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+.

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.

JDaniel decided the double-decker bus needed an open level on top. He also decided that a rocket needed to ride there.

It was wonderful to see his problem solve during this activity.

Here is one of my favorite posts from last week’s Read.Explore.Learn. link up:

Following His Lead Today explored the book The Crown on His Head and her children made crowns to extend the theme of the book.

What activities have you been doing to extend the themes of children’s books with your family?

Please link them below.

Losing Tree Limbs

August 9, 2012 By Deirdre

My husband had beautiful beech trees planted in the backyard. They are tall and have an elegance to them. Recently they have been losing limbs in summer storms. Not just small branches have been falling although have been dropping down too. It is the large limbs that seem to crack and hang precariously off the large branches following storms.

My husband has been able to get on a tall ladder and cut them down thus far. Although a really large limb cracked last week and I thought we might need to have a tree removal company come and take it down. My husband barely had to pull on this branch for it to come down which was kind of scary.

I have worked at keeping JDaniel away from the branches until they are down on the ground. They make me nervous dangling from so high up.

Once the limbs are on the ground, I am ready to cut the limbs into smaller pieces and drag to the curb. Jdaniel is ready to play in the branches. I tend to give him a morning of supervised play before I start breaking the branches down.

He has loved playing fort in the branches.

Later he likes to peel the bark off the branches with pliers. I am not sure why that is fun for him, but he sure does like to do it.

He could spend all morning peeling bark off and putting it into piles. It is so hard for him to see the branches slowly disappearing to the curb when he time of bark peeling is over.

He really doesn’t need to fuss. We have continued to have summer storms since this limb came down. He could end up with a new branch any day now. I am hoping too many more will come down

This post is linked to Alphabe Thursday.

Olympic Values: Week Three- Friendship

August 8, 2012 By Deirdre

JDaniel, my husband and the boys next door playing baseball.

This post is the third and final post in a series called Olympic Values. The first week looked at respect and the second week’s post looked at excellence. This week’s post is on friendship.

The Olympic value of friendship is defined this way:

friendship– how, through sport, to understand each other despite any differences

Although there have probably been many friendships talked about and shown on Olympic broadcasts in the past, I don’t remember seeing as many as I have this year. That may be because I knew I would be writing this post.

My favorite mention of friendship has been Oscar Pistorius and the other men who ran in the 400 meter run. Oscar runs on carbon-fiber blades. After his run over the weekend against Usain Bolt and many others, many of the runners including Bolt came over to him and congratulated him. He didn’t win the race, but he had finished it and they were happy for their friend.

Oscar Pistorius commented to a reporter that on the track the other runner were athletes that were there to win, but off the track these men were gentlemen that had encouraged him as a friend. He continued say that he has competed with and stayed at the same hotels with many of them. “You develop friendships with these men who you see everyday,” Oscar noted.

Many of the Olympic athletes train or compete against the same people over and over again. While they are training in their sport, they are given amazing opportunities to get to know people from all over the world.

How are we working on this value?

This summer many of JDaniel’s friends have been traveling all over the country, attending summer day camps, and just haven’t been available. Even the little boys next door have been busy to do more than play a few games of baseball.

He has really missed getting to see them and I have missed his getting to be around children his age. We have had to look for new ways to meet and plays with kids.

One place we have sought out new friends in at the pool. At first some of the children at the pool were kids from his preschool. He loved getting to see them and play with them, but as the summer wore on they weren’t there. Maybe they too on gone on trips or attended summer camps. JDaniel then had to meet new children and learn to ask them to play.

Thankfully he warmed up quickly to the idea. We haven’t seen some of his new friends again, but a few we have. It has been nice to watch him interact with new friends.

He still misses his best friends and is looking forward to seeing them this fall, but this summer he really worked on learning how to make new friends.

The Olympic value of friendship is now something JDaniel has experienced first hand. He and his new friends may not have been competing in an Olympic swimming event, but they have learned to be enjoy being around each other in the water.

