Sabin, DaVIS, HETRICK, ANDEREGG, Macalady, walker, darling and Katers

With parents managing the house and juggling their children’s on-line school work, grandparents again can come to the rescue a few times a week. Grandparents can talk by Skype, Facetime or Zoom.

Grandparents can begin a social time on the phone or computer by asking about one positive thing that happened today and tell some jokes or stories.

Jokes can be found at funology.com, fathery.com, and Ducksters.com. The stories can be parts of history lessons they are learning in their school lessons or family stories.

Other sites you can go on together and click around are the lonelyplanet.com, and natgeokids.com, historyforkids.com, and sciencekids.co.nz

This is school?

The time doesn’t need to feel like school but can have the same purpose. Children can have a treasure hunt around the yard looking for spring flowers and birds, assuming the polar vortex is over.

What is a polar vortex, anyway? Can they look it up and explain it to you tomorrow? Can they take pictures of birds and find out what is visiting? Can they read a book or chapter and tell grandparents a story the next day?

For math, there are Battleship online games you can play with the phone or on-line social media. First both Grandparents and children need a copies of a play grid. Go to Google images and search for “free battleship grids on-line to print out.” There are many nice ones. One is from mistral spirit. It has pictures of ships on the side for My Ships and Opponent’s Ships. Now children and grandparents can do homework math facts or problems correctly, guess on grid and sink grandpa’s or grandma’s ships.

There are many math ideas, games and puzzles for Battleship on mathisfun.com and teacherspayteacher.com. The last one will cost a minimal amount. Simply use the problems or homework for the Battleship games.

I spy

Other games are possible like “I Spy with My Little Eye.” First use your phone or computer camera to take a slow scan of one section of a room. Then children can guess what you spy. The game is good for scientific thinking, looking at characteristics, observation, and questioning.

Depending on the age, play math with a Shirley Temple fizzy drink by your side. Fill a tall glass with ice and pour lemon-lime soda or ginger ale almost to the top. Slowly add 1 teaspoon of grenadine and let it slide down the inside of the glass. Give the drink a gentle stir. Along ice-tea spoon works well. the color should be pink, not bright red.

Garnish with at least three maraschino cherries. It is a great partner with grandparents on- line visit fun. For more see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com; wnmufm.org/Learning Through the Seasons live and pod casts; Facebook and Pinterest since 2009.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Grandparents Teach, Too is a non-profit organization of elementary and preschool teachers from Marquette, Michigan. The writers include: Jan Sabin, Mary Davis, Jean Hetrick, Cheryl Anderegg, Esther Macalady, Colleen Walker, Fran Darling, and Iris Katers. Their mission since 2009 is to help parents, grandparents, and other caregivers of young children provide fun activities to help prepare young children for school and a life long love of learning. They are supported by Great Start, Parent Awareness of Michigan, the U.P. Association for the Education of Young Children, Northern Michigan School of Education, the Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum and the Northern Michigan University Center for Economic Education.