Grandparents’ Day

Thank you so much for all the nice comments.  Theresa asked if I had any ideas to share for Grandparents’ Day.   We didn’t usually celebrate it at our school because so many children do not have a grandparent who lives close enough to participate, but I love the idea – especially since that is my new role!  I have collected a few ideas that might help, most of these are from my files – sorry I can’t give credit to the authors.

I would begin at circle time demonstrating how we always start our day.  I would ask each child to introduce his/her guest and I would have encouraged children to bring any older adult in their lives if a grandparent were not available.  We would demonstrate some of our Hugs and Handshakes (check out that post if you aren’t familiar with this idea.)  Here are some songs you might sing to greet the Grandparents.

Songs

Here is a poem my own children learned when they were little – a long time ago!!

Glasses

Here are a few ideas of crafts you might want to make for the Grandparents – or have them make with the children.

I love the idea of making a big award ribbon out of a paper plate.  The child could use markers or stick on foam letters and shapes to decorate it.

You can never go wrong with a pencil can.  The children could decorate the paper covering by drawing or gluing on words or designs.  It might be fun to print out words like Grandma, Nana, Mimi, Grandpa, Papa, etc. in different fonts for the kids to cut out and glue on.  A bookmark is also a timeless, useful idea.

I thnk it would be a great idea to take a picture of each child with their adult.  You could make a simple frame out of popsicle sticks or tongue depressors (decorated with markers or stick on foam) – or you could cut the photo into strips and rubber cement them onto tongue depressors to make a puzzle.

Grandparents and children could trace and cut out their hands, then glue them onto another paper with the title – My Grand(ma)(pa) and Me!  If a child brought more than one grandparent all the hands could be on one paper.

You can never go wrong with flowers!  This was a mother’s day gift for my daughter in law that you could easily adapt.  I would put just one handprint for the grandparent.  An alternative would be to just put the handprint, eliminate the cut out tulip shape, and glue a circle picture of the child’s face on the handprint.

Here’s another flower idea:

You could use a cupcake paper for a 3 dimensional effect.

One of my favorite Mother’s Day gifts is this hug – great for grandparents too!

 

 

I traced the child’s outstretched arm and hand onto a folded piece of pink construction paper.

After cutting the arms and gluing the heart we folded them to be a huge hug.

This is the poem we glued on – easy to change to Grandparents’ Day!

Here is someone else’s adaptation of the same idea:

 

I think Grandparents would enjoy joining in to a very simple cooking activity like this:

You could use any kind of pie filling.   All they really have to do is crush up the graham cracker in a baggie, then add the filling and Cool Whip or Whipped Cream.  You could do this with pudding too!  Very simple and tasty!

Cherry pie-7 copy

Here is an idea of a Grandparent booklet you might want to make or adapt to give to the grandparents.  You would run the 2 pages back to back and fold it like a card.

Grandparents booklet

On behalf of all the Grandparents out there – Thank you for making our day special!!