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+.

Chinese New Year Activities and Crafts for Kids

February 8, 2013 By Deirdre

We had the best time reading Long-Long’s New Year and doing Chinese New Year activities! JDaniel really enjoys the book Long-Long’s New Year. It is about a very special little boy that seeks to make his family’s celebration. Despite having a coin that he is yearning to spend on himself while shopping with his grandfather, he waits and gets special things for his family. The illustrations in this book are lovely and so is its message.

Chinese New Year Activities and Crafts

Chop Stick Transfer Buffet

While browsing through Living Montessori Now’s weekly link-up, I noticed a wide variety of posts on transferring objects with chopsticks. Many had some kind of string or yarn.

JDaniel loves to use these chopsticks so, I created a chopstick transfer buffet for him. He was able to move packing peanuts, color straw segments, and yarn to create a delicious bowl full of fun.

Cupcake Liner Fortune Cookies

I found directions on how to make fortune cookies using cupcake liners on several sites online. Each used a wire down the middle to help bend and mold the fortune cookie. We didn’t have any wire at our house so, we used foil cupcake liners instead.

When I tried to take a picture of the steps we took to make the fortune cookies, the glare of the foil was terrible. I quickly grabbed some snowman liners to show you what we did.

We folded the cupcake liner inside out and then placed a staple in the center of the liner about one-half an inch in.

Then we turned the cupcake liner outside in and pushed in the center a little to make an indention. Finally, we staple the outside edges. We left openings at the top of the sides to slip the messages in.

Chinese Snake Shape Craft

JDaniel had the best time creating a snake from a box filled with triangles, parallelograms, and squares I had cut out for him. He started with the tail and worked his way up to the head. I loved watching him create and think through this craft.

Chinese Zodiac Animal Hunt

JDaniel has a wide variety of animals in his room. I printed out a Chinese Zodiac page for Activity Village and had him search his room for as many of them as he could find. He wasn’t able to find a tiger, a goat, or a rat. He really didn’t find a dragon either, but he pointed out that dinosaurs and dragons might be related. We decided the dinosaur could count as a dragon.

It was really fun to see him search through all his things to find the ones he did find. Each time he came across one it was like he was finding a hidden treasure.

Snake Snack

Crescent Roll Snake for Chinese New Year

We tried to follow a pattern for a snake pattern I found online, but it was really hard to cut the crescent rolls into the right shapes. I ended up trimming some of them with a knife after we cooked them to try and get close. Oval is not a tangram shape, but they really made great eyes for the snake.

JDaniel helped me brush the roll segments with a mixture of milk and green food coloring after they came out of the oven.

How have you explored books with children this week?

Hectic Schedules: How to Keep a Clear Head

February 7, 2013 By Deirdre

My word for 2013 is strength. I shared with you early this month that I need to work on my diet, exercise, staying in contact with friends and work on my spiritual life. While working on each of these areas will help me work on my word of the year, they will also help me keep a clear head while balancing a hectic schedule.

Hectic Schedules: How to Keep a Clear Head

I had been thinking things would get a little more hectic this summer, but things have really picked up already. I bet we all have such a hectic schedules.

How?

JDaniel has swimming lessons and will hopefully be adding speech soon. He is also interested in joining the children’s choir.

I am teaching Sunday school.

My husband and I are taking a parenting class called Love and Logic which it turns out has homework. I am in a moms group at church that has homework and book reading assignments.

There are blog commitments I have to several blogs including this one.

The house needs a totally purging of closets and it needs more of a mid-winter cleaning than a spring one. I don’t think it can wait until spring.

I wanted to be better about exercise and eating healthy meals with JDaniel instead of getting things done while he eats lunch and breakfast.

What am I doing to keep a clear head?

I found a daily blogging checklist online that I modified and I am trying to follow. It helps me stay focused on what I need to do online and keeps me from going on internet rabbit trails.

Getting up earlier to have my prayer time before JDaniel gets up.

Blogging more at night. I am usually ready to head to the television as soon as JDaniel goes to bed. I am trying to schedule social media in advance instead of the day of. I have been easily able to do that. I have been able to write when JDaniel the two days I don’t have mom’s group at church or in the afternoon when he has quiet time.

I have set up a cleaning and blog post calendar. Knowing what I need to do on a specific day has been such a help.

