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+.

Laundry Room Organization Idea

August 22, 2012 By Deirdre

The shelves above the washer and dryer in our laundry room area have been a catch all. They have housed children’s games, crafts supplies, Muffin Tin Monday Supplies, cleaning supplies, and laundry items.

Last winter I cleared all the children’s games off the laundry room shelves and found a new place for them. They now live on the top two shelves of the linen closet across from this laundry area in our downstairs guest bathroom.

Some of the items left behind were put in fall foliage fabric cubes that I found on clearance for $1. The remaining items were left out where I could see them and quickly grab them. I understood why the laundry area was organized that way, but I thought it looked really really cluttered.

The fabric storage cubes looked wonderful on the shelves. I decided last Saturday to go out and get five more cubes. I knew I wouldn’t be able to find the same fabric of the cubes again so, the search was on for cubes that would be in the same fall color family.

Thankfully I found these rust colored cubes at Walmart for less than $4 each. They aren’t a perfect color match, but I think they are close.

When I got home I pulled all the items off the laundry room shelves and JDaniel helped me sort them into groups. There was a paint supply group, play dough supply group, hands-on manipulative group, a cleaning supply group, and finally a laundry item group.

We then put the items in each group in a bin.

The items looked so much better placed into the fabric bins, but unless I pulled each bin off the shelf I wasn’t sure what was in them.

Saturday afternoon my family headed out to look for tags to hang from the bins that I could put a label in. My initial thought was a luggage tag or clear tag hanging off a key chain. We weren’t able to find those in the stores that we tried.

A sales clerk at a local five and dime suggested that I used name badges as my tags. The badges were really inexpensive and would clip easily to the front of the bins. She was brilliant. The tags look great hanging from the front of the totes.

I still need to slip some paper labels in the fall foliage bins I found on clearance. When that is done, I think the laundry room shelves will look one hundred percent better than they did when I started.

Taking Time to Play- Various Sites I am Playing on This Week!

August 21, 2012 By Deirdre

I have been thrilled with opportunities to share on other websites over the summer. Usually my contributions or guest posts are one or two a week. I contribute weekly to Kids Activities Blog and once I month to MemeTales too.Every few weeks I have guest posted on a site. This week everything seems to be happening at once. Below I have listed all the places and guest posts I will be sharing on this week.If you can visit one or two of them, I would be thrilled. I am going to turn off the comments on this post in the hopes that you will comment on one or two of them.

Here are the days and titles of the posts I will be sharing:

Monday

Crayon Freckles with a post called In Her Shoes.Wednesday KidsActivities Blog with a post called Games 4 Kids: Memory Game. Thursday
Mama Smiles with a post called Exploring Geography: Greenville, South Carolina. Saturday The SITS Girls with a post called Saturday Sharefest.Whew! I told you there were a few this week. Next week I have only Kid Bloggers and a special guest post on one of my favorite blogs. I will wait until next week to tell you about that one.Next week’s Taking Time to Play will have Rainy Day Mom sharing. I think you are going to love her post.

School Lunch Ideas: Fun Ways to Serve Tortillas

August 20, 2012 By Deirdre

JDaniel loves having flour tortillas for lunch or dinner or breakfast. He really enjoys are variety of bread, but the flour tortilla is favorite.

With many of us starting school or having started school here are six great way to serve a flour tortilla to your children or to enjoy one yourself.

Dyeing and Free Hand Cutting

The tortilla is set in a mixture of food coloring and water. Once it has changed to the desired hue, you can cut out a shape with a knife or cutting tool.

That is just what I did to create the school in the bento snack below.

Cookie Cutter Design
You can to a small cookie cutter to cut a design out of a flour tortilla. Then you can toss it into a frying pan with a little olive oil to brown it. The snowflake cutout tortilla below was sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.

You can fry the small cutouts cut with the cookie cutter and toss them with cinnamon and sugar. Those cutout can be tossed into a fruit salad just as I did in the green bowl below.

You can use a cookie cutter to cut two pieces of flour tortilla and create a sandwich like the heart sandwich below.

