Time with grandchildren is the most precious gift grandparents can receive. I just spent a week with my grandchildren at the shore. It was fun doing activities together while talking about whatever topic came up. My granddaughters asked many questions about my childhood…what my friends and I liked to do, what school was like, what toys I played with, and are amazed at what I didn’t have…video games, ipods, cell phones, DVDs, calculators, computers, Internet, etc. They were equally interested hearing that I had similar personal experiences in my childhood…bad dreams, feeling left out sometimes, crushes, not getting along with my older sister, and more. They, in turn, opened up and shared similar stories and interests. I call this sharing me time.
I enjoyed sharing with them stories about my grandparents, including humorous stories such as how my grandmother would drive me to ballet classes in her baby blue 1933 Nash Coupe at a very slow 25 miles an hour. Of course, there was always a line of cars held up behind her on the winding two lane route. Every week I was so embarrassingly late!
Bonding with Grandchildren
When grandparents are not able to visit as often as they’d like, attempts at becoming closer to their grandchildren are sometimes awkward. Combining an activity, such as cooking or a craft, with sharing me time helps to create a relaxed environment making it easier to build a closer relationship between grandparents and grandchildren.
ABC Family Photo Album Activity
Recently, I’ve been going through family photos looking for those to use in an ABC Family Photo Album. The album will have photos of past and present family members. Captions will include alliteration for the letter of the alphabet highlighted for that page. Include colors, shapes, prepositions, actions, emotions, too. Most importantly, make it fun to read. Two examples are shown here:
G
S
Great-Grandmother Irene is glamorous in her sun glasses at ninety-years-old
Nana at seven-years-old sitting on Santa’s lap (asking for a new girdle for her mother)
There are a couple of ways an ABC Family Photo Album project can be accomplished by grandparents with the help of grandchildren.
When grandchildren are visiting, go through some of your family photos with them. Ask them to tell you what they see as a starting point: beach, blue sky, hat, beads, sun glasses, sand, people, clouds…Together find words starting with the same letter and create an original caption (silliness welcome!) A caption for the photo on the left above could state for the letter B : Great-Grandmother Irene is at the beach under the blue sky wearing beads.
If grandchildren are not able to visit, use a web cam. Hold up photos one at a time and do the same as in number 1. Using a web cam helps in building a close relationship…and keeping it close until you are able to visit in person; you won’t have to work through that awkward stage again.
While you’re looking through the photos, take advantage of the time together to get to know each other better. This activity for grandparents and grandchildren together is a wonderful way to celebrate Grandparents Day for the day was originally created by its originator, Marian Lucille Herndon McQuade in 1970, to bring the older and younger generations closer together by sharing me time.
Grandparents Day has been celebrated the first Sunday after Labor Day since 1978. The purpose of Grandparents Day has been two fold: to bring attention to the lonely elderly in nursing homes and to encourage grandchildren to share in activities to learn more about their grandparents heritage. But for many grandparents and grandchildren, for various reasons, that Sunday isn’t always convenient for visiting and sharing. There are activities that can be shared together or at a distance. Grandparents Day can be any day that grandparents and grandchildren come together to celebrate their relationship whether it be in person or via a web cam or telephone.
Grandparents Day Craft Ideas
Whenever grandparents and grandchildren choose to celebrate Grandparents Day, it should be a day when memories and hopes are shared…a day when memories are also created to be shared for lifetimes to come. We grandparents love to receive handmade gifts from our grandchildren, especially those that include original artwork. Grandchildren equally love to show off their creative artwork, so sharing this type of craft activity is a win-win happening. Memories are gifts that are not only priceless, but keep on giving as long as the memory remains.
Family Peace Sign T-Shirts
Recently, while my grandkids and I were browsing through a discount store, we found Petra Boase’s Terrifyingly Terrific T-Shirts. Together Kaitlin and I discussed what we might be able to do together in designing a terrific t-shirt. She suggested we tie-dye the shirts and add a peace sign which is very popular, again. I suggested we add a few butterflies. She asked me why. My explanation was this…
Butterfly Effect Towards Peace
“Have you heard of the ‘Butterfly Effect’?” “No,” Kaitlin answered.
I asked her, “If a butterfly flaps its wings causing a very small breeze leading to changes in the atmosphere, would it be capable of changing a weather pattern?” “I don’t know,” she replied.
“Starting with just a little effort, it is possible that change could happen eventually even though we may never know. With just one act of kindness, perhaps each one of us could make a change so all children could live in peace. Our butterflies would represent acts of kindness moving towards world peace.”
