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+.

Away to Asheville-Alphabe Thursday: The Letter A

September 22, 2010 By Deirdre

This weekend I am going to be spending my first night away from JDaniel since he was born to attend the Type A Conference in Asheville. I am really excited about getting away with my husband and meeting other bloggers. Yes, my husband is coming too. He won’t be attending the conference. He will be enjoying so downtime along with so couple time with me.

My sister Michelle and her two sons are coming from Atlanta to be JDaniel. He knows that they are coming. He is so excited about spending time with them. What they will do while they are here has been planned by him already. The children’s museum and McDonald’s are things his cousins will like according to him. He will love time with them no matter what they do. (My sister really wants to go to the zoo. He will love the zoo too.)

JDaniel doesn’t know that Mommy and Daddy are not going to be home for the visit. I have been avoiding telling him. By the time this post is up I will probably have mentioned it to him. When I talk about going away, I don’t think he understands what I am talking about. Mommy doesn’t go away. Daddy has had to visit with Nana several times this year overnight due to his father’s poor health and subsequent passing. Mommy hasn’t done it. Once I month when I go to a sorority meeting my husband puts JDaniel to bed. Bedtime rituals have been totally my job. I love doing the bedtime routine.

There are some of you that may go away for a weekend a few times a year to bond as a couple, attend a retreat, or deal with family things. I think that is wonderful. My sister Michelle has always done that. It is good to get some downtime. I just have never done it before.

I am sure JDaniel will have a great time with Aunt Michelle and his cousins. He may only make a scene when I leave for my benefit. He will be happy to see me come home so that he can tell me what he has done. I know will be true.

How I will fair is a different story. I have really looked forward to learning tons at the conference. My husband and I haven’t really had extended periods of time alone together unless JDaniel was asleep in two and half years. That will be wonderful.

It will be fine. Right?

6 Ways to Use Curious George Number Cards

September 22, 2010 By Deirdre

I found some wonderful number cards on One Little Two, Two Little with Curious George on them. They are part of a totbook activity she developed. I brainstormed and came up with several ways to use them to introduce JDaniel to numbers and counting.

Use chopsticks and noodles to count. JDaniel placed a noodle on each piece of fruit to work on one to one correspondence.

2. Put the number cards in a plastic sleeve and cross them out while you count.

3. Place them on the floor and practice jumping or hopping the number times shown on the card.

4. Lay out the cards and match the right number to its picture representation.

5. Select a number and search the house to find objects that are that number.

6. Create a concentration game with the cards.

What else could I do with these number cards?

A Isn’t B! I C!- Letter Knowledge

September 21, 2010 By Deirdre

This is the last post in the literacy series I have been posting on Tuesdays. It will look at letter knowledge and helping your child see that each letter has a name and specific sound.

Birth to 2-Years Old

Help your baby or toddler see and feel different shapes as you play. Say, “The ball is round.”
Point out letters on toys, food boxes, books, and other objects around the house.

2 to 3-years old

Practice making letters from clay, finger paint, shaving cream, pudding, etc…
Write your child’s name in the creative ways, like in the air, in dirt or sand, or traced on their backs.
Keep magnetic letters on your refrigerator or foam letters in the tub.

4 to 5-years

Start every letter in a sentence with the sound of a particular letter.
Cut out pictures from magazines or catalogs that start with the letter you are learning.
Help your child write words that interest her using crayons, markers, or pencil on paper

How we work on letter knowledge at our house:

We look for letters all over.
I asked JDaniel to look for letters by using the letter sound. “Where is the letter that says ay?”
We have foam bathtub letters that can be used on the fridge when wet or in the tub.
Wooden letter puzzles are part of our puzzle collection.
We read lots of alphabet books
JDaniel has a laptop that works on letter recognition. (I got it at a consignment store for $6.)
I write letters all over the driveway and ask JDaniel to dump water from his watering can on the correct letter.

Places to find activities:

There are tons of alphabet activities located at We Teach in the We Teach the Alphabet Forum.
Counting Coconuts
Teach Mama
The Activity Mom recommends Itsy Bitsy Books (Free and Printable)

Muffin Tin Monday- Shapes in a Sandwich

September 20, 2010 By Deirdre

JDaniel has enjoyed constructing his own sandwiches lately. I thought he would love to do it with the ingredients in this tin. He was even given a tin with heart-shaped muffin cups. I even made him some sandwich samples. He ate each piece individually. Why? I think it was because he can and he is two.

He had square and diamond-shaped bread, turkey in rectangles, cheese in triangles, apples in circles, and tomatoes in spheres.

Being Two at the Beach is Wonderful!

September 19, 2010 By Deirdre

The beach in September is a wonderful place to be. We headed to Myrtle Beach last Sunday for five days. JDaniel had never been to the beach before. I had read him books about the beach and he had been given a set of sand toys by my mom to enjoy at the beach but wasn’t until last week that he actually gained firsthand knowledge of the beach.

We decided to take him to the beach in his street clothes Monday morning after breakfast in the hotel restaurant just so he could see it and maybe walk on the sand. That was a mistake. At first, he just sat at the bottom of the steps leading to the beach and pushed the sand around like he was a bulldozer. Then he ran straight for the water with my husband trailing behind and got drenched sneakers and all. After that, we started wearing our bathing suits for breakfast.

We quickly headed back to our room to change and layer on the sunblock. The sun was still really strong and would have left us beet red. Once we were properly prepared for the water, we headed back for hours of fun on the beach.

The second trip to the beach that the first morning leads to JDaniel’s discovery of shells. He found he loved them all. JDaniel would just start picking up shells whole or in pieces and place them in his bucket as he slowly followed the trail of shells left by the sea. He only made it about 12 feet along the beach before his bucket was full. There were too many shells to pick up and none could be left behind.