Pinwheel Sandwiches

Ham and cheese were rolled up in a flour tortilla. Then the tortilla was cut into small sections.

Cut Shapes

The tortilla can be folded in half after being filled with cheese and meat. The tortilla can then be cut into triangles.

The Pout-Pout Fish Themed Recycle Fish Mobile

August 17, 2012 By Deirdre

This week I am going to share a wonderful children’s book called The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen. The pout- pout fish has a mouth that looks down turned. He decides that it means that he needs to be dreary all the time. The other sea animals try to get him to smile. He just won’t. He says he can’t he doesn’t have a choice. By the end of the book he finds he does have a choice and a wonderful smile if he will only swim upside down. (Spoiler Alert: A kiss helps make him smile too.)

This wonderful book is filled with rhyme you will love reading it all of the time.

How did we explore the book The Pout-Pout Fish?

Recycled Bottle Fish Mobile

JDaniel has been asking for mobiles for his room for along time. I made him an American flag mobile earlier in the summer and decide to add a fish one to his room too.

We have a lot of sticks that fall from the trees in our backyard. JDaniel stores them in a beaver dam area behind some bushes. Whenever we need a stick, we just head into the dam and look for the right one.

Once we had found the right one, I spray painted it white and red to look like coral.

A simple wash of water and glue was applied to multi-colored tissue squares. The squares were then placed all over water bottles that had the back third of them twisted to form a fish tail.

When we had applied enough tissue, we added giant wiggly eyes to the fish. Later when they had dried I added a piece of fishing line to each fish and hung the fishing line from the branch.

One night a few day later we put glow sticks in the fish to make them bioluminescent. JDaniel love having his Pout-Pout Fish glowing fish mobile in his room.

Starfish Math Game

We are trying to work on some basic math and reading skills this summer. One of the skills we have been working on is counting to ten.

To practice JDaniel and I sat down with some starfish game boards, pom poms, and a die. We each got to take turns rolling the die and adding pom poms to our starfish. The first person to get to ten was done and had to help the other person fill up the circles on their starfish.

Here are some of my favorite Posts from last week’s Read.Explore. Learn. link up:

I love this Nemo fish created by Colorful Imaginations.

Make Way for Ducklings is one of my favorite books. I love everything School Time Snippets did to explore and extend the book. The math lesson below looks like a lot of fun.

If you like these Pout-Pout fish book extension activities, you will like these fish activities for kids:

Fish Flop Painting

Shark Games -Fish Hockey

Zombie Goldfish Optical Illusion Activity

Polar Ice Fish Science Experiment

Making Memories- Downtown Greenville, South Carolina

August 16, 2012 By Deirdre

We headed to downtown Greenville to take pictures of some of the things JDaniel and I love to do in Greenville. The pictures and activities are being featured on Mama Smiles’ Exploring Geography series.

She has bloggers from all over the world sharing their country or state. We will be sharing our town next week. Actually Greenville is the largest town near our small town and it contains many of JDaniel’s favorite places.

Below you will find some of the pictures I didn’t use in her post, but I thought you would enjoy.

Where did we go in downtown Greenville?

We started in the Linky Stone Park’s Children’s Garden. They had wonderful plants of all kinds. JDaniel really liked having me read the signs for the different plants and then trying to find them.

Then we went to the fountains just along the Reedy River. JDaniel loves running up and down the train track painted on the ground and drinking out of the fountains. I was not thrilled with all the drinking. The water looked and smells clean though.

We headed up North Main Street to enjoy two special treats. The first treat came from Chocolate Moose to split one of their wonderful cupcakes. JDaniel selected an orange dreamsicle flavored one. It was delicious so, delicious that I forgot to take a picture of it.

The second treat came from the Mast General Store. JDaniel usually gets to pick a piece of candy for each brass mouse he can find on Main Street. There is a lot of construction going up and down Main Street. We couldn’t find very many mice not surrounded by cones and plastic walls. We did find a book and game about the Mice on Main in a display case at the Mast General Store. JDaniel thought we could just take a picture of them and then get some candy.

