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+.

Read.Explore.Learn.-Fire Safety

October 8, 2010 By Deirdre

Welcome 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 what you have done.

Steps:

Link your activity below.

Please place the Read.Explore. Learn. badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.

Please try to visit as many of the other links as you can. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

My Book Tie-In of the Week

We read Chief Rhino to the Rescue by Sam Lloyd. Chief Rhino thinks he sees a fire in the window of a nearby apartment building. He mobilizes the fire crew only to find out that Great-Granny Wrinkle is having a 100th birthday party with a cake full of candles.

We also read Miss Mingo and the Fire Drill by Jamie Harper. Miss Mingo’s class is afraid of fire and each animal student reacts differently to just the discussion of fire. The proboscis monkey honks loudly and his nose grows big. The elephant stomps his foot and trumpets his nose. Finally, Miss Mingo and a visiting fireman teach the class about fire safety and getting ready for a fire drill.

Cooking Project

JDaniel helped me put together this graham cracker fire truck. I put on the icing and he helped with the wheels and windows. The icing got all over everything.

Field Trip

The storytime JDaniel attends focused on fire trucks and firemen this week. The librarian read Meeow and the Big Box by Sebastien Braun. She walked the children through the steps Meeow used to create a fire truck with a cardboard box.

First, he painted one side of the box red. Then he cut a hole in the box. Finally he added wheels, a ladder, and lights. We also got to see a fireman in all his fire gear and climb on his truck.

Chicken and Cow Get Hurt Fighting Fires

October 7, 2010 By Deirdre

JDaniel has misplaced the fireman that goes with his fire truck. There were three firemen that came with the truck and they can’t seem to be found anywhere. One day JDaniel decided to use some of the farm animals to drive the fire truck and fight the fires that are popping up continually in the hallway outside his room. For several days they did a wonderful job. They returned from each fire unscathed and safe.

A few weeks ago there seemed to be accidents happening right and left. The chicken fell off the ladder while trying to reach a burst of flames on the top of the hall table. The pig fell off the truck and broke a hoof. The cow had some kind of accident the filled him with pain. I’m really not sure what happened to him.

Each time the animals have an accident JDaniel requests I come out to the hallway with his ambulance and load the injured animal into it. The animal is then taken into JDaniel’s bedroom by ambulance with sirens blaring to the hospital. It really isn’t a hospital. It is more of an end table that has a shelf of the bottom. The bottom shelf is where all the doctors wait for incoming patients.

Most of the time Dr. Frog is the duty doctor and he inspects the patients with the x-ray scanner in his mouth. Dr. Frog is a very gifted linguist. He can speak to each farm animal in their native tongue. Most to the time he quickly determines that they really just need bed rest back on the farm. JDaniel many times tries to override Dr. Frog’s decision. He feels they need to stay in the hospital overnight. Thank goodness the farm animals have great health insurance. They are in and out of the hospital all the time.

Now if I could only find the firemen!

Fire Truck Prayer and a Cool Fire Truck Photo

October 6, 2010 By Deirdre

Lord,Please be with those firefighters.Help them to get where they are going safely.Give them the wisdom to know how to save those in their care. JDaniel and I pray when we hear a siren or see a fire truck. We also say a prayer for ambulances. Disclaimer: The photo was created uploading a picture of the newest fire truck in our town to PhotoFunia. I learned about this cool free photo editing tool on a wonderful blog called Bungalow’56.

Read.Explore. Learn- Signs of Fall

October 1, 2010 By Deirdre

Steps:

-Link your activity below.

-Please try to visit as many of the other links as you can. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

My Book Tie-In of the Week

That’s When I’m Happy is a wonderful book about activities a little bear loves doing with his family in the fall. He collects leaves with his dad and picks a special one to bring home. The leaves are also used to play soccer. Mom knows the special place on a little bear that will bring out the largest laugh. With dad, he picks out a star and mom picks out a book. She knows just which one is his favorite. Mom teaches him to read the words that start with the first letter of his name.

The parent bears in this book really take the time to play with and know their little one. I love how many ways they find to play together.

We created a sculpture of leaves falling based on one I saw in a post by No Time For Flashcards and hung it from the kitchen curtains. It looked pretty for a few minutes.

