Our first and second grade teachers are wanting to invite grandparents in for grandparent's day for about an hour. Any ideas about neat activites to do?
The kids could read stories or poems they've written. You could have a craft that Grandma and Grandpa get to help their grandchild with. You could make it more like a Mother's Day Tea type thing where the kids serve their grandparent(s) food and drinks. If you wanted to make it a little more involved, you could make a homework assignment for the kids to ask their grandparent for a funny story from their grandparent's childhood. The kids could then write the story down and read the story to the class (and grandparents).
I've done this for five years and we keep it pretty simple. I've done it two ways now. If I have a large number of grandparents, I have them read to small groups of children and then have the children rotate. Books need to be short. Last year, since I only had 3-4 grandparents, I had them take turns reading to the whole class. I don't provide refreshments because they are treated to a breakfast when they arrive. We ask that the grandparents bring in their own books but I also set aside some for them to use.
I think it's always nice if the children have something special to present to their grandparents, and this can be in the form of music (a song that the class sings to grandparent visitors), a thank you card with a special picture on it, or a poem that the children can recite, either together or individually.
We incorporated part of our SS curriculum into this and called it "Family History Day." The students were to bring something in that represented some part of their family history and then we had a "museum" of sorts where the grandparents went around and the students told about their artifact. Sometimes it was their mom's ballet slippers or their great-great-great grandfather's journal from his time in the Navy. They loved it!