In the back of the Mast General Store are barrels of old fashioned candy. Most are only a few cents each. JDaniel picked out five piece and we paid seventy cents for them.

If you are ever in South Carolina, you really should come and explore downtown Greenville.

This post is linked to Alphabe Thursday.

Outside Play- Games: Moving Cup Golf

August 15, 2012 By Deirdre

Welcome to the Outside Play: Games link up! My co-host for this event are Train Up a Child, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, Rainy Day Mum, Kindergarten and Preschool for Parents and Teachers and Inspiration Laboratories.

If you have a post related to playing games outside, we would love for you to link them up below and add this badge to them.

Moving Golf Game

If you set out a red cup, some plastic gold clubs, and a variety of balls, your child will come up with a fun game to play.

At first they may just try out the different clubs and balls. They may find that it is easier to hit them on the driveway than it is to hit them on the grass. If the grass is tall, it will slow the ball down even more short grass would.

Once they have chosen a golfing surface, they may try different ways to hold the club. Holding the club backwards may be easier than holding it forwards.

In a made up game it is possible to hold the club in a variety of ways. There isn’t a right or wrong way to play a made up game.

While some people may choose to have the cup facing them when then try to get the ball in , others may decide they want to see what the cup with do when it is hit. There will be those that think it is fun to hit the ball around the cup instead of in it. There will be still others that try to hit it past the cup.

Remember there are no rules to the game of moving cup golf. Actually there is one rule and it is for parents and older siblings. The only rule is to sit back and watch the game creator create.

Taking Time to Play- Famiglia & Seoul

August 14, 2012 By Deirdre

I love stopping by to see what adventures the mom on Famiglia & Seoul is having with her little one. Her Memorable Moments Outside series is a favorite on mine.

After reading her wonderful guest post below, I am hoping you will take a moment and visit her blog.

I am so delighted to be able to share a playtime experience for JDaniel4’s Mom’s series Taking the Time to Play. There is so much to be said about interacting with your child on their level, while experiencing activities that they enjoy doing.

Being a stay-at-home mom has opened my eyes in more ways than I could ever have imagined. Each day my son teaches me lessons in patience, living in the present, and enjoying the simple things. Playtime is no exception. By closely observing him, he can communicate to me in so many more ways during play, than he can through words at this young age.

Some of his favorite things to do during the day are to go on nature walks and play with playdough. Today, we decided to combine the two by creating a wooden tunnel for his trains. He grabbed his little bag and we headed outside to collect as many little twigs as we could find for our project.

Once we gathered enough and got a bit of fresh air, we headed inside to begin our creation. I had a batch of playdough that didn’t turn out too well, so I covered our tunnel with it to create a sticky surface.

I started by modeling how to place the twigs on the playdough and my son jumped right in. Sometimes I forget myself and expect him to understand an activity just by explanation. However, over time I’ve realized how important it is to model your instructions. He often takes the lead and makes an activity his own, but he needs that gentle direction to get him started. For instance, he took it upon himself to bury the twigs into the playdough for a better hold, instead of just sticking them to the outside like I did.

It is so wonderful to watch their personalities shine through whenever they are in the middle of play. I’ve noticed how serious my toddler gets when he is putting something together or manipulating objects like blocks or loose parts. This activity was no exception. You can almost see the wheels turning in him head as he tries to work things our for himself.

He also amazes me with the little actions that he picks up when I am playing alongside of him. Even when I’m not specifically trying to explain something or in the middle of a teachable moment, he’s still learning and comprehending. During our construction I noticed him squeezing the twigs, only to realize that he was trying to snap them in half like I did for him when we started.

This one-on-one time is precious to me. Working together, exploring, and watching his imagination grow is priceless. That’s why I love including Daddy when we are taking the time to play. Whenever the whole family can get involved, I feel that it strengthens the bond and creates memories that will last a lifetime. This is why we were so excited that Daddy jumped right into our playtime when he came home from work!

