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+.

Patriotic Foods for Kids

May 18, 2013 By Deirdre

The summer is filled with patriotic holidays. Memorial Day next week. Flag Day is on June 14th. Then there is the 4th of July in the middle of the summer. Finally, there is Labor Day which is celebrated at summer’s end. I searched through the blog’s archives to find patriotic foods for kids that I have served.

These meals, snacks, and desserts may have originally been served on Memorial Day or 4th of July but would be wonderful for any of the patriotic holidays I listed above.
I bet your children can help you make many of them with you. None of them are difficult to make and they use ingredients that will be easy to work with.

Patriotic Foods for Kids

Twisted Stripe Wrapped Hot Dog Meal

Pinwheel 4th of July Snack

Patriotic Ice Cream Sundae

Fruit Flavored Watermelon Stars

Child Build Stars and Stripe Meal

Labor Day Star Themed Meal

Memorial Day Picnic Foods Meal

I hope you have found a patriotic food the kids in your life would love among the collection above. There are several more in the blog’s archives. These are the ones I thought you might like the best.If you have a post or idea that you think would make a great patriotic food for kids, feel free to leave a link to it below. I am always looking for food ideas to add to my Food Creations board on Pinterest.Did I leave your families favorite red, white, and blue foods? Is one of your favorite holiday recipes left off the list. Please take a moment and leave a comment below sharing what your family likes to have for Memorial Day, Labor Day, or the 4th of July. It will be such fun to find different things to prepare for those holidays.

Read.Explore.Learn- Reading Comprehension: Illustrating a Story

May 17, 2013 By Deirdre

This week JDaniel and I read the book Amelia Bedelia Helps Out. JDaniel loves the humorous way Amelia messes things up by not understanding that words have multiple meanings. I love her too. She turns 50 this year. (That means that people have been chuckling at her missteps for over half a century. ) It is her misunderstanding that I decided to focus on in this reading comprehension activity called illustrating a story.

JDaniel and I have read this story many many times in the past. Since we have been talking about gardening for the past few weeks, this book so needed to be read again. A few of her mistakes are related to gardening. She weeds the garden by adding weeds. She stakes the beans by wrapping steaks around them. Amelia uses a duster to dust the potato bugs with bug powder.

She also does several other odd things thinking she is doing the right thing. You just have to love her and giggle at what she does that is part of the fun of reading her stories.

Reading Comprehension – Illustrating a Story

Picture walking through a story means you flip through a story and look at the clues the pictures give as to what is happening in the story. Illustrating a story is the opposite of picture walking. During illustrate a story, a child flips through a book and looks for key concepts and pictures in a story they have already heard or read. They then draw them on a larger roll of paper in the order they happened in the story.

We looked through the story and picked four of the events that we wanted to draw. Both JDaniel and I worked on the drawings and we talked about what was happening in that part of the story.

Reading Comprehension Illustrating a Story - Amelia Bedelia Helps Out

Drawing Weeds

I drew the weeds and JDaniel added details to them. We talked about how they needed to be very big weeds just like the ones Amelia Bedelia had added to the garden.

Drawing Bean Plants and Steaks

It was so much fun to draw the bean plants and add pink steaks onto them. We don’t eat steaks often at our house. JDaniel kept having to refer to the book to see what they looked like.

Dusting Potato Bugs

I tried drawing a potato bug like the one in the book and JDaniel told me it was not exciting. I didn’t know that they were supposed to be exciting. He grabbed a gray crayon after drawing his leaf and made one that was more exciting than mine.

Giving The Chickens Scraps

JDaniel seemed to have lost interest in drawing when we got to give the chicken scraps of cloth. I started the chicken and he finished it. The feathers and feet are all his. I just love them.

When we finished, I had him walk me through the events of the story we had selected. I was expecting to just talk about what had happened. JDaniel grabbed the book and looked through it to find each of the events. I love that he had us go through the book as we discussed it.

While his not yet reading, he has learned to show that he comprehends what is being read to him. I think we will be illustrating a story again soon. As he does learn to read and write better, I will have him add keywords from the text to the pictures. We will be doing this reading comprehension activity again.

Here are some more reading activities:

This Mouse Needs a House Printable

Sight Word Web

Growing Words with Grass

Disclaimer: This post contains an affiliate link.