Then a small boy decided to tug on it and the leaves and the branch they were attached to fell to the ground.

We gathered bits and pieces of nature from around our yard. JDaniel and I were able to use these wonderful found objects in sorting activities. We sorted them by color, size, and texture.

I have also linked this post to stART found on A Mommy’s Adventures.

Bringing Leaves to Bushes or “Oh! No! Not My Leaves!”

September 29, 2010 By Deirdre

JDaniel is so into raking leaves. Last year he just wanted to rake the leaves into piles and then carry them to the curb by the handful. This year the leaves are gathered into piles to jump in and be thrown in the air. He spends time every afternoon working on the leaves. We have only a few trees that are dropping their leaves so far this year so the leaf piles have been small. A few days ago JDaniel noticed that his leaf pile had disappeared. “Oh! No! Not My Leaves!” he said. “Where are they?” I told him they might have been blown away by the wind. I really didn’t know. Finally, I asked my husband about it. “Oh! They were ground into small pieces by the lawn mower,” he said.

My husband believes that leaves need to be mowed into mulch size pieces with his lawn mower. That is the way he handled them for the eleven years before JDaniel and I entered the picture. Raking the leaves isn’t necessary. They can just lie on the ground until he gets a chance to mow the lawn.

I have had to explain to my husband the benefit of JDaniel’s raking the leaves. JDaniel gets great exercise raking the leaves with his little blue plastic rake. He “helps” with yard chores by raking the leaves. We will want him to help with yard work when he gets older. He finds great joy in the activity. There is also are certain pride he has once the pile has gotten big.

Is raking necessary? No. Is it something we want to continue to do? Yes. Will we push the leaves under the bushes next time my husband mows the lawn to protect them and then rake them back into the yard? Yes.

Bushes got a haircut! Now there is so much work!

September 29, 2010 By Deirdre

One of JDaniel’s friends walked over from next door to play. JDaniel said he had too much work and couldn’t play today. I hope he always loves to do yard work.

He raked branches and leaves into piles.

He carried them to a wheelbarrow.

He tried to push them into a bucket.

This posted is linked up to We Play at Childhood 101.

“Go to Type-A in Asheville, Mom! I’m Having a Party While You’re Gone!”

September 28, 2010 By Deirdre

Last Friday afternoon after his nap, I sat JDaniel down and explained that Aunt Michelle was coming up for the weekend so; mom and dad could go to Asheville. He had only two questions for me. “Which car are you going to take?” he wanted to know. I told him we were going to take both cars. Daddy needed his car to come home early than me on Sunday. The second question was “What are you going to do there?” I told him I was going to meetings with other people that had blogs. With those questions answered, he requested we go downstairs and have a snack. There were no tears or cries of don’t go.

When my sister arrived, JDaniel pointed his finger to the door and said, “Go Mommy!” I have to admit I was relieved that weren’t tears, but I was a little crushed that there weren’t tears.

My husband and I loved staying at the Renaissance Hotel in Asheville. The hotel and our room couldn’t have been any nicer. After staying at a budget hotel when we were at the beach, we felt like we were in the lap of luxury. We found a great restaurant for dinner Saturday night. A dinner that didn’t have either of us sharing parts of your meal with our little gourmet was unique for us.

The Type-A Conference was wonderful. I learned a lot from the panel of speakers that they had at each session as well as from the other bloggers in attendance. This conference is filled with people that have a passion for blogging and for their blogs. It was very inspiring to hear people from local, regional and national blogs share their visions. I now have a greater appreciation for how hard people work on their blogs and love their readers.

I literally had never met any of the bloggers there before. While I enjoyed meeting new to me bloggers,I had visited Things I Can’t Say and A Nut in a Nutshell on their blogs and knew they would be there. It was such an honor to sit with them on Saturday for a session or two and during the keynote speakers on Sunday. They are amazing women and I learned tons from both of them. If you haven’t visited their blogs, you really need to.

When I got home on Sunday night, JDaniel informed me he had partied all weekend. He partied at the zoo and then McDonald’s. There were parties in cousin made forts and all over the house. The house was well organized and clean when I got home. They must have partied neatly or my sister did a lot of cleaning up.