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JDaniel4s Mom

growing & learning with him

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 Green Gobs of Greasy, Grimy Gopher Guts!

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Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts have been coming out of my son. JDaniel has had diarrhea and a sinus infection this week. There are been great green globs from head to diaper. Thank goodness the Target diapers we use have been doing a great job. Thank goodness I stockpile tissue when it is on sale. We have been through plenty of both. I won’t gross you out with specific details of either. Just know that it is probably as bad as you think. All I can do for now is sing the line from the song above and keep him clean.

 

I did find this picture on the internet called Great Green Gobs of Gopher Guts. This pasta and cauliflower dish looks better than what JDaniel has.

 

I am a little nervous about Mrs. Matlock’s Summer School color of the week for next week. What could come out of JDaniel that would be blue?

Setting Up A Literacy Center- Vocabulary

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Two friends and I took our children to the Hughes Library in downtown Greenville to experience Laugh’n’ Learn Reading Readiness at the beginning of the summer. It was six interactive centers set up to share ideas on helping your child learn pre-reading skills. We had a great time exploring each of the centers and seeing what each of our children gravitated towards. I decided to share what I learned and how I set up activities for each skill in my home.

Today will begin the first of six installments in the Setting Up a Literacy Center series. We will be looking at vocabulary development and the tools we are using to work on them.

Ways to Work on Vocabulary Birth to 2-years old

  • Talk to your baby or toddler about what is going on around you.
  • Listen carefully and respond to your baby’s babbles or your child’s talk.
  • Ask questions even if your child does not have the words to answer.
  • Read together every day. Name the pictures as you point to them.

2 to 3-years old

  • Talk about everything! The more words your child hears, the more they will know.
  • Be specific. (use the word “rose” rather than “flower”)
  • Add more detail to what your child says. ( the “red” rose)

4 to 5-years old

  • Talk about feelings, ideas, and how things work.
  • Speak in a language that is most comfortable for you.
  • Learn by reading nonfiction books on subjects your child likes.

Here are some of the tools we are using: Grocery Store We put together a store using a shelf in the pantry. It contains the following

    • Empty food boxes
    • A shopping basket
    • Reusable shopping bag
    • An old calculator ( The calculator is used as a scanner and register.)
    • Play money
    • A grocery store name tag JDaniel was given while taking a tour of a local grocery store.

I am usually the shopper. I ask JDaniel for products and he bags them after scanning them. He loves making the beep sound for the scanner. We talk about what he has available and what he thinks I should buy. JDaniel also loves to shop and sell to himself.

Old Cell Phone Conversations

We have two old cell phones that he chats with on his own or we chat with together.

 

Old Magazine Picture Walking

I have tons of old magazines and you may too. We just sit down and talk about what we see. I may ask questions to try and get him to give me more specific words.

 

Muffin Tin Monday- Breakfast with an Ocean View

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This week’s tin has water-related animal pancakes. Did you figure out what they are supposed to be? There are fish, flamingo, and dolphin pancakes. They are above a sea made of grape jelly, blueberry applesauce, and red grapes.

JDaniel loved this meal so much he asked for it again later. The pancakes had to be broken up for him for dipping. He tried to break them with his fork with little success. It was really important that each piece be totally dunked in jelly or applesauce. It just had to be. He is learning to be more flexible except when it comes to dipping.

 

 

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Great Posts I Came Across This Week- August 15

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Each week I travel around the internet visiting blogs. Here are a few posts that I loved, learned from, or gave me great ideas:
Child Related Post:

Nurture Store has a fun post on Bean Bag Games. I love chalk and bean bag activities.

A Bunch of Keys has a great idea for Painting with Condensed Milk.

 

I love the imaginative play in Little Victories post called It All Started With A Box.

Homeschool Creations has a wonderful post on Our Chore System & Chore Chart Printables. I love that there are morning chores, evening chores, and chores that earn money. Even the three-year-old has chores.

I love visiting Counting Coconuts. This week the posting on Beach Theme Activities is amazing. I love all the math and sensory activities.

I Learned Something from This Post:

Owning Single has a great to do list that will make an emergency trip to the hospital go more smoothly. Here post is called I’ve Fallen… I Can’t Get Up. It is filled with great ideas.