Exercise has been scheduled too. It turns out that if I have a time set up for it I tend do it.

I am heading to JDaniel’s preschool as few minutes earlier than I need to and bringing the books I need to read with me in the car. I can read for a few minutes before I go in to get him. It is has amazing how many pages I can read when all I have in the car with me to do is a book.

You would not believe how much having a schedule, getting up a little earlier, and using the time I have when JDaniel is asleep or at school to get things done has helped me not to feel oodles of things to do from clouding my head. Keeping my head a little tidier with a routine that is working has helped me feel more balance.

It has opened up more time to spend with my guys and given me more time to touch base with friends. The free flowing life that felt such pressure when deadlines or appointments loomed in front of it wasn’t working. Having a schedule that I can modify if I need to has really me clear my head with a hectic schedule. It is helping me to feel just a little stronger.

Balancing a hectic schedule is hard enough. Trying to keep it together when you’re under the weather requires additional help. Maximum Strength* Mucinex® Sinus-Max™ Pressure & Pain triple action formula fights mucus, congestion, sinus pressure and headache/pain. With cold and flu season in full force, I am relieved to know that even my worst symptoms can’t derail my plans. * Per 4-hour dose This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Mucinex. The opinions and text are all mine.

Balancing hectic schedules is hard enough. Trying to keep it together when you’re under the weather requires additional help. Maximum Strength* Mucinex® Sinus-Max™ Pressure & Pain triple action formula fights mucus, congestion, sinus pressure and headache/pain. With cold and flu season in full force, I am relieved to know that even my worst symptoms can’t derail my plans.

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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Mucinex. The opinions and text are all mine.

Science Activity for Kids – Magnetic Heart Jar

February 6, 2013 By Deirdre

Love like magnets can repel or attract. JDaniel is too young at almost five to understand much about how there are some people that we are attracted to and some people seem to repel us or cause us to pull away from them. He has started to understand that there are some things that magnets are attracted to and some that don’t react at all to them. I put together a science activity for kids that I am calling Love is Magnetic and looks at how magnets work together with things that they are attracted to.

Creating This Science Activity for Kids

We created a magnetic heart jar filled with things that magnets are attracted to using the following materials:

red, pink and white pipecleaners
empty peanut jar
paperclips bent into hearts
ball magnets

How did we put the magnetic heart jar together:

I cut the pipe cleaners into thirds and we bent them into heart shapes.

We put all the pipe cleaner hearts and paperclip hearts into the jar

We screwed on the lid.

Once the lid was screwed on, the fun began. JDaniel rolled a magnetic ball that we found in a drawer up and down the jar to see how many items he could lift up. Then he tried rolling the ball around the jar to see how many objects would follow the magnet all the way around the jar.

At first many of the objects clumped together in a bunch. JDaniel has to work carefully to try to just have a few objects follow where ever he lead them with the magnet. The more he practiced the more control he had over them.

It was really fun to watch the hearts dancing around in the jar. The sparkly pipe cleaner stars in particular look pretty flashing around in the jar on the bright afternoon we tried this jar out.

We will be taking the magnetic heart jar out again soon. I think we will add in some Valentine’s Day related hearts that do not contain metal and see how they interact with the magnet. They may not be attracted to it, but that may get stuck under an object that is and end up following the magnet around.

This post is linked to Alphabe Thursday!

Acts of Kindness Project- Remembering Those Who Serve

February 5, 2013 By Deirdre

Toddler Approved and several other kid bloggers are hosting the second annual 100 Acts of Kindness Project. Each week one of the hosts shares the theme of the week and encourages everyone to demonstrate acts of kindness during the week. Last year I shared each of ways we shared kindness with others and how we recorded what we were doing to keep track of them. We are still working through the challenges, but I haven’t been great at sharing how we have completed them with you. I did want to share a care package that we put together to send my brother in law in Afghanistan. He has been serving there for a few months and still has a few months to go. Remembering those who are serving our country overseas as well as in the states is really important to me.

Acts of Kindness Project- Remembering Those Who Serve

I started the project by gathering some wonderful treats from Trader Joe’s. JDaniel and I love to shop there. He really loves the fruit leather bars. I was able to find a variety of cookies, fruit bars, and fruit leather bars. I should have asked my sister Kate what he really likes, but time got away from me.

