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+.

5 Days of Christmas Printables

November 5, 2017 By Deirdre

This week I am sharing a new set of Christmas themed printables. You will find that most of the printables were designed for preschool through second grade. The printable that will be shared on Friday is a STEM activity that could be explored by older children. I hope you will stop by every day to see what new printables have been shared.

3 Dinosaurs and Royal Baloo will also be sharing Christmas themed printables. I think you will find that they have created some printables for young children and others for children in upper elementary school. You will find a list

5 Days of Christmas Printables

Echolocation Activity for Kids

November 1, 2017 By Deirdre

Earlier this week I shared with you a bat-themed shape craft. Today I have an echolocation activity to share with you. Your children will have fun playing the part of the bat and the mosquitos.

Getting Ready for the Echolocation Activity

The first thing you are going to need to do is to download the Echolocation Activity. The activity set includes a mosquito and a bat printable.

Putting the Activity Together

You will need to glue both pictures can be glued to the bottom of small paper plates. You will need one bat plate and mosquito plates for each of your remaining children.

Then you will need to staple a bag of beans to the back of each the mosquito plate. If you would prefer, you can put bells, small stones or rice in the bag instead.

Let’s Explore the Echolocation Activity

You will need to place all the mosquitos in a circle. Each mosquito will need to hold their plate in front of them.
The bat will stand in the middle of the circle with the plate held over their face. (If you want to attach pipe cleaners to the sides of the plate to create a blindfold mask, you can totally do that.)
The child who is the bat will need to make a sound like a beep or a squeak.
Pick four or five of the mosquitos in the circle to shake their plates every time the bat makes a noise.
The bat will keep repeating its sound and the mosquitos will keep shaking their plates until the bat finds one of the mosquitos.
Then the bat will trade places with that mosquito and the game will start again.

If you like this science activity, here are some more science activities your children will enjoy.

Tin Foil Boat STEM Challenge

Owl Eyesight Exploration

Why Do Pirates Wear Eye Patches

Halloween Bat Shape Craft That Explores Shapes

October 30, 2017 By Deirdre

Whether you decide to use Halloween themed paper or construction paper, your children have fun putting together this Halloween bat craft. We made our bats after reading the book Stellaluna! Your children might enjoy having the book read to them too.

Halloween Bat Craft

Getting Ready for the Halloween Bat Craft

You will need to decide if you want your children to cut the shapes out of paper or if you want to cut the shapes out for them. If you want them to cut out their own, you may want to give them shape templates to work with. They can trace each shape onto the paper and then cut it out.

Supplies

The links below are affiliate links.

Halloween scrapbook paper
Glue Sticks
White Drawing Paper
Scissors
Ruler

Each child will need the following shapes:

Four squares ( 4cm by 4 cm)
Two large triangles made by cutting a square in half
One pentagon
Two small triangles

Putting the Halloween Bat Together

There is probably more than one way to put the bat together. Let me walk you through how we created ours.

First, you will want to glue the pentagon in the water of the paper.

Next, you will glue on the squares. The inner squares are tilted slightly. Their inside lower corners are attached to the bottom corners of the pentagon. Then the outside squares will need to be tilted like diamonds and their inside corners are glued next to the outside corners on the inner squares.

The large triangles will go on next. They will go in the valley created by the two squares.

Finally, the two small triangles will be glued to the sides of the triangle.

Stellaluna 25th Anniversary Edition is the Virtual Book Club of the Week. This Halloween bat craft was created to share with you and the book club members. Below you will find a list of other activities based on Stellaluna.

Room on the Broom STEM Building Activity

October 26, 2017 By Deirdre

Earlier this week I shared a sensory activity based on the book Room on a Broom. We had such fun making bubbles rise out of the dish soap brew to make creations based on activities found on our set exploration cards. Today I have another fun activity for your children. This activity invites children to create room on the broom for the witch and her friends to sit.

Getting Ready for the Room on the Broom Activity

You will need to print out a copy of the Design a Broom to Ride on STEM Activity. Each of your children will need a planning printable and a broom building mat.

You can decide if you want to put out a variety of building materials for your children to use or just one type. The creation you will see below features LEGO, but you can use any of the building materials below or one of your own selection.

