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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+.

A Garbage Truck Can Be A Parade Float

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We read a number of books about the Fourth of July this week. Grandma Drove the Garbage Truck by Katie Clark was our favorite by far. Grandma usually runs the office and her sons drive the truck and collect the garbage. On July 4th all three of her sons are sick and it is up to Grandma and her grandson Billy to collect the garbage before the parade. There is a problem. Grandma can barely see over the steering wheel of the truck and she doesn’t drive well. She gets her mailbox, one neighbor’s roses, and another neighbor’s clothesline wrapped around her truck in her attempt to collect garbage. She also ends up at the front of the parade with a ribbon for Most Creative Float. JDaniel thought this book was really funny.

I decided to make JDaniel a garbage truck and have him decorate it. He had a blast.


JDaniel painted it with Bingo markers.

He added stickers to decorate his truck.

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Xcellent Yankee Doodle Cupcakes

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We are trying low sugar desserts at my house this summer. The first one we tried making were these Yankee Doodle Cupcakes. These look and taste yummy. Both JDaniel and Danny loved them. I took them to a play date JDaniel had with his friend Jake. Jake and his mom loved them too.

 

Ingredients:

 

1 box of yellow cake mix

 

12-oz can of diet cherry cola

 

1 tub of fat-free cool whip

 

1 tsp. of blue sugar-free jello

 

1 tsp. of red sugar-free jello

 

 

Directions:
    1. Mix the diet pop with the cake mix.

 

    1. Pour into a greased or sprayed baking pan or 24 cupcake pan.

 

    1. Bake according to box directions, but check often.

 

    1. Mix together half the cool whip with 1 tsp of blue jello. Frost half the cupcakes.

 

    1. Mix together half the cool whip with 1 tsp of red jello and frost the remaining cupcakes.

 

  1. After cake or cupcakes have cooled, top with cool whip and jello mixture.
  2. Enjoy!

This recipe is based on a recipe I found on 3 Fat Chicks on a Diet.

 

 

 

Check Out My Interview on Spell Out Loud!

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I am happy to be featured in a post on Spell Out Loud! The post is on planning Muffin Tin Mondays called Chalktalk with JDaniel4’s Mom. She did such a nice job with her interview. Please click here and check out her post.

 

Popsicle Holders: Ways to Stop a Popsicle From Dripping Down Your Arm

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At playgroup a few weeks ago my friend Valerie shared all the ways she has tried to keep popsicles from dripping down her three daughters arms. I decided I would try them out on JDaniel and he was very willing to be a guinea pig in this experiment.
The first thing we tried was an old sock. I recently drove over this sock with the vacuum cleaner and that made it available for the experiment.

The sock worked really well. It absorbs the drips and keeps your hand clean.

 

Next, we tried a cupcake cup. Valerie suggested I silicon cup, but I don’t have any of those.

This worked well too. I think it worked because we weren’t outside in the heat. A melty popsicle would probably drip down the edges of the cups when it is tipped.

Next to last we tried a paper bowl.


This didn’t work well at all. We were outside and the liquid rolled out of the bowl when JDaniel tried to finish off the popsicle.

 

Finally, we tried the plastic wrapper the popsicle came in. We don’t have a picture of this. JDaniel didn’t like the way the wrapper felt in his hand. He asked for the sock and then ended up holding it one hand while the sock was on the other.

P.S. JDaniel calls them popsissles not popsicles.

 

 

Muffin Tin Monday- Very Berry 4th of July

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Muffin Tin Monday- Very Berry 4th of July

My blog theme for the week is the 4th of July. I used to celebrate holidays on the week they happened. After thinking about it, it made more sense to share my holiday ideas the week before the holiday. This is JDaniel’s 4th of July tin a week early.

JDaniel has a berry good time dipping blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries into the strawberry yogurt. Why is the cereal there? I started using breakfast cereal as sprinkles on his oatmeal in the morning. Now we have “sprinkles” on yogurt too.

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Embracing Reading in the Summer and All Year Round

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ABCs of Exploring Books with Children: Activity Ideas from R-Z

I have always been fortunate that my two years old has loved being read to. From the beginning, I read to him. He didn’t like to sleep much as an infant and I had a lot of time to read to him. It seems that I read Good Night Moon a million times. I started reading it in funny voices or singing the words to familiar tunes.