Directions for Putting This Acts of Kindness Project Together

jdaniel4smom_acts_of_kindness_box_filled

Then I set out a bunch of art supplies for JDaniel to decorate the inside of the box with. I wasn’t sure if I should let JDaniel decorate the outside of the box. I didn’t want to to interfere with the box getting to my brother in law.

JDaniel decided the heart shaped dolies needed to be scattered all over the inside box. He placed in them everywhere. Even the bottom of the box ended up with a few.
After he had added some paper and felt hearts, he added a piece of ribbon to the bottom of the box. He really wanted to weave it in and out of the holes on the outside of the box. I wasn’t sure that the post office would approve. He was a little disappointed, but understood that we wanted the box to get all the way to Afghanistan.

We waited a while for the glue to dry under the hearts and then filled it to the brim with the treats I had purchased. On top of the treats we added two cards that had been part of a doile printmaking project we did earlier in the week. I simply cut a few squares out of it and folded them into cards.

When everything had been packed into the box, we wrapped what seemed like an endless supply of packing tape around the box. Everything should be housed safely and securely inside the box.

We hope Uncle Chuck will love getting it.

How can we remember those around us that serve others by doing an acts of kindness project?

16 Valentine’s Day Activities For Kids

February 4, 2013 By Deirdre

I have shared quite a variety of Valentine’s Day crafts, activities, and snacks over the past few years. There are many others coming up soon. Before I share them I thought I would share with you 15 Valentine’s Day ideas I really like and have shared with you and one new one. That gives your 16 Valentine’s Day activities that you can look over and try before Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day Activities

Crafts

Hand Print Paper Card Pouch

JDaniel and I made this pouch for Valentine’s Day last year. It held his Valentine’s Day cards. I don’t think I shared this on the blog last year. I found it when I was sorting through some crafts we did. I love that his little hand print is the stem for the flowers that he made with stickers.

Hearts on Ribbon Bookmark

We made a bunch of these to give to JDaniel’s teachers at school. I cut slits in felt hearts and we threaded them onto some pretty Valentine’s Day ribbon. I folded the ends of the ribbon behind the hearts at the top and bottom and stitched them to the back.In the past we have also made the following crafts:An R2D2 Valentine’s Day Card Holder

Valentine’s Day Cards

Heart Shape Doile PrintsSalad Spinner Valentine’s Day CardsActivities

I hid plastic hearts all around the yard for JDaniel to find I called it looking for love. Each contained a small piece of candy. He was thrilled to find that out.

We have also done the following Valentine’s Day activities and food creations:

Montessori Style Valentine’s Day ActivitiesTransformed His Play McDonald’s into a Post OfficeFished for Alphabet Letter on HeartsCreated Heart Shaped Flowers and a VaseTangram Heart ActivityValentine’s Day Sensory BowlLEGO Heart PuzzleFood Creations JDaniel had this for breakfast last year. We made the granola together and then I used it to make him a special heart-shaped treat.Here are some special lunches I have made for JDaniel with a Valentine’s Day theme:Pink Food Filled Muffin Tin

Heart Shaped Empanada Lunch

Chocolate Dump Cake with RaspberriesI hope you enjoyed checking out our Valentine’s Day ideas. There will several new ones shared later this week and next.

Super Bowl Food- Two Football Lunches

February 3, 2013 By Deirdre

My four year old is not really big into the traditional Super Bowl food. We read the book Buffalo Wings last week and he wasn’t interested in my trying to make buffalo chicken wings or jalapeno poppers. He was interested in having a grilled cheese sandwich.

Creating Super Bowl Food for Lunches

Once he has shared his food ideas with me I set off to create a Super Bowl food meal for him featuring grilled cheese sandwiches and some of his other favorite foods. He has been big into grape tomatoes and grapes lately. He can go through a container of them in just a few days so, I included them in his lunch. (I think my husband has been inhaling them too.) JDaniel also loves chips and snack foods. I don’t usually give him them often, but since this is part of a Super Bowl foods lunch and chips are popular Super Bowl snacks I put them in. Finally, he got a muffin cup of dip to dip the chips and tomatoes into. The dip is just a mixture of Vidalia onion salad dressing and sour cream.

Once I had put his lunch together, I remembered that I had saved a football shaped container from last year in a storage cabinet. It has once held a trail mix and I had put it aside to use for a Super Bowl food related meal this year.