Learning Activities – 19 Ways To Use A Zigzag Learning Maze

May 15, 2013 By Deirdre

Learning Activities - 19 Ways to Use a Zigzag Learning Maze

Sometimes you sit down and plan an activity you will be doing with your children. You brainstorm what you will do during the activity along with alternative ways you can use it. There are other times you just grab a roll of tape and see what you can make with it. That is just what happened with this zigzag learning maze. When I sat on the floor with roll of tape I had no idea what the maze would look like and no idea of how we would use it.

Boy, have we found wonderful ways to use this zigzag learning maze! Actually we found 19 ways to use this zigzag learning maze.

Here are some learning activities we have used the walkway we created:

Movement Activities

We started by simply walking up and down the center of the pathway by placing one foot in front of the other. JDaniel doesn’t usually walk this so it took at little practice.

Walking the pathway backwards was even more of a challenge. When you are looking, back your feet can sometimes step off the path without meaning too.

Trying to walk on the tape down one side of the pathway and back on the other side took a little bit of concentration.

Jumping from one side of the path to the other was easy in areas where the pathway was narrow, but was harder in the wide areas.

Challenging a partner to move down the path in a certain way was a lot of fun. Skipping, hopping, galloping, sliding, and tiptoeing down the path were each offered up as challenges.

Timing which of us could move down the path the fastest and the slowest was also fun. Walking in slow motion inspires one to move the rest of your body in slow motion too. That can bring on a lot of giggles and stifled laughs.

Throwing a beanbag into a particular corner selected by an opponent can be quite challenging.

Learning Activities - 19 Ways to Use a Zigzag Learning Maze

Pretend Play

The edge of the pathway can be lined with block shaped buildings or cardboard boxes from the recycling bin.

Toy cars can race through the maze pushed from behind by people ready to get the checkered flag.

Balls can be rolled through the pathway like pinballs zinging and pinging through a maze.

The pathway can become a waterway for bathtub boats. The corners and dead ends can be inlets off a mighty river.

Learning Activities

Numbers can put in the corners by a child in ascending order.

Once number cards have been put in place, a child could walk to each number and clap that number of times.

Sight words can be placed along the path. In order to pick up the card the word on the card would need to be read.

Colored pom poms could be spread along the path to be picked up with chopsticks. Before the pom pom was picked up, the child would have to tell you the color of the pom pom or the answer to a learning question.

Two players could take turns rolling a die to see how many steps they could take down the path.

Books could be used to fill up all the space on the pathway and they would then be counted.

The pathway could be the home to a giant concentration game. The cards could be spread out along the path. Children could walk up and down the path looking for matches.

Washcloths could be used to fill in the path. They could then be counted to find the area of the path.

What are some other ways we could learning using the zigzag pathway?

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

Father’s Day Crafts- Walking In My Father’s Shoes

May 14, 2013 By Deirdre

Father’s Day is such a wonderful day to celebrate. I wanted to create a Father’s Day craft that would capture a memory and carry a message of how much JDaniel loves his dad. The idea I came up with was a craft I am calling Walking In My Father’s Shoes. We have created a few other Father’s Day crafts I will share with you at the end of this post.

When JDaniel was little he would put his little feet into him father’s shoes and stomp or shuffle around the house. He had to stomp or shuffle. My husband’s shoes were heavy and way to big for him. Yet he loved to slip his feet into them. There was something wonderful about putting on his dad shoes and trying to walk in them.

If JDaniel grew up to be like his father and chose to walk a path similar to him, I would be thrilled. They are very similar already due to DNA and life experience. Seeing JDaniel grow into even more of who his father is would be wonderful. (I am not saying he shouldn’t be his own person. Just that his dad has wonderful qualities.)

How did we make one of my favorite Father’s Day crafts?

We painted the bottom of an old pair of my husband’s sneakers with blue paint and carefully placed the shoe onto paper. We had to pressed the sole of the shoe from the inside to make as deep a print as he could. Rocking the shoe back and forth seemed to help.

Father's Day Crafts- Walking In My Father's Shoes

After the shoe print dried, I painted the bottom of JDaniel’s foot green. Then I helped him place his footprint on the paper.
The next step will be to print out the words Some Day I Want To Walk In Your Shoes on a larger piece of paper and put a frame around it. We haven’t done that yet so, I made a mock up on PicMonkey of what it will look like.

