in a post called Preschool Activities- Ice Cream Games. If you visited that post of Friday, I hope you won’t mind my sharing them again in this post.

Here are all eight of the ice cream games for learning that I made:

Math Activities

Number Matching

jdaniel4smom_icecream_folder_idea_counting_dots

Matching the number on the scoop to the correct cone required counting the dots on some of the cones. I love that my son self checked his answers to confirm that he was selecting the correct cone.

Button Count

Counting out the correct number of button to place on each scoop to match the number on the cone required number sense and eye had coordination. My son counted each set of buttons before placing them on the cone.

Addition Cones

We worked together to select the correct numbers for each addition sentence. My son put one scoop on a cone at a time. Then we added the correct number of buttons. Finally we worked out what number to add on top of the scoop by putting the bottom number in our heads and counting on with buttons.

Language Arts/ Reading

Letter Recognition

Matching the correct lowercase letter to the correct uppercase letter could have been tricky. I chose to focus on the beginning of the alphabet. Many of the letters at the beginning of the alphabet are confusing for kids. Letters like b, d, and g look similar to some children.

Building Sight Words

For this activity we had to read the word on the cone and search for the letters that we needed to build a word. Then we reread the sight words.

Sight Word Concentration

I selected four sight words and put them on two ice cream scoops. Then we turned them upside above the cones. My son had to search for the matches. Finding the matches wasn’t hard. There were only four words to look for. The hard part was reading the words. If a word couldn’t be read, it had to be put back and attempted again when it was selected.

Other Learning Activities

Color Words

For this game my son had to match the color word with its matching color scoop. I read the color words for my son and had him repeat them. I picked basic colors. It would be fun try some more unique colors.

Pattern Match

This final ice cream game for learning had my son matching the pattern on the cone with the same pattern on a scoop of ice cream. This was a wonderful activity for introducing vocabulary words like zig-zag, horizontal, vertical, and diagonal.

We had a wonderful time reviewing learning concepts with all 8 ice cream games for learning. My son really enjoyed them. I think I will be working on more with other themes.