If your children have been excited about watching gymnastics at the Olympics, they might enjoy walking on rope letters. I am sharing a Learning Letters: Rope Letters post on Kid’s Activities Blog today.

Olympics for Kids: Long Distance Bike Ride and Hop

August 6, 2012 By Deirdre

Some days you put on all your biking gear ( helmet, pads, and gloves) and you are ready to feel the wind in your face and your mom or dad racing to catch up with you. There are other days when a long distance ride around the neighborhood is totally unappealing. You don’t even what to wear the cool gloves.

It is on days that little boys don’t want to ride that their moms or dads have to come up with a game that will help focus on something other then the long ride ahead of them. Practicing bike riding with training wheels that have just been raised of the ground needs to happen to help you feel more comfortable. Mom and dad know that even if you feel storing the bike in the garage for awhile would be a better idea.

This mom decided the bike riding game of the day would be How Fast Can You Ride to the Next Shadow. Thankfully there are a lot of tall trees located in front yards in our neighborhood.that cast shadows onto the street.

Olympics for Kids: Long Distance Bike Ride and Hop Photo One

When you are going a long distance, you have to pace yourself. The muscles in your legs need a chance to warm up and you just tend to travel slowly forward.

Olympics for Kids: Long Distance Bike Ride and Hop Photo Two

You will eventually reach the first shadow. Thankfully it is a large one. You can enjoy a brief respite from the hot sun.

Olympics for Kids: Long Distance Bike Ride and Hop Photo Three

The brief time in the shade might make you feel like biking a little faster to the next shadow. It also gives you a respite on the long distance bike ride.

Olympics for Kids: Long Distance Bike Ride and Hop Photo Four

There are sections of the road that don’t contain any shadows so, when your mom says you can turn around and head home you really pick up speed. You relish the large shadows that you passed over earlier in your ride and you rush to the next large shadow. The long distance bike ride is almost done.

Olympics for Kids: Long Distance Bike Ride and Hop Photo Five

Then in the home stretch you leave mom far behind and rush toward to end of this long distance bike ride. Hoping that when mom finally catches up she will award you a gold medal glass of sweet tea with ice cubes

Olympics for Kids- Edible British Flag

August 5, 2012 By Deirdre

After sharing four Olympic-related meals and snacks, I thought JDaniel and I would build the Union Jack fruit creation this week.

The Union Jack or British Flag was easy to draw on a tortilla using a food marker. I wasn’t sure how they would do. This is really the first project I have really used them on.

Blueberries and strawberries have been in our fridge all summer. They are both favorites! Their blue and red colors made them the perfect choices to decorate the flag.

The flag turned out well in my opinion! I just love that the flag is filled will wonderful fruit. I am always looking for fun ways to incorporate fruit into meals and snacks. ( I bet you are doing the same thing at your house with your children.)

As predicted, JDaniel loved the fruits! He did surprise me by saying the tortilla had to be saved for later. It was too much! The flag tortilla disappeared at breakfast the next morning.

Last week I shared an Edible Olympic Torch on the Kid’s Activities Blog. I thought you might enjoy seeing a glimpse of it here. If you would like more information about it, please head over to the Kid’s Activities Blog.

Here are some more wonderful food creations I think your kids will love:

Star Wars Food Creations for Kids

Fun Foods – Cookie Cutter Food Creations with Watermelon

Star Wars Character Breakfast

Christmas Fruit Tree Snack

Kid Friendly Recipes- Teepee Snack

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday and a few other places.

Dream Big- Read.Explore.Learn

August 3, 2012 By Deirdre

Links below are affiliate link.

This week I am going to share a wonderful children’s book called Dream Big: Michael Jordan and the Pursuit of Excellence by Deloris Jordan. This lovely picture book by Michael Jordan’s mom is about how her son dreamed of going to the Olympic to play basketball from an early age.

