Since summer is stretching ahead of us and your grandkids will probably be bored before you know it, I’ve got some ideas. These are excerpts from my guide called “How To Create Newsletters Your Grandkids Will Treasure.” I’ve chosen a few of the hobby and activity related ideas and hope you can make use of them, either when with your grandchildren or through the Internet.
- Collecting Together
Decide on something to collect together. Exchange information and materials you find and take pictures of your finds (even young kids can use digital cameras). Your collection could be rocks, coins, stamps, spoons, sports cards, recipes, models, even stuffed animals or miniature cars. - Share a hobby.
Grow identical gardens and display photos to show how each of your gardens is doing. Mention tips that might help your young gardener. You could try to grow the largest pumpkin, or the biggest tomatoes. Or decide on a recipe you can each cook and take photos of the finished products.Share sewing, woodworking, building, anything you could be doing together even though the miles are separating you. Between newsletter issues, phone or email to see how they are making out. But be sure to publish the results in the newsletter. After all, this will be a treasured record to be shared with future generations. - Lego Challenge
Tell a story or give a challenge and have them do a lego model related to it. Publish a photo of the results in a future issue. - Playdoh Challenge
Tell a story or give a challenge and have them create a playdoh sculpture for it. Photo and publish as above. - Contests
Write about contests you find online, or make up your own contests and encourage entries. Prizes of courses. - Recipes
Share new recipes – ask them to send a photo or drawing showing them trying out the recipe. Eventually, you and your grandcook could even produce a joint recipe book, filled with illustrations showing you cooking together during those special times when you are able to physically be with them. Printed and bound, imagine what a keepsake that could become. (And thanks to places like CafePress, it’s easy to publish your own cookbook).
some great ideas, my grandson likes to watch home movies of his dad as a little boy. Can I copy this post to my site if I link back to you?
Wish I had home movies of our kids when they were small, but movie camera’s were pretty expensive then. Although I do have an audio tape of mine singing songs in those sweet little voices.
Of course you can copy the post. Thanks in advance for the link.