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+.

Great Posts I Came Across This Week- October 16

October 16, 2010 By Deirdre

Fun Post

Ostriches Look Funny has a super fun post called Because I Don’t Own a Foghorn. Her neighbors will be so glad she doesn’t own one.

Recipe

Mo’ Betta has renewed my interest in trying to make biscuits. Her recipe for Low-Fat Biscuits would go over big at my house.

Homemaking Related

Frugal with a Flourish has 10 Ways to Use Mason Jars in Your Home. I found all the ideas fascinating.

Child Related

Today’s Fabulous Finds has the cutest ideas for Halloween-related fish she shares in the post-Halloween Fish. Say what?

The Attached Mama has set up the Ultimate Alphabet Craft Collection – Master List. It is a great place to find and share ideas and posts you have had related to the alphabet and crafts.

The Fryman Four has wonderful activities to share in their Pumpkin Life Cycle post. I love the balloon pumpkins.

Read.Explore.Learn- Pumpkins

October 15, 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 ways you have learned with and explored books.

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 Five Little Pumpkins illustrated by Ben Mantle. This wonderful version of the book has light hearted pictures that didn’t scare JDaniel. I love the happy pumpkins and fun characters in the book. It is a padded board board which I have found helps books last. That is really important when it comes to this book. We will be reading it for a long time.

Craft

We painted egg carton cups with orange bingo markers and placed them on a fence. It was fun to use the egg pumpkins to retell the story. The green strips were left over from a Sunday school lesson I taught two weeks ago. They are lick and stick.

Experiment

Orange food coloring was created using red and yellow neon food coloring. JDaniel and I mixed the colors using cotton balls. This was fun, but very messy.

Disclaimer: I review books for Tiger Tales. Five Little Pumpkins is a book I was sent to review. The thoughts about the book are my own.

Decisions about Halloween and Pumpkins

October 13, 2010 By Deirdre

There are so many decisions families make about Halloween.

Here are a few we have talked about at my house:

Will we trick or treat?

Some families don’t trick or treat. They have legitimate reasons and have decided not to participate. My husband and I both trick or treated when we were little and decided that it would be all right for JDaniel to dress up and visit houses in our neighborhood.

Will you put out a pumpkin?

Yes. We both had pumpkins on our porches when we were little and don’t see this as a problem for us.

Will the pumpkin have a face carved into it?

Yes. We decided that we could have a happy face carved into a pumpkin. I am totally aware of the history of carved pumpkins. A parent wrote me a three-page letter on the horrors of Halloween when I first started teaching twenty years ago. He detailed as much of the ancient history and meaning of Halloween objects he felt I needed to know followed by a declaration that his child wasn’t to participate in any Halloween related activities in the classroom. I think he had a right to share his thoughts about Halloween with me. His feelings on the subject were respected and I let his daughter abstain from activities that would have been objectionable to him.

Will we decorate the outside of the house with skeletons and ghosts?

No. JDaniel recently noticed some Halloween decorations at a friend’s house and was scared of them. They weren’t going to be a part of our Halloween décor anyway. We certainly wouldn’t be doing them even if we had planned to do them with JDaniel’s fear of them.

Will we read Halloween related books?

Yes. I am reviewing one this week in Read. Explore.Learn. I am not pointing out witches or ghosts out and discussing them. If he asks about what they are, I will tell him what they are called. At two he probably won’t want an in-depth discussion anyway.

Please Don’t Call Me Pumpkin In Public!

October 12, 2010 By Deirdre

I have so many cute nicknames for JDaniel. Some stick around for a long time like “Cutie Patootie” and “Lion” as in Daniel in the lion’s den. Some are temporary and fit an activity we are doing like “Super Rake Boy” and “The King of Clean Up”. He seems to love them all. JDaniel loves terms of endearment. I think he sees them as a form of praise or acknowledgement of love.

Of course he is two and half and hasn’t really reached a point where I really embarrass him. It is almost as if we live in our own little world even while we are out and about. I can joke and tease him and he thinks it is fun. I can push him on the swings and he giggles joyfully when I call him a “Rocketing Toddler in Space”. He roars even louder when he jumps up from behind bushes and I call him “My Ferocious One”. JDaniel runs faster into my arms when I call for “Sweet JDaniel” to come.

I really don’t look forward to the “Ah! Mom, please don’t call me that in front of my friends or anyone.” The cries of “Do you do this to embarrass me?” or “Shh! don’t ever say that again!” will soon fill my ears. There will be a time when he will just stand there and shake his head.

I don’t look forward to that. I really love having these little nicknames I can use and he enjoys. Maybe he will still let me use them at home.

When did your children ask you to stop with nicknames?

Are you still allowed to use them in the house?

Are there nicknames that have stuck and are part of your children’s public persona?

Muffin Tin Monday- A Great Pumpkin Tin?

October 11, 2010 By Deirdre

The theme for Muffin Tin Monday is pumpkins this week. I have been brainstorming for about a week to come up with ideas for this tin.

Idea One: I found this idea for the pumpkin fruit salad and knew it was right up JDaniel’s alley.
Idea Two: I could make grilled cheese sandwiches and carve a face in the bread. After the first cut I realized that this was not going to work. The cheese was cemented to the bread. The sandwiches still ended up in the tin minus the cute faces I planned to put in them.
Idea Three: There are tons of great recipes that have pumpkin in them. I could try one of them and put it in the tin. There were no cans of pumpkin on the shelves at the two stores I went to.

Idea Four: Take something and make it look like a pumpkin. I took several peach slices and put them in a pumpkin shaped array. A raisin was placed on the top of them to look like a stem.

Idea Five: Place something orange in the tin and call it a day. I found some carrots in the fridge and added them to the tin with a cup of ranch dressing to dip them in.

Great Posts I Came Across This Week- October 9

October 9, 2010 By Deirdre

Child Related

In Between Laundry’s Busy Tray looks like something JDaniel would love to have one to use at home and on the road.

Mom of Two Boys has a wonderful Corn Crib post. JDaniel would love to climb in and play with his trucks in the mound of corn she shares in her post.

Recipes

A Cup of Jo has a recipe that is as easy as pie for pumpkin pie dip. It looks wonderful.

Almost Unschoolers’ Pilgrim Pumpkin Pie in the Microwave looks easy and so delicious to make.

I Needed To Read This Post

Blue Cotton Memory has a super post called Not a Grasshopper Caught in the Grip that reminded me that I have God holding me in His hands.

Ooops… There Goes My Mind has a post called Counting the Ways that helped be break out of mom brain funk earlier in the week.

Read.Explore.Learn.-Fire Safety

October 8, 2010 By Deirdre

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.