He loved basketball, but basketball coaches didn’t always pick him for their team. Michael was cut from his high school basketball tryouts. He never gave up on his dream and I think we all know what happened to his dream to play basketball. His mom says, ” I guess you aren’t a dreamer, but a doer.” Michael was so blessed to live out his dream.

JDaniel announced a few weeks ago that he could do almost every big boy thing he could think of except tie his shoes and read. I guess you could call them his big boy dreams.

Learning to Tie Shoes

When I mentioned to a friend that JDaniel wanted to learn to tie shoes, she said she learned to tie them by practicing on her dad’s shoes. We took out my husband’s shoes and we have been parallel practicing. One of us has it mastered and the other still needs a lot of practicing.

Learning to Tie Dad's Shoes

I hope he learns in the next few months. I just ordered his school sneakers for the fall with laces on them.

Working on Sight Words

I created little basketballs that contain the first 36 Dolch Preprimer words to help JDaniel work on his dream of reading. We have been working on four words at a time.

Every time he reads me on the words he can move an orange pom-pom to the basketball hoop on paper.

I don’t want to overdo the word practice. He gets to work on each word only a few times at each sitting.

Here are some wonderful book Read.Explore.Learn post that were linked up last week:

Crafty Moms Share linked up a great dress the mole activity to go with the book Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed.

Keitha’s Chaos linked up an amazing bento lunch to that explored the book Hour of the Olympics.

Please share your book extension and exploration post below.

Olympic Values: Week Two- Kids Growing in Excellence

August 1, 2012 By Deirdre

“In the dust of defeat as well as the laurels of victory there is a glory to be found if one has done his best.” ― Eric Liddell

As I mentioned last week in my post Olympic Value: Week One- Respect, there three Olympic values. Last week’s post describe how I tried to apply the value of respect to my four year old’s life. This week we are going to look at the value of excellence.

Here is how it is defined on the Olympic site:

excellence – how to give the best of oneself, on the field of play or in life; taking part; and progressing according to one’s own objectives

The first thing I noticed when I read the definition above it what it doesn’t mention winning. Winning seems to be something that my guy was born wanting to do. He has to win when he races the next door neighbor on his bike and when he is trying to get to the kitchen first for dinner. I don’t know how many times I have heard him saying, “ I win!”

What is he winning? Well, there isn’t a gold medal awarded by getting to the dinner table first. The hope is that everyone will be awarded a healthy and appetizing meal when we have dinner. There is only a brief moment of contentment that he has beat someone out of getting there before him.

What is worse it that he tries to elbow past his dad, who is trying to only walk quickly and not run to the kitchen. Actually the worst part is that after announcing that he has won, he turns to his dad and declares him a rotten egg.

Before I continue, I need to confess something to you. I started all this racing around. In trying to get JDaniel to come upstairs faster for his bath and to get dressed instead of dawdling I started to declare the climb up the steps a race. I might have even done a little victory dance at the end.

Now that I have started this racing to and from different places in the house it is my job to stop it. Racing around hasn’t promoted giving the best of oneself and the joy of taking part or progressing according to one’s own objectives.

What do we do now?

Giving the Best of Oneself

Giving the best doesn’t mean diminishing what others are trying to do or forcing others into letting you win. The little boy next door rides this bike without training wheels and he can fly around the neighborhood. When he is racing JDaniel he barely pedals so, my guy with training wheels can win.

He has learned that giving the best of oneself means that JDaniel will fuss about how it isn’t fair and try to make him feel bad. There will also be four year old trash talk being hurled at him from behind as well as whining. While I am grateful that he is willing to try to help a friend avoid a meltdown, the victory is hollow. The boy next door isn’t giving his best and Jdaniel isn’t encouraging him too.

Recently we have been encouraging just enjoying the ride and noticing how you can go faster without training wheels. We have also been working on using words that encourage and don’t try to make others feel bad.