He also discovered a joy of sitting on the shore just where three or four inches of water would lap on him, his plastic dump truck or bucket, and his parents. His truck must have been filled with sand hundreds of times that first day. It didn’t seem to bother him that the sand was carried away by the ocean over and over again.

We usually headed in for lunch and then naptime at about twelve. I say headed because we usually ended up having to use the sand rinsing stations outdoor showers several times. JDaniel has found he loves showers now. Following the sand removal sessions, he loved to run around in the baby pool located right by our section of the hotel. We always stopped because it was on the way to the elevator. You just can’t walk by it.

Afternoons were filled with more time in the baby pool or an indoor pool. The hotel had inner tubes that JDaniel loved to play within both pools. I loved the times at the pool. After pool time I didn’t have to scour my son’s body looking for sand deposits. He seemed to get sand everywhere.

The days flew by. It seemed like we would get up in the morning to turn around only a few hours later and go to bed at night. To say JDaniel loved the beach and his time there would be an understatement. We can’t wait to see what he thinks of it next year.

Great Posts of the Week- September 18th

September 18, 2010 By Deirdre

Connecting with Other Bloggers

And Then There Were 4 hosts Surfin Saturday. Each week they feature a different type of social network follows. It could be Twitter, Networked Blog, etc.. You have the check each Saturday and see what they are featuring.

I Needed to Read This

In the hush of the moon has a great post called Beauty in Hard to See Spots. It really makes you think about all the beauty we see and walk by each day. You will love the pictures she has in this post.

Recipes

Lunchbox Limbo has a great bento box with a five senses theme. I love the rhyme she has to go with it.

The New Hampshire Nanny’s Pork and Apple Meatballs look so yummy. I haven’t been successful with meatballs, but I want to try these.

Child Related

The Imagination Tree has a post-Messy Play-Jelly. It looks like a fun activity, but there must have been jelly everywhere.

Yellow Mums has a great shape activity called Dinosaur Shape Activity. It is a really cute free download.

Mom Related

Sowing Dandelion Seeds has a terrific post on Counting Compliments. Did you know children do that?

Answers To Questions About JDaniel’s Teeth

September 17, 2010 By Deirdre

As part of a Oral Health Media Tour, I was able to ask some questions of an expert on teeth care.

Please click, here to view the answers to my questions.

Disclaimer: I was asked to send in questions on children’s dental health and post the answers to the questions. I am not being compensated for this in anyway.

Angel Hair Attracts Ageless Ladies

September 15, 2010 By Deirdre

Two weeks ago we went to spend the weekend with my mother-in-law in her new apartment. JDaniel was thrilled. He fell in love with the idea of apartment living when we first toured her apartment before she moved in.

Now that she is living in the “Big House” (The apartments in her senior living community are in a place they call the “Big House”.) she eats one meal a day in the community’s dining room. It is a great place for her to meet friends and spend time around other people for a wonderful meal. She knows almost everyone there. We went with her to dinner during our visit. There were people stopping by to chat with her every few minutes.

Were they stopping to ask how she was doing? No, they were stopping to check out her youngest grandson JDaniel. They admired his hearty appetite. They commented on how well he was behaving. They wanted to clutch his angel-like curls. Lady after lady stroked his curls or squished a handful of them in their palms. “What amazing curls!” they each would say. Did JDaniel notice all this attention to his hair? No way! He was more interested in whether his Nana had more fried okra on her plate and whether mom had any salmon croquettes left on hers. He didn’t even seem to notice he was being fawned over.

Some day he will love the attention of the right lady. She may even be a little older than he is.

Finding the Beat and Sounds in Words-Phonological Awareness

September 14, 2010 By Deirdre

Last week I wrote a post called Let’s Talk While We Read. This week’s literacy topic phonological awareness is also based on a lot of talk. Phonological awareness has to do with the rhythm and rhyme of words.

Ways to Work on Phonological Awareness:

Birth to 2-years old

Say or read nursery rhymes so your child hears the rhyme. Stress the rhyming words.

Sing to hope your child hear syllables in words. In most songs, each syllable get a different note.

Make up your own silly, nonsense rhymes.

2 to 3-years old

Play word games such as, “What sounds like ran?” or “What starts with the same sound as ball?”

Point out initial sounds and ask what other words start with that sound.

Clap out the number of syllables in children’s names or other people and places

4 to 5-years old

Ask whether two words rhyme: Do cat and dog rhyme? Do cat and hat rhyme?

Say words with a word segment left out: “What word would we have if we took the sea away from seahorse?”

Put two word segments together to make a word: “What word would we have if we put cup and cake together?”

How we work on these skills at our house:

I love rhyming with JDaniel in the car. We run through the alphabet to find words that make sense with a word family. Ie: all, ball, call, dall, eall, fall .

I printed out picture cards for JDaniel. We identify one of the pictures and beat it out on his toy drum.

Rhyming Mat Game from Pre-K Literacy. The site has three mats like the one below.

Activity Mom had a Rhyming Bingo that came from HeidiSongs on her site we are going to use.

Online Activities

Rhyming Words with Reggie

Muffin Tin Monday- Curious George Lunch

September 13, 2010 By Deirdre

JDaniel isn’t old enough to sit through a movie. I decided to make him a lunch based on his favorite television show. Curious George has been a favorite for a long time.

He had a toasted cheese monkey sandwich, a yellow hat made from a banana, banana yogurt (just because we had it), Curious George fruit chews, along with C and G made with cookie cutters from apple slices.