I didn’t want to not use it so, I reassembled JDaniel’s lunch in the football shaped container. The container was much smaller than the Easy Lunch Box bento I started with. Some of the foods ended up squished together. The silicone muffin cup was smooshed a little too.

The squished muffin cup looked a little like a heart when I went to take a picture of the lunch. I guess it makes this version of the lunch an I Love Football themed lunch as much as a Super Bowl Food lunch.

JDaniel didn’t seem to care if this Super Bowl food lunch was squished. He did seem to think it was delicious. As his mom that is all the matters to me.

Here are some more super bowl and bento lunches:

Apple Chicken Salad Lunch

Red, White and Blue Lunch

What are you serving your children during the Super Bowl?

How Do I Make Play Dough- Chocolate Shadow Play Dough

January 30, 2013 By Deirdre

Groundhog’s Day is right around the corner and I thought it would be fun to make Chocolate Shadow cookies with JDaniel . It has always been fun to do an activity that ties to holiday. Chocolate Shadow cookies tie to the whole groundhog sees his shadow tradition. I took out my ancient Pillsbury cookie cookbook and searched for the recipe. I didn’t remember until I started reading over the recipe for them that they contained peanut butter. My son doesn’t like anything with peanut butter in it. Rather then make cookies only my husband and I would eat I thought that maybe we could make chocolate shadow play dough instead. It doesn’t need peanut butter and it is fun to knead it into dough. Just how do I make play dough?

How do I Make Play Dough for Groundhog’s Day

Well, we start by hunting and gathering around the kitchen. JDaniel loves to help gather together all the ingredients.

Chocolate Shadow Play Dough 1 cup of water3 cups of flour ( We add a little at a time and sometimes don’t need 3 cups.)
1 1/2 cups of salt
1/4 cup of vegetable oil1/2 cup of cocoaWe mix all of the ingredients except the cocoa together adding the flour a little at a time. We tend to use a big bowl when mixing. It helps to keep the ingredients in a bowl. We also tend to mix and knead the ingredients together with our hands. It is very relaxing and feels great on our hands.

Once the mixture is the right texture and isn’t sticky, we add the cocoa. I like the marbleized effect that we get by not adding it in with the other ingredients. It looks like the dough has a shadow.

Later in the day we had one of the little boys next door come over to play. I took out our animal cookie cutters. We ended up with all kinds of chocolate shadow creatures. I believe there were even a couple of groundhogs.

Did you already know how to make play dough?

This post is linked to Alphabe Thursday.

Taking Time to Play with This Reading Mama

January 29, 2013 By Deirdre

This Reading Mama is such a wonderful blog! After checking out her amazing post below, I know you are going to want to visit her site. It is filled with wonderful activities and learning ideas.

A clean house is something I’ve always prided myself on. Years ago when I taught preschool, I would take a 2-hour lunch break once a week just to come home and clean my house. Yes, seriously.

Fast forward 7 and a half years and 4 kids later. While I still love it when my house is clean, I’ve learned a few things about messes. Sometimes it’s okay to say “yes” to the mess! My oldest son (currently 7 years old) is a builder. If you have a builder in your home, you know that his medium for play equals thousands of small manipulatives all over your house. LEGOS. Blocks. Lincoln Logs. Hexbug tracks. GeoTrax. Gears. If you can build with it, we’ve got it.

Not too long ago, he approached me with a messy idea. “Mom, can I build a bridge out of DUPLO blocks along the kitchen sink?” What?!?- this was the actual thought that went through my head. But I took the time to watch him play…and I was simply amazed.

Taking Time to Play with This Reading Mama

I put down a few towels and he began construction.

I took photos as he worked. With each step, he explained to me the ins and outs of his bridge. And to think, I would have missed out on this if I had not taken the time to simply play. Life is not about how clean my house is. That would make life about me. And as much as I don’t like to admit it, life is certainly not all about me.

While I don’t always say “yes” to every mess (there has to be a balance), I’m learning to pick my “no’s” carefully. 🙂 I try to ask myself- Am I saying “no” for selfish reasons and making life all about me? If I am, I miss out on the blessing of taking time to play.

Becky Spence is a homeschooling mama to four little blessings. She is passionate about teaching, specifically literacy. She is the author of This Reading Mama, where she shares reading and writing activities as well as free literacy curricula and printables. You can connect with This Reading Mama on Facebook;, Twitter;, Pinterest;, and Google +.