 

Six Feet Under has a great post called Blogging is like being in high school- But, in a good way. It has great tips for bloggers getting started and people who have been blogging for awhile.

Dear Crissy has a great post on The 5 Best Sites for Mom Bloggers to List and Promote Giveaways. I used most of them. Two were new to me. I need to check them out.

Recipe Post:

Banana Split Pops–So Good is a wonderful post by My Family, My Forever.

Two Animal Books and Tracing Animal Textures

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This week JDaniel had read Animals Talk and Animals Go by Emily Bolam. These beautiful board books don’t contain a lot of print. Each animal has a single word they would say in Animals Talk. The Animals Go book contains a single word for what each animal would do. They don’t actually show the animal moving or talking. These leaves open the avenue for you to talk about the words and act them out for them or with them. The page opposite each animal has a great textured page that displays the animals covering. JDaniel loves to feel those pages.

 

I modeled for JDaniel how to make a crayon rubbing on the peacock page.

JDaniel and I worked on the snail and lizard page together. This was so much fun.

Disclaimer: I review books for Tiger Tales Publishing. I was sent these books to review. The opinions stated are my own.

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Yield! Family in Boot Camp

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This yellow shirt tells you where my family is right now. We are in Toddler Boot Camp. Notice I didn’t say JDaniel was in Toddler Boot Camp. My husband and I are going through Boot Camp too. When you think about boot camp or at least when I do I think of the drill sergeant in an Officer and a Gentleman yelling at the new recruits. At my house, there isn’t a person in authority yelling at a toddler. We do at times have a toddler yelling, stamping his feet, and waving his arms at us. This doesn’t occur all the time. It does seem to happen when we are leaving someplace fun to return home, he is denied two snacks, and at random times as if for no reason like daddy walks in the door and he believes he has gotten mom where he wants her.

I start each day by putting on my drill instructor uniform of shorts, a t-shirt, and sneakers aka as running shoes. I have to be able to run to keep up with the young one. JDaniel wears a similar uniform in a smaller size. He has to change his several times a day. Most of the time due to a spill or stain gained in the mess hall.

As in any boot camp exercises and lessons have to be taught over and over again with consistency. We need to work on praising his achievements and relearning skills not yet mastered. It is hard to watch him crawl through the mud and try to scale walls over and over again. (Figuratively. He would love to do it literally.) It is hard not to laugh at some of the antics that are funny but will cause him trouble. Like many boot camp instructors, my husband and I have to laugh at the events of the day after taps.
We truly love him and are trying to guide him through love. Lately, there are days that it feels like Boot Camp at our house.

Are you doing through Boot Camp too?

 

 

Morning Words Out of My Toddlers Mouth

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The first words JDaniel says each morning when I go to get him out of his crib tell me a lot about what he was thinking about right before he went to sleep or when he first woke up. They are usually very interesting.
Here are some examples:
I went to volunteer at a consignment sale last week and my husband put JDaniel to bed.
JDaniel: “Daddy put on jamas. You went in car.”
We got home after 15 hours on the road to get home from Virginia. (See Adventure to Driving to NY and Back for the details.) I put JDaniel to bed in his clothes rather than trying to change him since he had fallen asleep in the car and it was 11:30 p.m.
JDaniel: “I in clothes. This is silly.”
JDaniel had cried a little the previous morning and laid down to start to go back to sleep. When I walked in his room, he jumped up. Before I put him to bed I said, “It is okay to go to back to sleep. You don’t have to cry for Mom when you first wake up.”
JDaniel: “I wait for you mom. I not cry.” (He said from where he was laying down.)
One morning he must have been hungry when he woke up. He wanted me to rush through morning prayers and head downstairs.
JDaniel: “Hurry,pray! It breakfast time.”

Muffin Tin Monday- Christmas Breakfast in August

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When you let your two year old pick out the tin for his lunch, he may pick out a Christmas tin in August. The Santas, snowman, and gingerbread men are covered with food, but I bet you can still see their outlines.

We tried a new breakfast casserole this week with leeks, blueberries, and turkey sausage. It was good. It needed something, but I can’t figure out what. JDaniel also had blueberry muffins he helped make and grapes. He loved it all.

We will continue our breakfast for lunch next week. I can’t decide if it will be french toast or pancakes.

