A Playdate All About Gratitude and Grandparents!
The Grateful for Grandparents Playdatebox is a themed box of fun designed to get you and a child you love playing together. The goal of this box is to help grandparents and grandchildren create connections in playful ways, regardless of distance.
This Playdate focuses on two values we think are important to pass on:
1) Gratitude
2) Sharing Family Stories
We’ve gathered several ideas for you to choose from. Just choose one book, an activity, and a question that are age-appropriate for your grandchild, gather your supplies, and start playing!
How To Create Your Own Playdatebox
Some Books We Love:
Start your Playdatebox by choosing one picture book your grandchild will love. This will be the anchor leg of your play date. If your grandchildren don’t live nearby, there are many ways to read together online. Try some of these tricks if you’ve never read aloud together online.
We always recommend that the child has access to a full-size book, if possible, so I like sending my grandchildren a physical copy in a Playdatebox I build and ship to them. Alternatively, I can arrange with their parents to check out a copy from their local library, or I find an online version to read as I share my screen in a videoconference.
Almost everything I put in a Playdatebox that I take when I visit grandchildren physically can also be used remotely. Watch for “How To Do This Remotely” hints if you are connecting long-distance.
Thanks For Thanksgiving
By Julia Markes, illustrated by Doris Barrette (for ages 2-4)
Perfectly in tune with what children are thankful for—such as a park, slides, and pets. Thanks for Thanksgiving is a sweet rhyming book that talks all about the things children can be thankful for at Thanksgiving. The back of the book includes a spot where you can write down things you are thankful for each year. It’s the perfect read-aloud for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Thankful Animals, Thankful Me
By Steve Metzger, illustrated by Angelina Ardinskaya
(Board Book for baby- 4 years)
A life full of gratitude has never been so easy—or cute!
And here’s an idea to try: Purchase a copy of this book at MakeMomentos.com and turn your purchase into an audiobook narrated by YOU!
Home in the Woods
by Eliza Wheeler (ages 6-8)
Marvel, her seven siblings, and their mom must start all over again after their father has died. Deep in the woods of Wisconsin, they find a tar-paper shack and make it home. Over time, they turn a shack into a place where family memories are made. Based on true events, this beautiful picture book is a must for your grandparent library!
How Oma Says I Love You
by Shanie Cooper, illustrated by Nai Saechao (ages 2-12)
They cook, sew, and read together, but best of all, Oma tells Rosie stories about her childhood. They are generations apart, but Rosie and Oma are not so different. Based on the history of Oma, who escaped Nazi Germany, this beautiful book is an illustration of how telling family stories helps connect grandparents with grandchildren. The shared family narrative is a blessing for both!
Activity #1: Make a Thankful Tree
Use our printable tree template and print your own Thankful Tree (just click on the tree image below to download the PDF), or find a bare limb with lots of twigs outside and bring it indoors. Write down a few things you are grateful for on craft foam leaves and attach them to your tree. Or, gather leaves from outside and iron them lightly between pieces of waxed paper. Place your Thankful Tree where others can see it and add their own thankful leaves.
How to Do This Remotely:
Send a copy of the printed Thankful Tree and a few craft foam leaves in your box. You can even cut colorful leaves from construction paper, or find leaves outside and press them under a heavy book for a few days until they are flat and dry. When you are on your call, talk about some things you are grateful for. Show them your own thankful tree and the leaves you are writing on. Your list will almost certainly include the name of your grandchild!
Activity #2: Dance the Turkey Pokey!
Pull up the classic YouTube version of the Kiboomers singing their special rendition of the “Turkey Pokey” and turn your Playdate or FaceTime call into a party! It’s a silly and fun song and dance routine you can enjoy together, even if dancing is just a bit out of your comfort zone:
Right wing: right arm
Left wing: left arm
Drumstick: right foot
Stuffing: Your stomach and chest Wattle: Chin
Tail feathers: Your hips Turkey body: Your entire body
How to Do This Remotely:
You learned to dance the “Hokey Pokey” as a child, and if not, it’s never too late to learn. You’ll want to be prepared in advance so you are ready to open the link to the Kiboomers song. Sometimes it’s extra tricky to sing along over videoconference because of the audio lag, but you can just play the song and dance for them. They can follow along with the actions as they watch you rather than trying to sing along, and lots of laughter will happen! Try it!
Activity #3: Make Turkey Cookies and Count Your Blessings
Simple enough that you can make it over videoconference, this food craft from Desserts on a Dime is fun for grownups and kids alike. Just insert candy corns between the layers of a sandwich cookie and add candy eyes and a butterscotch chip for a turkey wattle. Glue these down with a little frosting or honey. Think of something you are grateful for with each candy corn feather you add. In some homes, it is a tradition to put three candy corns on each plate before the Thanksgiving meal starts, and during the meal, each person thinks of at least three things they are grateful for.