This simple Father’s Day craft would be so easy for you to put together. I bet you have child that loves to walk in his father’s shoes.

Here are some more Father’s Day crafts:

Amazing Out of This World Father’s Day Card

Star War Themed Light Up Father’s Day Card

“Best Dad I Ever Saw” Paper Plate Craft

“You Nailed It” Footprint Card

Father’s Day Breakfast- Cereal Tie

May 13, 2013 By Deirdre

I know it was just Mother’s Day yesterday and Father’s Day isn’t for awhile, but I have been trying to come up with a special Father’s Day breakfast. Last year JDaniel was taught how to make me a special breakfast fruit sundae. (Yes, we practice making it ahead of time.) I thought dad would like to have a special breakfast too. My husband gravitates to just cereal and coffee in the morning. JDaniel and I made his a fun cereal creation.
When I think of Father’s Day, I think of neckties. I am not sure why. My husband only wears one to church every now and then. I tried to put together breakfast cereal so it would like a tie in a shallow bowl. I thought he could just add a little milk to the bowl and have cereal for breakfast.After putting it together, I asked my husband what he thought and he said I needed to tell him what it was first. It looked obviously to me. Apparently, my husband didn’t. When I asked him why he didn’t see a tie, he said it was because the tie wasn’t long enough.

Well, I don’t think I can make a long tie in a shallow bowl. Maybe a platter would work, but then milk couldn’t be added to it.

Here are some other wonderful Father’s Day ideas:

Amazing Out of This World Father’s Day Card

DayDad’s Day Recipe – Dutch Apple Dessert

Walking in My Father’s Shoes

Here are some other Father’s Day Ideas

Out of this world Father’s Day Card

Father’s Day Treat- Dutch Apple Dessert

What do you think? When you look at the image on the plate above, do you see a tie?

If you don’t see a tie, what do you think I can to fix it?

{Children’s Book Week} 18 Favorite Books and Activities

May 12, 2013 By Deirdre

This is the beginning of Children’s Book Week. I thought I would share with you twenty of the books we have shared in Read.Explore.Learn. posts. If you click on the name of the book below, it will take you to the book explorations that JDaniel and I did for each post.

If you click on a book’s name, it will take you to an activity we have done with that book. Each would be great to do for Children’s Book Week.

How Did That Get in My Lunchbox? – This is a great book that shares how food items go from farm or factory to your children’s lunch box.

How Rocket Learned to Read – A wonderful bird teaches Rocket the dog the basics of reading. Rocket practices and practices during the winter while the bird is away. When the bird returns, he finds out what a great reader Rocket has become.

Eating the Alphabet – I learned about some new fruits and veggies while reading this book.

Big Bear Hug – Bear loves to hug trees. One day a woodman comes to chop down his favorite tree. Bear tries to save it.

Call Me Gorgeous– Bits and pieces of a gorgeous animal are revealed while reading through this book.

Cupcake -It isn’t easy being a plain vanilla cupcake. Your brothers and sisters all have fancy flavors. How can you make yourself stand out.

Don’t Worry Douglas – When something happen to Douglas’ new hat, he has to decide to tell his father.

Leprechaun Never Lie– They may not lie, but they may trick you into doing your chores. The leprechaun in this book does.

Gilbert the Goldfish Wants a Pet – Yes, even a goldfish want a pet. What pet will be best for him?

Fox in the Dark– All the woodland animals try to hide in rabbit’s house after seeing a fox in the dark. They never would would have guessed he would stop by and ask to stay in rabbit’s house too.

Little Owl’s Night – Little Owl is just dying to find out who and want he will see on night time adventure.

Rosie Sprout’s Time to Shine – Her friend Violet seems to do everything best. Will Rosie Sprout find out what she does best?

Gus Plants a Seed– Gus and his dad watch a seed as it grows into a plant. This is a fun easy read.

My Friend Fred -A girl named Grace learns that friends may need to have other friends too.

Squish Rabbit -Squish so wants to be noticed and have friend. By the end of this wonderful book Squish has both.

Bad Kitty – This fun alphabet book shares all kinds of gross and yucky foods bad kitty thinks of.