Giving the best that you can is what is important not declaring someone else isn’t as good as you think you are. You might find out as JDaniel will that the other people not giving their best isn’t the kind of win you really want.

Taking Part

Over and over again I have heard athletes who are attending their second or third Olympics tell reporters that this Olympics is going to the be one that they finally enjoy. That means that they were so focused on other things that they weren’t able to enjoy the performances they gave and the events they attended.
It is kind of sad to think that after years of work and effort you can’t enjoy taking part of your achievement. I am not saying they shouldn’t be focused preparing and attempting to do their very best. There is a lot to be said for getting to the point in your life when you are the best in the world at something.

It does sound like some of them attended the Olympics with horse blinders on and they weren’t able to see or enjoy the things around them, because they honestly didn’t notice them. They were focused on their goal. Maybe that is what you have to do to win at that level. I hope that each athlete can find one things to smile about at the Olympics though.

My husband and I need to work with JDaniel on finding joy and happiness in getting to complete a task whether it be getting to the dinner table or around the block.

How do we do that?

I think it means slowing down and talking about how your body celebrates when a task is completed well. Do feel a smile your face, do you feel a leap in your heart, do you want to do a little dance, or share a high five? While you may feel tired, do you feel you want to give a sigh of achievement.

Looking back at how well you accomplished the task in regards to how you treated other people during it is also important. Did you elbow past someone? Did you say something to make them feel bad? Did you handle your victory if you had one with grace or did you rub it in?

Progressing According to Your Own Goals

An announcer at the Opening Ceremonies mentioned that many of the athletes marching into the games would never medal and some wouldn’t even make it past their event preliminary event. Many he commented had reached their goal by just coming to the games.
As JDaniel’s mom I think it is part of my job to help JDaniel set short term and long term goals. The short term goals can be to build a tower that won’t fall over when a robot struts past it or learning to tie his shoes. A long term goal is to respond to your parents in a way that will help you gain what you want if they think it is okay.

The short term goals are actually JDaniel’s and the long term goal. The long term goal is mine, but it is one we need to work on. As we talk about goals, I try let JDaniel set most of his goals, but some goals are strongly suggested by my husband or me.

At four I think JDaniel is able to help set goals and he seems to love knowing he has achieved them.

Next week is the final post in this series on Olympic values. It will focus on friendship.

How have you helped your children work on this value?

Olympics for Kids- A Gold Medal Lunch for Kids

July 30, 2012 By Deirdre

It feel like I haven’t done a muffin tin lunch in ages. After creating Olympic related meals and snacks in the past few weeks, it was time for one a muffin tin. If you like this lunch idea, please take a few minutes to visit some of my other Olympic food creations. There was an Olympic symbols bento and fruit filled snack Olympic rings.

Gold Medal Meal

All in all this is a gold medal meal. It is filled with lots of healthy things and a few treats. The top row has carrots, cheese popcorn in a cone, and cherries. Just below you will find pizza that we added black olives to, a vanilla wafer cookie with a healthy fruit strip ribbon and more pizza.

Hint: You could use broken pieces of cheese cover rice cakes or a small pile of goldfish instead of popcorn. Although stacking fish might be tricky in the long fun popcorn is easier to pile up.

Olympic athletes need to have a little sugar and some carbs to give them energy to compete. The ingredients in this meal would given them sugar and carbs as well as fruits and veggies. I am not saying that they would make the same choices I did when creating this gold medal meal. Maybe I am just trying to make myself feel less guilty. The ingredients were added to this meal to make it feel cute.

Warning: If you try to recreate the torch like effect in a cone with cheese popcorn, place each kernel carefully. One false move could cause the whole thing to fall over! Then you will have to start it all over again.