Lunch Recipes for Kids- Simple Creative Ideas

January 28, 2013 By Deirdre

Many of you have commented that you don’t have the time or the creativity to put together a lunch for you children the way I do. Putting to together lunch recipes for kids lunches doesn’t have to be hard. It can be as simple as using a food marker to write a message on a sandwich.

There are mornings that I don’t have time to pull out my cookie cutters or think of a fun theme for lunch. I barely get JDaniel’s Easy Lunch Box and thermos pulled out. The super simple turkey and cheese sandwich is throw together and I rummage through the fridge for some fruit and vegetables.

JDaniel is fine with a regular lunch especially if I add in some cheese crackers. (He loves them). I still want to do something special for him though so, I reach into my jar of muffin liners and grab one to dress up the compartment with the cheese crackers. Then I whip out a food marker and write a quick message on the bread of his sandwich.

Lunches Recipes for Kids Get Flair with Food Markers

The message on this lunch was Love U. It took only a couple of second to put on the bread, but JDaniel was thrilled to find it in his lunch when he sat down to eat it a Lunch Bunch.

I found the food markers at A.C. Moore, but I think you can find them at most hobby stores. The muffin liner I got at an after Christmas sale for 40 cents for the package.

Creating fun lunches doesn’t have to take a lot of time or require lots of special tools. I think it makes lunch fun for my son and that is why I do it.

Here are some lunch recipes for kids creative lunches:

-sandwiches cut into shapes with cookie cutters ( I save the scraps to make croutons.)

-toothpick kabobs of fruit or vegetables.

-muffin liners in bento boxes

-messages written on ziplock bags

– messages written on food (Bananas skins are great to write messages on.)

-napkins leftover from birthday parties

– a small bag of sprinkles to put on yogurt or apple sauce

– stickers added to a napkin

You will find more lunch ideas on my Food Creations board on Pinterest.

What are some lunch recipes for kids you have created?

Snowman Activities Based on Sneezy the Snowman

January 25, 2013 By Deirdre

Sneezy the Snowman by Maureen Wright is the tale of snowman that doesn’t like to be cold. He has a lot of trouble when he attempts to warm up. A drink of hot cocoa, time in hot tub, and sitting by a fire all make him melt. The children in the story have to keep making him over and over again.

The links below are affiliate links.

The children also try to share their winter clothes with Sneezy the Snowman. They end up feeling cold and he ends up feeling hot. The story ends with everyone going to get ice cream.

JDaniel loved the rhythmic lines and rhymes in this story as well as the text that repeats every time he melts.

What did we do to explore Sneezy the Snowman?

Observed Snowman Ice Cubes

We made snowman shaped ice cubes in a special ice cube tray. When they were frozen, I placed them into a silicone muffin tin. Each muffin cup was filled with water dyed blue. I thought it would make the snowmen look like they were encased in icebergs.I had hoped that we would be able to see the snowmen in frozen in the disks, but they were barely visible. I probably should have made the snowmen with blue water and the disks with clear water.

JDaniel didn’t seem to care. He had a blast playing with the disks in a large bowl with kitchen utensils. It was fun to watch them melt the more they were played with. This was a great way to explore how solids become liquids.

Made Snowman Soup

I really like to give JDaniel’s teachers homemade gifts on holidays. We made snowman soup drink mix to give his teacher and the teaching assistant in his class. Prior to making the mix I decorated two peanut containers to resemble snowmen to hold the snowman soup. The recipe we used made tons of snowman soup mix. It took four containers to hold it all. We ended up digging one out of the recycling bin and another bottle from one of the snowman soup ingredients.

Snowman Activities Based on Sneezy the Snowman

JDaniel dumped 1 container of coffee creamer, 1 can of instant chocolate drink mix, 2 cups of powdered sugar, and 5 cups of powdered milk into a bowl. He had the best time mixing all of the ingredients together. We used a large bowl to keep the ingredients in the bowl.

Once everything was thoroughly mixed, the soup was placed into containers. I put the snowman soup mix into the decorated bottles. JDaniel used a funnel to add the soup mixture into the now empty coffee creamer container and another bottle we had on hand.

We both added large marshmallows into our bottles periodically. I think I added them half way up and at the top. JDaniel added them randomly through his containers.

How have you explored books this week?