Kaitlin asked what could she do to start her Butterfly Effect. “Being kind to everyone, especially those who make it more of a challenge may have an effect that you may never know. Hopefully, your act of kindness would one day make a difference in someone’s life.”
How to Make Your Family T-Shirt
To celebrate our Grandparents Day, our grandchildren will help us make t-shirts for family and friends. As we present the t-shirts, we will share the significance of our butterflies… maybe we will begin our own “Butterfly Effect.”
Note:
If you can’t be together on Grandparents Day, you can still design family t-shirts together. Separately, grandchildren can create their interpretation of the family t-shirt for their grandparents and the grandparents can do the same for their grandchildren. Send them to each other in time for Grandparents Day – take photos and post them on Facebook, a family blog, or a photo sharing website.
If you’d rather not use our suggestion, include in your design symbols that are special to your family that represent peace, kindness, love…events, memories or a special story of your own.
While you are interacting, exchange childhood memories…even young ones have them, too.
Revisit your Grandparents Day memories and others you have of moments together to keep them alive.
Other suggestions for this Grandparents Day craft project are door knob hangers, sun visors, tote bags…make it a surprise!
For the t-shirts, you can use iron decals…or you can also paint designs instead of tie dying. T-shirts and supplies can be found at craft stores.
Suggestions for materials you might choose from for your t-shirt design are:
For tie-dying…
Rubber bands for tie-dying t-shirts
protective gloves
colored fabric paints
plastic covering for workspace
Allow at least 3 days for drying
How to Tie Dye a Peace Sign T-Shirt Video
Supplies For Other T-Shirt Project Designs…
Stiff Cardboard – place inside t-shirt to protect other side or to make stencils
Tracing paper – sold at stationery stores
Fabric Chalk – used for drawing outlines
Fabric Glue – for applying fabric pieces together, use special brush
Fabric Marker – designed for use on fabric
Fabric Paint – will not wash out, follow directions
Fluorescent Fabric Paint – glows
Glitter Paint or Glitter – attach with Fabric Glue
Puffy Fabric Paint – hair dryer to dry
Pearl Fabric Paint – dries with a sheen
Newspaper – protect work surface
Paintbrushes – varying sizes
Sequins – attach with fabric glue
Sponge – used to paint or stencil
Share Your Projects
If you do this craft project, please share photos. I’d love to post them. Happy Grandparents Day!
About.com’s Guide to Grandparents Blog Carnival
This post is part of a blog carnival hosted by Susan Adcox, About.com’s Guide to Grandparents.
August 1 is Friendship Day this year. Friendship Day has been celebrated on the first Sunday of August every year since 1935 when the US Congress made it official. Now Friendship Day is celebrated globally. In 1997, the United Nations named Winnie – the Pooh as the world’s Ambassador of Friendship.
How to Celebrate Friendship Day
Friendships don’t need to wait for the first Sunday in August to be celebrated. Some friends make a point of holding a reunion every month or twice a year or once a year. Some friends go on cruises or vacation together, meet for dinner, or take turns hosting a “friends” get-together. However you celebrate, include a good friendship movie – one that will let you laugh together and cry together and laugh some more…a feel good movie.
If you can’t get together, why not plan on watching a good friendship movie at the same time, staying in touch through Facebook or Twitter or Skype with a web cam while you watch. You can reminisce about good times and special moments that brought you closer together…that turned your friendship into a special one.
NanasCorner Popular Friendship Movies List
Each of the following links in NanasCorner popular friendship movies list takes you to a page where you can view movie trailers, movie reviews, and other information on the movie to help you choose your friendship movie.
Alice and Darlene, best friends, decide to take a trip to Thailand to celebrate high-school graduation. While there, they are befriended by charming Australian rogue Nick Parks. Nick convinces them to take a weekend side trip to Hong Kong, but at the airport, they are busted for smuggling drugs…
Set in 1950′s Ireland, the movie centers around Benny and Eve as they enter student life at University College, Dublin. Here Benny and Eve reunite with their childhood friend, the ice-cool Nan Mahon, the ‘college belle’…
Cher, a high school student in Beverly Hills, must survive the ups and downs of adolescent life. Her external demeanor at first seems superficial, but rather it hides her wit, charm, and intelligence which help her to deal with relationships, friends, family, school, and the all-important teenage social life…
Four women rent a chateau on a remote Italian island to try to come to grips with their lives and relationships. They explore the differences in their personalities, reassess their goals, and reexamine their relationships in a sisterly fashion…
A father-son underwater adventure featuring Nemo, a boy clownfish, stolen from his coral reef home. His timid father must then travel to Sydney and search Sydney Harbour to find Nemo. Nemo’s friends help this father and son reunite.
