Fun Can Come For Free

My goal as a grandparent is to enjoy my grandkids and make sure they know how much I love them. It my kids job at this point to teach and raise them and even if I sometimes do not agree with the methods as far as I'm concerned a grandparents primary job is to love them and be a support for them.

The ideas are unlimited of free activities to do with grandparents. Our younger grandkids love digging in the garden and love to see the vegetables they planted grow. I had a great time a couple of years ago teaching a 10 year old granddaughter to sew. We started with matching aprons she made for her Mom and herself followed by an ambitious project sewing Easter dresses for her little girl cousins and herself. I sat by her giving instruction and she sewed every stitch herself and we loved the time together.

So projects can be fun but there is so much more:

• Musical instruments - noisy but fun
• Story-time at the local library
• Summer music and movies in the park in a lot of cities
• Sidewalk chalk activities
• Exercise equipment at the park
• Board and card games
• Story-time at the local library
• Nature walks
• Dress-ups are always fun
• Alphabet Walk - either number of items with one letter or an item for every letter
• Swim days with cousins
• Camp-out in the living room
• Sleep out on the trampoline and stargazing
• A Movie on the back wall of the house. Fix lots of treats
• A scavenger hunt. We once searched for ancestors in a cemetery then told some exciting stories about them.
• Water balloon volleyball. Have teams of two with a beach towel toss the balloons to another team who catch it and toss it back.
• Mario Cart Tournament if you have a gaming system
• Paper Airplane contests
• Homemade play dough
• Make cars out of a box for your own drive-in movie in the back yard
• Play games from when you were a kid
• Create a fort in your living room out of blankets
• Play hide-and-seek
• Go to a public place, people watch, and make up imaginary stories about people
• Write letters to family
• Make a bubble bath in the outside inflatable pool
• Look for a service project to do together
• Make a family scrapbook for them helping them learn about family members along the way
• Facebook with dead people! Adding stories and photographs to ancestors on Family search