If you like this gold medal, here are some more Olympic related ideas for kids:

Painted Olympic Torch

Kids Printable Olympic Passport

Winter Olympic Themed Graphs and Diagrams

Exploring the Olympic Value of Friendship

Exploring the Olympic Value of Respect

Exploring the Olympic Value of Excellence Citizenship

Where is Waldo? Has a Birthday

July 29, 2012 By Deirdre

July 31st will be Waldo’s 25th birthday.( I remember when the Where is Waldo book first came out.) Our local bookstore Fiction Addiction has been hosting a Where is Waldo? hunt to celebrate this big birthday all month.

Twelve locally owned business hid Waldo in the stores for those interested in the hunt to find. Each time you found Waldo you were given a card with Waldo and the business’ name on it. When you had gathered as many cards as you wanted to, you were to take them back to Fiction Addiction. Each card counted as an entry in a Where is Waldo? gift pack giveaway.

After reading about the hunt in our local paper, I decided that JDaniel and I needed to participate. The weather here has been hot and this was a great activity to do. We rode all over town and visited wonderful shops that were air conditioned.

The people in each of the business couldn’t have been any nicer. We visited a game store called Boardwalk and they gave JDaniel a sample pack of cards for the game Spot It! ( JDaniel and I having been playing the game a lot. He thinks it is a lot like I Spy.) The Elephant’s Trunk a local toy store not only let him ride a recumbent bike but helped him find Waldo flying in the sky.

What I loved best about the hunt was that each business welcome JDaniel with open arms. Every business wasn’t geared to young customers, but each treated him like he was a guest at their store. I guess that is one of the wonderful things about local businesses.

I don’t know if your town has a local bookstore. If you do, you might want to see if they are hosting a hunt too. If you are in Greenville South Carolina, you should check this one out.

JDaniel and I are heading back to the Fiction Addiction on Tuesday for a Where is Waldo? part and to see if we have won any of the prizes. It should be tons of fun.

Olympics for Kids- A Fun Book and a Bento Lunch

July 27, 2012 By Deirdre

I like to welcome the Olympic Bento Bloggers and Olympic Hoppers to Read.Explore.Learn.! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie-in to children’s books. I look forward to seeing ways you have learned with and explored books.

This week I am going to share a wonderful children’s book of poems on the Olympics along with an Olympic-related bento snack. I decided to join an Olympic Hop hosted by a group of Bento bloggers and tie the book I am sharing with a snack I made for JDaniel.

The book we looked at this week is called Elympics. It was a wonderful book of poems that talks about various summer and winter events in the Olympics. The poems were really fun to read and are filled with rhymes. JDaniel was able to learn about several of the events that he may see during the Olympics through the poem and really fun illustrations in this book.

I tried several times to make an elephant like the one on the cover of this book, but I wasn’t able to. An elephant cookie cutter proved to work out so much better than the elephants I tried to create a free hand.

This elephant is made of pita bread and he is carrying a slice of an ice cream cone with cheese flavored rice cakes as a torch. In the upper left-hand corner of the Bento box are fresh spinach leaves with a carrot and fruit chew medal. The bottom left-hand corner of the box contains hummus with the Olympic rings made of black olives.

I went with a greek food theme for part of the box to represent the fact that the Olympic started in Greece. Thankfully JDaniel loved everything in this snack Bento.

Olympics for Kids – Bento Lunch

The Olympics have been featured in a few other posts this summer. There have been posts on an Olympic Symbols Bento Snack and Fruit Filled Olympic Rings as a breakfast meal. I have a fourth meal coming on Monday. It is a gold medal meal featuring healthy foods and a couple of Olympic-related foods.

If you are here from the Olympic Hog, please visit Biting the Hand that Feeds You. They are the next stop on the hop.
If you are here for Read.Explore.Learn., please leave your book related link below.

If you are just stopping by because you are here to make my day, thank you for stopping by. I hope you will leave me a comment. It would be wonderful if you checked out the Olympic Bento Hop and the Read. Explore.Learn. links below.