Bugtown Boogie– On a summer’s night the bugs head into the woods to dance. They have no idea they are being watched.

Ten Red Apples – After all the animals have an apple from the tree, will there be any left for the farmer?

What are your favorite children’s books? I am always looking for new book for Children’s Book Week. Learve me a comment sharing a favorite of yours.

{Kids Activities} 10 Fun Flower Posts

May 11, 2013 By Deirdre

Mother’s Day always makes me think of flowers. I think it is because my husband has always given me flowers for Mother’s Day. Here are some wonderful links to flower themed snack, meals, learning activities and crafts.

Three Child Friendly Spring Salads – Children will have fun trying three fun and fresh salads that they can help you make.

Upcycled Flower Craft – An old soda bottle, a cupcake liner, and a straw can be used to make a fun flower.

{Mother’s Day Craft} How to Make Paper Flowers – Directions for how to make three different types of flowers your children can make for Mother’s Day. JDaniel’s Flowers and a Mother’s Day Quote – Mother’s Day at my house just won’t be Mother’s Day with a bouquet of flowers.Paper Circle Flowers – These fun flowers will be just fun to make.Tissue Paper Dandelions – We you love the book and the dandelions you can make with tissue paper.Counting Flowers in Your Neighborhood – Children can take pictures of bunches of flowers found in your neighborhood. They can use these pictures to create counting sheets.

Paper Plate Sunflowers– You will love the book that goes along with this fun craft.Signs of Spring Bento Lunch – Leftover can be usedd to create a fun garden themed lunch. Tangram Rose Snack -This fun snack will give your children the chance to create a fun flower using tangram shaped sandwich pieces.I hope you find a kids activity featuring flowers that you love and decide to try at home. Whether you make one of the flower themed crafts or meals, I think you will find smiles blooming on your children’s faces as they create them. There will also be smiles on the faces of those people who receive them as a gift.Here is 1 more! That makes 11 fun kids activities flower posts!Sunflower Learning Kids Activities and Crafts

Dig Into Reading- Gus Grows a Plant Learning Activities

May 10, 2013 By Deirdre

Gus Grows a Plant is this week’s book for Read.Explore.Learn. It is a wonderful book easy reader that walks children through the process Gus goes through to grow a sunflower. In very simple text the story explains what plants need to grow, grow, and grow. JDaniel’s class went on a field trip to Uncle Bruce’s farm on Monday and got to plant a sunflower seed. It is just in the watering stage so, I decided to focus on some learning activities that had a sunflower theme.

What did we do to explore Gus Grows a Plant?

Crafting a Sunflower

Gus Grows a Plant and Sunflower Learning Activities

We made a construction paper sunflower and attached it to a cardboard tube with a pipe cleaner. Then we wrapped green tissue around an old instant tea container. It was supposed to look like grass. The tissue paper was secured with a yellow curling ribbon.

Sunflower Vowel Sound Match

JDaniel was asked to sort through paper sunflower seeds into short a and long piles. I read the words to JDaniel and he told me what side of the flower to put them in.Sunflower Counting

We worked with a set of sunflowers with numbers on their centers. This activity focused on the numbers 10-20. JDaniel has the most trouble with some of the numbers in this range.These were simply made by printing out sunflower clip art and placing numbers on them.

You will find several Read. Explore. Learn. activities right here on JDaniel4’s Mom. There are also a number on the Read. Explore.Learn Pinterest board. Please take a moment and look at them.

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.

{Gardens for Kids} Spider Web Trellis

May 9, 2013 By Deirdre

The idea for this spider web trellis came after reading about a spider web trellis in a book about gardening for kids. The book suggested using bamboo poles and twine to create a web. They went on to recommend that you plant a sweet pea plant to weave into the web.

JDaniel and I headed to Home Depot with the book in hand to see if we could find the materials and planst that we would need to create one for our backyard. We found out very quickly that they didn’t carry bamboo poles and that the customer service lady wouldn’t recommend using them. They will fall apart so quickly she said.

What did she recommend that we use instead? She pointed us to the metal poles that farmers used to make barbwire fences. “The poles have hooks built into them to attach the twine to,” she said. They were perfect. The fence poles are solid, won’t rot, and have those wonderful hooks.