Building Materials

Lego
Play Dough
Blocks
Odd and Ends (Sticks, Straws, Yarn, Clay, Etc…)
Bristle Blocks
Pattern Blocks

Getting Started with the Room on the Broom Activity

You will want to read the book Room on a Broom to your students. It will give them the opportunity to see the broom the witch and her friends traveled on. It will also give them the opportunity to meet the passengers they will be building the broom for.

Then you will need to decide if you want your children plan what they are going to build on the planning printable or draw a diagram of their creation on it when it is completed.

Once you have decided what you want to have the do first, you can pass out the broom building mat. It will be so much fun to see what they come up with. Please remind them that their creation doesn’t have to look anything like the one in the book.

If you like this STEM project, here are some other projects your children will like.

Exploring the Braille Alphabet with LEGO

Counting Syllables with LEGO Bricks

Over in the Meadow LEGO Creations and Book

STEM Engineering- Houses for the Three Little Pigs

Bubble Games and Activities – Blowing Bubbles in a Brew

October 23, 2017 By Deirdre

The witch in the story Room on the Broom created a wonderful new broom out with a mixture of things added to her cauldron. Your children will have fun creating bubble creations and playing bubble games using a free set of creation cards, water, soap bubble, and straws.

Your children can use the free printable cards to explore preposition, breathe control and challenge other children’s bubble blowing skills. All of the bubble games and activities can be done by both children young and old. Younger children will need you to read the words on the to them.

Bubble Games and Activities

Getting Ready

Before you start playing the bubble games and exploring the bubble activities, you will need to download a copy of the cards set. The Bubble Games and Activities Exploration Cards for Kids have a blue border. They could be printed in black and white, but look nice in color.

Supplies

Variety of Types of Straws
Dish Soap
Water
Plastic Container (We used one that looks like a cauldron.)

Bubble Games and Activities

Each of your children will need to have their own container filled half up with water and a few drops of dish soap. You can give them just one straw or several straws.

Each child will take an exploration card of the stack. Then they will need to do what it asks them too. If they playing the games with other people, they can challenge someone else to do the exploration with them. You will notice that some of the cards have explorations designed for two people. Feel free to join your child in those activities if another child isn’t available.

Before moving onto the next card, they will need to let the bubbles settle back into their containers.

If you like this sensory activity, here are several more your children will enjoy:

Pumpkin Counting Activities and Sensory Bottle

Decorating Robots with Buttons in a Sensory Bag

Let’s Explore Shapes Sensory Bowl and Cards

The link below is an affiliate link.

Room on the Broom is the Virtual Book Club book of the week. Below you will find more Room on a Broom activities from other book club members.

Decorating Robots in Sensory Bags

October 19, 2017 By Deirdre

These sensory bags feature robot outlines. Your children will have fun moving the objects inside the sensory bag to add details to the robots. This activity part of a series called 31 Days of ABC. These sensory bags were designed to be used on R Day! While many of the activities in this series are for younger children. I found my 9-year-old decorating the robot several times this week.

Putting the Sensory Bags Together

These sensory bags are so easy to make. You really only need seven supplies to put them together.

Links below are affiliate links.

Supplies

Print Out of a Robot Outline
Clear Hair Gel
Permanent Marker
Gallon Size Zipper Bags
Two Wiggly Eyes
Bag of Buttons
Star Pony Beads

Directions

You will need to download a copy of the Robot Outlines for the Decorating Robots in Sensory Bags Activity. Then you will trace the robot onto the bag with a permanent marker.

Next, you will fill the bag with the contents of a bottle of hair gel. The hair gel should be about 1/4 of an inch thick in the bag.

Finally, you will place the eyes, buttons, and beads into the bag. (It is okay to keep them at the top to start with. ) Then seal the bag.

Exploring the Sensory Bags

There are several ways your children can explore the bag. Here are a few we thought of:

Give the robot a face and button joints
Place buttons and beads on its chest
Cover its body with buttons and beads
Move stars onto the robot’s chest on bead at a time. Count the stars when you place them on the robot.
Place the buttons symmetrically on the robot

If you like this sensory activity, here are some more you will like.