 

Now that JDaniel is two I still read to him a lot. He has been “reading” to himself for about nine months. He isn’t really reading he talks to himself about the pictures and retells the parts of story he has memorized.

 

How am I trying to keep him interested in books:
    1. I have surrounded him with books that he loves. We have books in almost every room of the house and in the car beside his car seat.

 

    1. We make going to the library an adventure. A library visit is a mission to find books on the shelves that he loves, capture them in our library bag, and bring them home. Right now that means checking a lot of books out of the library about trucks, front loaders, and trains

 

    1. The library’s summer reading program has excellent prizes. I mentioned earlier this week that JDaniel earned a pass to a water park and free Ice Dream from Chick Filet-A. Even someone that wasn’t a reader might have been motivated for the prizes.

 

    1. JDaniel can see that we enjoy reading. He sees us check a book out of the library for us to read. We can be found reading when the other parent is playing with him. Right now he models a lot of what he sees.

 

    1. I picture walk (tell a revised version of a story while looking at the details in the pictures) him through books that have too many words, but pictures that will interest him. As he gets older we will revisit these books and read the actual story.

 

    1. We have one of his stuffed animals join us in reading. Later I tell him the animal wants to hear the story again. When he doesn’t want to read with me, he likes to read with them. If JDaniel has a sibling, I would have him read to them.

 

    1. We talk about books we’ve read as we go through everyday life and encounter things we have read in books.

    2. We act out stories with toys.

    3. We go to the library’s website and reserve books that we have loved and want to read again. When we go to the library and they are there, it is so exciting.

 

  1. Visiting a bookstore on a field trip to read is fun too. Sometimes they have story hours. JDaniel loves to read the book someone else is reading.

  2. Journaling about what you like and don’t like about books is also a great idea. It helps you remember the books you have read and enjoyed. I hope to start this with JDaniel when he gets older.

    You may have your own great ideas. If you have some you would love to share, please leave a comment. I am always looking for new ways to encourage reading.

 

Books on Summer and Craft

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We read a lot of books this week most of them about construction equipment and trains. We did fit in two books about summer.

The link below is an affiliate link.

It’s Summer by Jimmy Pickering is a fun book about a girl and her dog enjoying the season. They love all the aspects of summer from when it’s hot finding a cool water spot to selling lemonade, meeting a crustacean on the beach, and so much more. We love rhymes at my house and this book is all in rhyme.


The second book we read is called Alaska’s 12 Days of Summer by Pat Chamberlin-Calamar. This wonderful book could be sung to the 12 Days of Christmas literally. The sheet music is the back of the book. JDaniel loved looking for the animals on each page. As your progress from one to twelve, the animals move all over the page to make room for new animals. I loved the facts that were on the bottom of the page about each animal.

Art Project

After reading the books, JDaniel painted a paper plate with an orange bingo marker. The sunspots are where he got a hold of a blue bingo marker and added a little blue to the project. On the outside of the plate, we glued tracings on his hand.

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Wonderful Water With Cousins

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My sister Michelle’s sons spent time at my house over the weekend. It was hot and sticky during the day on Friday. Really too hot for man or beast to be outside. After dinner, I decided we needed to get out of the house and do something fun. I changed JDaniel into his bathing suit and had my nephew get in their bathing suits. We then loaded into the car to visit the fountains in downtown Greenville. The space they are in is designed to look like a train track. JDaniel is so into trains right now.
The fountains are located between artist studios, a hotel, and restaurants and the Reedy River. I was so thankful that there were other children playing in them when we got there. We would have looked a little strange to the couple’s strolling along the river before or after their dinner all by ourselves.

 

JDaniel loved trying to catch the water in his hands while the water enjoyed spraying his upper thighs.

 


I wasn’t sure that a seven and ten-year-old would get into playing in the fountains. They seemed to enjoy it as much as JDaniel did. The words in the window say,” More and more and More.” That’s how long they wanted to stay and play.

JDaniel took notes on a few new tricks he learned about playing in the water. If you flick the water coming out of the fountains, you can get other people really wet. Can you see the wheels turning in his head as he watches his cousin Jason?

 

 

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