Forrest Gump is a simple man with good intentions and influences the lives of his friends and those he doesn’t know through his search for his own identity…
When a sports agent has a moral epiphany and is fired for expressing it, he decides to put his new philosophy to the test as an independent with the only athlete who stays with him…
When a blonde sorority queen is dumped by her boyfriend, she decides to follow him to law school to get him back and, once there with the help and support of her new and old friends, learns she has more legal savvy than she ever imagined…
Spoiled by their upbringing with no idea what wild life is really like, four animal friends from New York Central Zoo escape find themselves in Madagascar…
A When your Dad’s an undertaker, your Mom’s in heaven, and your Grandma’s got a screw loose…it’s good to have a friend who understands you. Even if he is a boy…
May-Alice Culhane, a soap opera actress, is injured in a Manhattan street accident which leaves her paralyzed from the waist down…healing comes in all forms…
Selfish yuppie Charlie Babbitt’s father left a fortune to his savant brother Raymond and a pittance to Charlie; they travel cross-country and through their journey, they become friends…
A prep school student needing money agrees to “babysit” a blind man, but the job is not at all what he anticipated…life lessons are learned from each other along the way…
After losing her parents in an earthquake, Mary Lennox is sent to live in England with her reclusive Uncle. Eventually she discovers her bedridden cousin, a ‘secret garden’ that once belonged to her deceased aunt, and a new friend…
Revolving around Truvy’s Beauty Parlor in a small parish in modern-day Louisiana, STEEL MAGNOLIAS is the story of a close-knit circle of friends whose lives come together there…
A mother and daughter with different personalities and lifestyles find how they are similar after all and learn how different people show their love in very different ways…
A waitress and a housewife decide to break out of their normal life and jump in the car and hit the road. Their journey, however, turns into a flight when Louise kills a man who threatens to rape Thelma. They decide to go to Mexico…
A story of staying loyal to your friends…and toys. The toys are mistakenly delivered to a day-care center instead of the attic right before Andy leaves for college, and it’s up to Woody to convince the other toys that they weren’t abandoned and to return home…
Friends are the people who let you be yourself… and never let you forget it. Based on Terry McMillan’s novel, this film follows four very different African-American women and their relationships with the male gender…
Friendship can appear in all forms – a spineless scarecrow, a heartless tin man, and a cowardly lion. Friendship helps us overcome obstacles and bring out the best in each of us…
If you have a favorite friendship movie that’s not listed here, be sure to let me know – I’ll add it to this list of friendship movies.
A good friend is one that is always there for you, no matter how long it’s been since your last chat, email, card, or call…but making an effort to stay in touch will send your friend a message that he or she is special. When’s the last time you got in touch with a good friend?
The 4th of July is almost here! It’s not too late to organize a neighborhood bike parade for kids or plan on participating in one. All you need are some easy red, white, and blue kids’ crafts to decorate anything on wheels – trikes, wagons, scooters, kid size cars, strollers, and of course bikes. Add to the fun and make mini-floats to pull behind the decorated bikes. Even if you plan on standing on the sidelines to cheer on the paraders, you’ll enjoy making some of the 4th of July craft ideas and printables listed below to adorn yourself and family members to show your patriotic spirit!
How to Decorate Bikes for a 4th of July Parade with Easy Crafts for Kids (more…)
Father’s Day is here and the kids and grandchildren want to make a special gift for Dad and Grandpa. I don’t think it’s necessary to buy Grandpa a gift to show how much he’s loved. Nothing says, “I love you, Dad” or “I love you, Grandpa” more than a gift made by the kids and grandchildren.
Last Minute Gift Ideas for Father and Grandfather
Dad and Grandpa are the kings for the day so treat them with extra-special Father’s Day cards, Father’s Day gifts, and Father’s Day foods fit for a king:
Father’s Day Cards: Formal Greetings.
Even if the dad or granddad in your family isn’t a shirt-and-tie kind of guy, he’s sure to love this stylish Father’s Day card from FamilyFun. Our Kaitlin made her Dad this Father’s Day card in her third grade art class this week and couldn’t wait to give it to him when she got home yesterday! We were there celebrating an early Father’s Day steak dinner…delicious! Their supermarket allowed kids to decorate large cookies for the Dads for free…Mom just had to buy the cookies. Yummy dessert with Dad’s favorite ice cream!
Father’s Day Card with Fingerprint Handkerchief (more…)