Pumpkin Counting Activities and Sensory Bottle

Let’s Explore Shapes Sensory Bowl and Cards

31 DAYS OF ABC

TEACHING THE ABCS – OCTOBER 1

All Done Monkey: Early Literacy – Getting Started Teaching the Alphabet

A – OCTOBER 2

Creative World of Varya: A Is for Aromatherapy for Kids

B – OCTOBER 3

Hispanic Mama: B Is For Bilingual Baby Books

C – OCTOBER 4

Witty Hoots: C Is for Cool Fingerprint Castle Keyrings Tutorial

D – OCTOBER 5

Teach Me Mommy: D Is for Dinosaurs DIY Sensory Bin

E – OCTOBER 6

E Is for Environmental Print to Develop Literacy

F – OCTOBER 7

Look! We’re Learning! F Is for Printable Farm Paper Bag Puppets

G – OCTOBER 8

All Done Monkey: G Is for Go

H – OCTOBER 9

All Done Monkey: H Is for Hello/Hola

I – OCTOBER 10

Jeddah Mom: I Is for Ice Cream Craft and Sorting Activity

J – OCTOBER 11

All Done Monkey: J is for Jirafa (Giraffe) – Spanish Coloring Page

K – OCTOBER 12

Pennies of Time: K Is for Kindness- This is no longer available.

L – OCTOBER 13

Schooling Active Monkeys: L Is for Lion Craft

M – OCTOBER 14

Sugar, Spice & Glitter: M is for Madeline

N – OCTOBER 15

All Done Monkey: N Is for Nature Crafts

O – OCTOBER 16

Kitchen Counter Chronicles: O Is for Owl Bookmark Printable

P – OCTOBER 17

Creative World of Varya

Q – OCTOBER 18

Discovering the World Through My Son’s Eyes: Q Is for Quito

R – OCTOBER 19

JDaniel4’sMom: R Is for Robot

S – OCTOBER 20

Discovering the World Through My Son’s Eyes: S Is for Spanish

U – OCTOBER 22

The Educators’ Spin On it: U Is for Unicorn

W – OCTOBER 24

My Story Time Corner: W Is for Wheels on the Bus

X – OCTOBER 25

The Mommies Reviews: X

Y – OCTOBER 26

Teach Me Mommy: Y Is for Yarn Letters

Z – OCTOBER 27

Bambini Travel: Z Is for Zoo Animals

Pre K Tracing Worksheets with a Pumpkin Theme

October 16, 2017 By Deirdre

Prewriting activities like the ones your children can do with this set of pre K tracing worksheets are a great way to work on fine motor skills. Whether you choose to have your children use a pencil to trace the lines or a pumpkin seed and chopsticks, they are sure to have fun. We concentrated on using a chopstick and a pumpkin seed. Your children are going to have fun trying each of the ways we came up with.

Getting the Pre K Tracing Worksheets

You can click right on the words Pumpkin Prewriting Activity to download the complete set of pre K tracing worksheets. You will find that there are six printable in the set.

Getting the Chopsticks Ready

You will need to wrap a rubber band around the top of a set of chopsticks. Then push a pom-pom up between the chopsticks. Having the pom-pom between the chopsticks will cause them to spring open when your children release the pincher grip on the chopsticks.

Using the Pre K Tracing Worksheets

You could just have your children trace over the lines on the pre K tracing worksheets with a pencil. I think your children will have more fun using a set of chopsticks and a pumpkin seed. The hold your children will place on the chopsticks is the same pincer grip your children use with a pencil.

Activity One

Have your children place the pumpkin seed in the chopsticks vertically. The pumpkin seed will look like the tip of a pencil. Then have them move the seed along each line until they have reached the pumpkin.

Activity Two

This time your children will place the pumpkin seed in the chopstick horizontally. This will make the gap between the chopsticks a little wider. Then they will once again move the seed along each line to the pumpkin.

Activity Three

The pumpkin seed isn’t in the chopsticks for this activity. Your children will push the pumpkin seed along with lines with the chopstick. This activity requires the most focus.

The link below is an affiliate link.

This activity was designed to go along with the Virtual Book Club Book of the Week Five Little Pumpkins. Below you will find more Five Little Pumpkin activities created by other Virtual Book Club Members.