The book then recommended a sweet pea plant, but they didn’t have any pea plants for sale. We then looked for the next thing on the list twine. They had a gardening twine so, we grabbed a roll of that before heading to the register.

JDaniel and I must have visited three other nurseries and didn’t find sweet pea plants. One recommended I buy seeds instead, but they didn’t carry them. The second nursery suggested we try Martin’s Nursery in the next town over so, we headed there.

They didn’t have them, but I wonderful lady there suggested that we try the Trumpet Creeper. “It will grow up to thirty feet long and will be flexible enough to weave,” she told us. When I told her about the twine I was going to use, she told us that was a bad idea. “It is going to rot,” she said. She recommended that we use a heavy string.

It was decided that we stopped by to pick up the string later in the day. JDaniel was ready to stop looking for spider web trellis materials by then. This gardening for kids project would have to wait awhile before getting started.

When we did have everything we needed, we headed into the backyard with our fence poles, string, Trumpet Creeper, and a variety of gardening tools ( large shovels, small hand shovels, scissors, a hammer and more)

The first thing we did was to plant the poles. It was a little tricky. We found that after about eight inches of dirt we have clay. Digging through the clay was a workout. JDaniel and I both took turns trying to dig through it.

Once we got the hole as deep as we could, I put a folded washcloth over the top of the pole and hammered it in. While I did that, JDaniel started the hole for the second post.

After I did a happy dance to celebrate the fact that poles were in place, we planted the Trumpet Creeper. Digging the hole for the plant was so much easier than it had been for the poles.

Creating the web was JDaniel’s favorite part. I had to show him how to pull the string tightly around the poles and attach it to the hooks at the beginning. He got the hang of it very quickly. He took the string across around and down over and over again.

The web got bigger and more elaborate as he wove it. The string went over and across our plant a couple of times. When I felt like we had a enough string on the web, I tied it off tightly and we both stepped back to look at it. We were both very pleased with it.

Would you like to make one of your on?

Here is our gardening for kids web supply list:

two green metal fence posts
a roll of heavy white string or twine
a plant that will creep or spread like a vine

We created our spider web trellis a few weeks ago. The plant has grown and we have been able to weave it through the web both vertically and horizontally. It is fun to decide what direction to guide plant into next.

This is a wonderful garden for kids. I hope you will try to make a spider web trellis too.

>This post is link to Dig Into Gardening. ( A gardening link up for kids that I am co-hosting)

Here are some more gardens for kids projects:

Paper Plate Greenhouse

Growing Grass Words

Mother’s Day Herb Garden

Yes, Mom is Part of My Name

May 8, 2013 By Deirdre

A few years ago I went to a blogging conference and a lady from a PR agency shared that she wished that so many bloggers didn’t put the word mom in their blog names. “You will not always be a mom,” she said. She encouraged people that hadn’t started a blog to avoid using it. “You are so much more and will write about so much more than being a mom,” she announced.

I sat quietly confused by what she had said. What I write about on this blog may shift over time and JDaniel may decided he doesn’t want me to write about him as much. He will grow up. He has already become a “big boy”. He informed he of that just yesterday. What won’t change it that I will always be his mom! I will always write with a mother’s heart, because that is one of my favorite parts of my heart to share.

I know she meant I am so much more than a mom, but the way she said it hit me wrong. Writing about motherhood is a gift that not all women get the opportunity to write about. Being JDaniel4’s Mom is one of my most favorite things to be.

When I go to pick him up at school or the little boy from next door comes over, the name I am called is JDaniel4’s Mom. I am not Mrs. Smith most of the time. (Though I love being Mrs. Smith just as much.) I am not a blogger or a writer or a teacher or a sister or daughter. (Though I am those things.) Maybe it is because I spent so much of my life as a single school teacher and maiden aunt. I was called teacher or aunt or by my first name or Miss and my last name for decades. It hasn’t been that long that I have gotten to be called mom.When I hear that deepening voice call out for mom or mama or mommy, my heart jumps. It is my favorite thing to hear JDaniel say. Well, I love to hear him say dad too.

Giving my blog the name JDaniel4’s may not have been the best branding or SEO choice. I really didn’t think about that when I started my blog. I just gave it my favorite name so, despite what others think I will with pride respond to the name JDaniel4’s Mom.