I always try to keep in mind that it’s not the product that matters, but the process. If you take your child’s lead and allow them to enjoy the things that they love, the moments that share during play will help them (and you) grow in so many ways.

Under the Sea: Outdoor Play Lunch

August 13, 2012 By Deirdre

After spending several weeks celebrating the Olympics I thought, I would take you under the sea to watch some of the animals participate in outdoor play.Did you not know that starfish jump with seaweed ropes? I think this strawberry jello salad starfish does. He must have dreams of performing in a circus or theater. He has stars in his eyes.

The fish in the top left compartment is such a ham and he will stand on his fins and say, “Cheese!” Maybe he just watched a lot of gymnastics during the Olympics.

The other fish just like to hang out with others in the school and play tag. This must be a version of tag that requires you tag another fish with you eyeball or mouth. These Vanilla Cupcake Goldfish seem to like playing it.

If you have a post on your children playing their favorite outdoor game, please come by on Wednesday and link it up to my Outside Play: Games link festival.

Olympics for Kids- 12 Olympic Related Activities and Meals

August 12, 2012 By Deirdre

As you have seen during the last three weeks, I have been a little excited about the Olympics and sharing them with JDaniel. I thought I would share with you all the posts I have written about this Olympics for kids this summer.

Olympics for Kids Activities and Meals

Food Creations

Olympics for Kids- 12 Olympic Related Activities and Meals

The Olympic Symbols were displayed in a bento box in a post called Olympics for Kids: Olympic Symbols Snack.

There was a gold medal meal that featured a fruit strip and cookie gold medal. There was also a cheese popcorn torch in that meal.

As part of a Bento Bloggers Olympic Hop, I shared an Elympic themed bento snack based on the book Elympics.

I shared an edible Olympic torch creation on the Kid’s Activities blog.

There was a Fruit Filled Olympic Ring Breakfast that was a hit with JDaniel.

Finally I created a British Flag Fruit Creation that was filled with fruits I knew would earn a gold medal with JDaniel.

Olympic Values Series

The first post in the series was called Olympic Values: Respect and focused on self respect and knowing one’s limit.

The second post was called Olympic Values: Growing Excellence and was about doing your best.

The final post in the series looks at the Olympic Values: Friendship and I talked about JDaniel’s working on making new friends.

Crafts and Learning Activities

Olympics for Kids- 12 Olympic Related Activities and Meals

The two activities in the top row are from posts I wrote for the Kids Activities Blog. The first activity is called Olympics of Kids: Color Sorting and the second is called Olympics for Kids: Laurel Wreath.

The first post in the second row Olympics for Kids: Two Torch Painting Projects was a lot of fun to create with JDaniel.

The second post in the second row Olympics for Kids: Long Distance Biking could have been called Getting Him to Ride to a Shadow. JDaniel rode from tree shadow to tree shadow in this post.

If you try any of these activities, please leave me a comment below telling me which one you selected.

Madeline in London- Read.Explore.Learn.

August 10, 2012 By Deirdre

This week I am going to share a wonderful children’s book called Madeline in London by Ludwig Bemelmans. Madeline Visits London is a fun story takes on a trip to visit a friend in London. As with other Madeline tales, she has adventure and a little trouble while on her trip.

JDaniel was fascinated with the double decker buses more than anything in this story. He did like the horse that is given to Madeline’s friend as a gift. He gets into all kinds of trouble.

What did we do with this book?

We made a double decker bus out of a cracker box. I painted the box and cut out the windows. The box required a lot of coats of red spray paint to look red.

Once the paint was dry, I was able to cut out the windows and add a black outline to the double-decker box.

JDaniel was in charge of figuring out how to add wheels to the bus. His first idea was to use empty ribbon spools. While that was a great idea, we didn’t have enough spools available.

We then talked about what toys he had that had wheels. After discussing it for a few minutes, he remembered that the Bristle Blocks had wheels.

It took several attempts to find out how to spread out the wheels that needed to be on flat rectangular Bristle Blocks. He was so excited when he found a way to make it work.