Name – Name Pumpkins on a Gate – Preschool Powol Packets
Numbers – Dabber Pumpkin Count – My Storytime Corner
Cooking – Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies – Mama Smiles
Science – Stacking Pumpkins STEM Activity – The Educators’ Spin On It
Pre-Writing – Pumpkin Pre-Writing Activity with Chalk Markers – Inspiration Laboratories
Movement – Puppet Craft Activity and Acting Out the Story-The Moments at Home
Shapes – Pumpkin Shape Memory Game – Rainy Day Mum

Here are a few more Halloween activities:

Halloween Candy Learning Challenge Cards- Let’s Build It

Candy Learning Challenge Cards- Let’s Sort It

Halloween Tens Frames Printables

Go Away Green Monster Roll and Color Math Activity

October 11, 2017 By Deirdre

This week I am sharing monster-themed activities that go along with the book Go Away, Big Green Monster. The monster on this printable was created to look like the monster in the book. He is not a perfect match. I created him using shapes available in Publisher. I hope your children will think it looks close to the monster in the book.

Big Green Monster Math Activity

Links below are affiliate links.

Getting Ready for the Activity

You can get a copy of the Roll and Color Green Monster Math math activity by clicking on the underlined words to the left. The printable was created to be printed out in black and white. You will not need to send it to a color printer.

Each of your children will need a red, yellow, black, purple, dark green and green crayon. If you have Crayola crayons for each student that would be perfect. They will also need a six-sided die.

If you haven’t read the story Go Away, Big Green Monster!, you will want to read it to your children before starting the activity.

How to Complete the Big Green Monster Math Activity

Your children will need to place their name on the top of the paper. Then they will roll their die. They will next need to identify the number on the dice. If they need to, they can count the dots on the dice.

The next step is to figure out what color goes with that number. They will find a color key on the printable.

Then they will look for all the sections of the monster that have that number in them. Children will need to color in all of the sections the color that matches that number. The areas of the monster that do not have numbers in them will need to stay white.

They will repeat the process until all of the numbered sections are colored in.

Finally, they will look at the cover of the book to see if their colors match.

If you like this printable, here are some more math printables you will want to explore:

Subtraction Treasure Chest Match

Color, Count and Graph Pumpkin Activity

Big Green Monster Healthy Snack Ideas

October 9, 2017 By Deirdre

In the book Go, Away Big Green Monster children build and unbuild a big green monster as they turn the pages of the book. Your children will have fun building their own big green monster snack and unbuilding it as they snack on it. I have included a number healthy snack ideas that you can incorporate the big green monster snack.

Big Green Monster Snack

We used vegetables and few snacks to build our big green monster. Below you will find the ingredients we used. At the end of the ingredients list you will find more healthy snack ideas and ingredients ideas.

Ingredients

You will need to decide if you want to precut all the fruits and vegetables with your children or have them help cut them.

Spinach Tortillas (small)
Green Pepper Pieces Cut into Small Ear Shapes
Roma Tomatoes Slices with a Diagonal Area Cut Out of One of the Sides
English Cucumber Cut into a Nose Shape and Two Small Circles
Yellow Squash Cut into Slices
Black Olives Cut into Slices
Red Leaf Lettuce

Healthy Snack Ideas

If your children don’t like tortillas, you can create a ring with peppers around the edge of a plate.
Two large strawberries or a piece of watermelon can be used in place of the tomatoes.
Water chestnuts can be used in place of the cucumbers for teeth.
A pickle spear can be used instead of the cucumber for the nose and eyes.
Bananas could be used instead of the yellow squash. I don’t know how they would taste with pickle chip placed on it.
Black grapes could be used instead of the olives.

Building the Green Monster

First, your children will need to start by placing the spinach tortilla on a plate.

Second, they will tuck several leaves of red lettuce behind the tortilla.

Third, they will place the green pepper ears on either side of the tortilla.

Four, you will add the cucumber nose and the eyes made of squash and cucumbers to the tortilla.

Fifth, you will add black olives. The black olive slices are to be placed on the cucumber slices.

Sixth, you will add the mouth. The two Roma tomato slices will need to be placed upside down in a heart shape below the nose.

Once the big green monster is built, it will be fun to unbuild it. I bet it will be one of your children’s favorite healthy snack ideas.