How to Do This Remotely:
You’ll need Turkey Cookie supplies on both sides of your phone call, so be sure you have stock on hand. I package up a little Turkey Cookie Kit for each grandchild with some individually-wrapped cookies, butterscotch chips, candy eyes, candy corns, and a small tube of icing in a zip-top bag. We build our cookies together online and it’s just like being in the same room.
Activity #4: Plant Amaryllis Together
Amaryllis has a stunning blossom that you can plant from a bulb in late November and grow indoors over the next few weeks leading up to your favorite winter holiday.
You’ll find amaryllis kits online, in hardware stores, and in garden centers between late October and December. The growth process is thrilling for children and adults alike because these gorgeous blooms last for days and days. Expect to pay between $5 and $25 for a single healthy bulb (depending on whether or not the soil and a pot are included). All you do is pot the bulb in potting soil and leave the crown exposed. Water it when the soil becomes dry, and once buds appear, stake them to a bamboo pole. Grow a bulb at each location if you are growing your Amaryllis long-distance.
How to Do This Remotely:
You’ll need to send an Amaryllis bulb kit inside of your Playdatebox, or have the child’s parents pick one up remotely. An Amaryllis is easy to plant and care for, so the fun part will be planting your bulbs together while you are in a video chat. Next, you can start sending text messages with photos of your growing plants and watch their progress.
Values To Hand Down: Gratitude Through Family Stories
I have always been a story-gatherer. When I was a young mother, I dragged a VHS video camera the size of a briefcase (it weighed 15 pounds) to my grandparents’ home and asked them if they would tell me about their lives.
The first sentence Grandpa uttered changed me: “The most important decision I ever made was when I married your grandma,” he said. “We’ve always kept our family number one on the line.” I had lived next door to them for seven years, and I knew this was true. Their love for their family, their interest in their children’s success, and their devotion to the development of their grandchildren were their legacies. They shared details of their long-distance romance by mail and the platinum and diamond engagement ring he mailed to her cross-country from New York City after going to a Broadway play that made him long for her company.
What I have come to understand after filming many oral history interviews over the years, is that
a grandparent’s stories take on a life of their own once they are shared. They linger, like tiny breadcrumbs of hope, until the day when a child or grandchild needs them. And when they are needed, the stories offer reassurance and sustenance. They have the power to help, to heal, and to give a child a sense of who they are and why they matter. The stories create resilience by helping a child understand that their ancestors experienced joyful, fearful, hard, or hilarious things, and that life ended up being worth it.
This Thanksgiving, make it a goal to capture and record just one of your stories for your grandchildren. I love using the FamilySearch Memories app on my iPad because I can attach the recording directly to the family history information gathered about the person telling the story. Learn how here. You can record a short video too and either share it directly with family members or save it to a video-sharing site like Vimeo or YouTube.
Connection Questions: Create Opportunities for Sharing Your Stories With Your Grandchildren
What is something you are grateful for today that you weren’t grateful for a year ago?
Some additional questions:
- Can you show me your most priceless possession (not a photo or a family member)? What is one chore or job you had to do when you were younger that you hated but now you are grateful you know how to do it?
- What is the most grateful you have ever been to find something you had lost?
- Tell me all about Thanksgiving like when you were a child. How is it different now?
If you are meeting remotely with your grandchild, hit “record” to record these conversations and then use a transcribing application such as temi.com or otter.ai to preserve the answers to these questions. Save them in a binder or journal and add photos if you have them.
The Storybook journals are full of all of the questions I wish I had asked my own grandparents. These leather journals include more than 300 questions about your life and you can fill out your own or send one to a family member as a gift. Use a different question from the book each time you interview Grandma or Grandpa.
The journals also include some fun family activities you can do together as you show Grandma and Grandpa how grateful you are for them. You can purchase a copy on Amazon.com or where you buy books.
Making Your Own Playdatebox
Download a printable version of all of the ideas from this Playdatebox ideas here. If you are sending a physical box of supplies to your grandchild, it’s critical that you work together with the parents in advance so you can choose activities that will work best for their children. Working together with the parents to plan and carry out your playdates, you’ll be improving your relationship with them as well. Remember, parents are in charge, and you are the guest in their home, so take your lead from them and understand if they prefer that you choose different activities, don’t want their kids eating sugary Turkey Cookies, or don’t want the hassle of keeping an amaryllis plant alive. Your willingness to respect their wishes will be critical to the success of your playdates.
For in-person fun, I just keep a box of Playdate supplies ready to go so that when I do visit (or they come to visit me) we are all set! Happy Playing!
-Grandma Nae
P.S. Special thanks to Grandma RaRa who helped create this box!
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