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A Book About Home and A Home for Construction Vehicles

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The link above is an affiliate link.

After being on the road from July 20th through July 26th, it is wonderful to be home. There were a few times while we were gone that I wished I could have just put my house on wheels and brought it with me the way the characters in Home did. This wonderful book subtitled Once There Was A House, A House That Was A Home by Alex T. Smith tells the tale for four friends. Each friend has a dream that they want to share with the three others that share the home. When they start sharing them, they realize they really don’t want to do them together. Each one takes off to live their dream with a different part of the house. One takes the door and goes off to be a pirate. The second character named Two takes the wall and goes off to be pirate. Three goes to live underground with the windows. Finally, Four goes off to the big city with the floor. At first, they each enjoy their dreams. After a short time each learns that although they each have part of the house, it isn’t a home without all the friends together. In the end, the characters decide to rebuild their house, add wheels to it and share their dreams with each other in their new mobile home.

 

I love the pictures and messages in this book. The author/illustrator does a wonderful job of painting a picture of what makes true friends true friends along with what makes a house a home. As someone that lived in a condo for eleven years that I didn’t consider home, I really appreciate the aspects of my life and house that make where I live now a home.

 

JDaniel has a growing number of toy construction vehicles. Some of the vehicles are small enough that they have been living in a “garage” under the loveseat in the living room. The larger toys haven’t had a permanent home. They sometimes live under the coffee table. I decided we would create one out of a cardboard box.

 

We headed early one morning to the grocery store to get a box while the shelves were being restocked. The clerks at our local Bi-Lo walked JDaniel and I down the cereal aisle and let us chose a box. After creating three different size doors for the vehicles to enter the garage, we sat down at the computer and brainstormed what words and signs would be needed to decorate the box. JDaniel was sure the text needed to be red and the name had to be the Front Loader Garage. His favorite sign was the one that says “JDaniel Working.”
Here are some of the signs and words he chose.

Here is how the small doors work on the front for small vehicles.

Here is the entrance for big machines and apparently big boys.

 

Disclaimer: Home is a book published by Tiger Tales. As an official Tiger Tales reviewer, I was sent a copy of this book to review. The views and opinions expressed about this book are my own.

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The Orange Sign, The Wedding, The GPS, and the Deer

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JDaniel is so into John Deere right now. It could be because his Cousin Charlie’s room is decorated in John Deere pictures. While we were up visiting my sister Kate’s family in the country outside of Syracuse, NY we saw a lot of orange signs. The only one that really stood out to JDaniel was the John Deere signs. I know they are supposed to be a deer crossing signs. According to JDaniel it is a John Deere sign. I am not sure if that means John Deere tractors across there or all things John Deere can cross at the sign. I think it is funny that he made that association.

 

The second reason we went to New York was to attend a cousin’s wedding right on Seneca Lake. It was a beautiful time for the bride and groom to share their love for each other. The food was amazing. Seeing relatives was great. What will JDaniel remember? He remembers the piñata my Aunt Sue set up and getting to throw rocks in the lake. If he had his way, he would have thrown rocks the whole time we were there. It was one way my sisters Kate and Michelle could convince him to leave mommy’s side. Each enticed him to go with them because they would take him to the rocks. While his cousins skipped rocks on the lake, JDaniel dumped, threw, and hurled them.

 

The wedding was almost two hours away from my sister’s house. By the time I decided it was time to leave it was getting dark. My sister Kate lent me her GPS to get back to her house. She and her family would be heading back later in the evening and were familiar with the roads. JDaniel loved echoing the GPS. The GPS would say, “Turn left in four miles.” JDaniel would say, “Turn left” for four miles. He did this over and over again. I tried singing to him and chatting with him. He decided he would rather chat with the GPS. Thank goodness this new game lost interest eventually. We discovered while driving home that GPS does a great job most of the time. Sometimes it causes you to drive in a circle or a square. I was pretty sure at one point I needed to go straight. The GPS said to take a left. I followed the GPS. It said to take another left and then another. Yes, you are right it put me back on the same road I thought I needed to go straight on. As we made the final left, I saw a deer on the left-hand side of the road. (A real deer not a John Deere) It looked like he was shaking his head at me. If he could have talked to me I bet he would have said, “I bet a GPS sent you this way. It is happening on this road more and more all the time.”

 

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