Here are some other activities based on the book Go Away, Big Green Monster:

Monster Themed Name Necklace Craft- The Educators’ Spin On It
Go Away Big Green Monster Slime – Still Playing School
Easy Finger-painted Monsters for Toddlers- Toddler Approved
Playdough Monster Invitation to Play – My Bored Toddler
Monster Cake Pops – Rainy Day Mum
Colorful Monsters Printable Worksheet-The Moments at Home
Monster Leaf Puppet Craft – Messy Little Monster
Feed the Monster Game – Mama Smiles
Magnetic Shape Monsters- Teach Beside Me
Mini Eraser Monster Counting Printables – Artsy Momma

Why Did Pirates Wear Eye Patches? Experiment

October 6, 2017 By Deirdre

JDaniel discussed Why Did Pirates Wear Eye Patches? with one of his teachers a few years ago on Talk Like a Pirate Day. She told him that pirates frequently had to move above and below decks, from daylight to near darkness. It was said that they wore a patch over one eye to keep it dark-adapted outside. On this final day of 5 Days of Pirate printables, I thought it would be fun to do a STEM experiment to see if wearing an eye patch while playing made it easier to see when you moved into a darkened area.

Why Did Pirates Wear Eye Patches? Experiment

While you could conduct this experiment without a recording printable, I have created a Why Did Pirates Wear Eye Patches Experiment printable. Your children can record their insights from the experiment on this document.

Getting Started

Your children will need to wear an eye patch in a brightly lit room or outside for a short time. We wore ours for about 15 or 20 minutes.

One Eye is Ready for Darkness

As they move into a darkened room or darker space, they can slowly lift up the eye patch as they go into the darkened space. They will have one eye that is dark adapted and one that will need to adjust the darkness.

Next, have your children describe orally or record on the printable what they could see as they walked into the darkened area.

Switching the Patch

The part of the Why Did Pirates Wear Eye Patches? experiment has children move the eye patch from one eye to the other. As your children move from a bright area to a darkened one they will switch the eye that is covered with the eye patch. The once covered eye should be able to see better in the darkness. Afer all it is dark-adapted.

Next, have your children share orally with your or write down what they could see with the eye patch on.

Creating a Conclusion

You will want to take time to have your children share with you their experience with the eye patch. It will be fun to see if they felt that it helped to move the eye patch from one eye to the other. Finding out what they saw as they moved into the darkness will be fun too. Not every pirate may have focused on the same things.

Here are the other pirate printables that were shared this week:

R Controlled Vowel Worksheets

Long Vowel Worksheets

Subtraction Worksheets Used to Play Treasure Chest

Parrot Bingo Cards that Explore Colors

5 Days of Christmas Printables

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Getting Ready for the Echolocation Activity

Putting the Activity Together

Let’s Explore the Echolocation Activity

Halloween Bat Craft

Getting Ready for the Halloween Bat Craft

Supplies

Each child will need the following shapes:

Putting the Halloween Bat Together

Getting Ready for the Room on the Broom Activity

Building Materials

Getting Started with the Room on the Broom Activity

If you like this STEM project, here are some other projects your children will like.

Bubble Games and Activities

Getting Ready

Supplies

Bubble Games and Activities

If you like this sensory activity, here are several more your children will enjoy:

Putting the Sensory Bags Together

Supplies

Directions

Exploring the Sensory Bags

If you like this sensory activity, here are some more you will like.

31 DAYS OF ABC

TEACHING THE ABCS – OCTOBER 1

A – OCTOBER 2

B – OCTOBER 3

C – OCTOBER 4

D – OCTOBER 5

E – OCTOBER 6

F – OCTOBER 7

G – OCTOBER 8

H – OCTOBER 9

I – OCTOBER 10

J – OCTOBER 11

K – OCTOBER 12

L – OCTOBER 13

M – OCTOBER 14

N – OCTOBER 15

O – OCTOBER 16

P – OCTOBER 17

Q – OCTOBER 18

R – OCTOBER 19

S – OCTOBER 20

U – OCTOBER 22

W – OCTOBER 24

X – OCTOBER 25

Y – OCTOBER 26

Z – OCTOBER 27

Getting the Pre K Tracing Worksheets

Getting the Chopsticks Ready

Using the Pre K Tracing Worksheets

Activity One

Activity Two

Activity Three

Here are a few more Halloween activities:

Big Green Monster Math Activity

Getting Ready for the Activity

How to Complete the Big Green Monster Math Activity

If you like this printable, here are some more math printables you will want to explore:

Ingredients

Healthy Snack Ideas

Building the Green Monster

Why Did Pirates Wear Eye Patches? Experiment

Getting Started

One Eye is Ready for Darkness

Switching the Patch

Creating a Conclusion

Here are the other pirate printables that were shared this week:

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