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TIPS FOR CYBER-GRANDPARENTS 4

"Grandparents are twenty inside- sometimes six."
~Unknown

  • Send your grandchildren the traditional rhymes, songs, folktales, games, and skipping rhymes that you enjoyed as a child.  You are an important link between the past and the future and can ensure the survival of family and cultural traditions.  If you can't remember the words, here are some great reminders that we found:

    • Children's Music       Mike's Collection of Nursery Rhymes
    Games Kids Play       Childrenstory.com
     
  • Save favorite pictures and clipart about a subject of interest your grandchild in a special folder.  Send him or her the whole folder and then keep sending individual images that can be added to the folder.  The easiest places that we have found for pictures on a particular subject are:

    • Yahooligans Downloader   and   Altavista Image Search
    These are some of the images in Cael's Firetruck Folder.
     
  • Exchange coded or scrambled letter messages. Here are a couple we have tried:

    • (Scrambled Letter) "Dignnse segmesas si unf" and
    (Code a=1. . . . .z=26) "19-5-14-4-9-14-7/ 13-5-19-19-1-7-5-19/ 9-19/ 6-21-14."
    More about codes at:
    Thunk.com and Secret Language
     
  • Send pages to your grandchildren about current world events and special events in their community. This week we sent these to Lyamm:

    • Volcano World for the 20th anniversary of Mt. St. Helens' eruption and Dinosaur for the opening of Walt Disney's Dinosaur in her community
    We have bookmarked Mission in Cyberspace to keep up with happenings in Mission where Lyamm and Cael live.
     
  • With your grandchild, design a Dream Trip that you can go on together on the Internet. 

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  • Use e-mail to keep in touch at each stop while you are travelling (even if you live close by when you are at home). If you have a laptop, you can connect at most motels and RV parks. You can also check out the new wireless modems at CNET or Go America. If you do not have a laptop, you can get online at Internet cafes and most public libraries. When you get films developed, also have the photos put on a floppy disk. Then upload a photo as an attachment to your message. Or send a site that shows where you are that day. Include the URL surrounded by < > in the body of your message. 

    • e.g. Today we are visiting North Pole Alaska!
    < http://fairbanks-alaska.com/north-pole-alaska.htm>
    Then your grandchildren can just click to see where you are! 
  • Send your grandchild a magazine (a traditional grandparent gift)- but make it an e-zine (online magazine)! You will find some suggestions for different age groups on our list:

    • Online Magazines for Children
     
  • Make your own "Clipart Collections" for future use. You and your grandchildren can all search the web for images to include in your collection. One of our favorite places to look is

    • Go Graph.
    Some ideas for collections are: Seasons, School, Play, Animals.
    We made an Alphabet Clipart Gallery.
    Then we used our clipart to create a Rebus Story together.
     
  • Include your grandchildren in planning and decision making- e.g. what to have for Easter dinner, where to go on vacation, what to get Dan for his birthday, what kind of vegetables to plant in the garden this year. Send them a site to help with the research. To send a page, just right click on the page and then left click on "Send Page". We sent the Kids Valley Garden to Lyamm and Cael so they could help us decide which vegetables to plant in our garden.

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  • Send a picture to your grandchildren and ask them to make up a story about it. Assemble the stories into a book. Use some of Asha's Adventure pictures, find your own, or make up your own.

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  • Ask your grandchildren to supply the missing words in a nursery rhyme (by e-mail, of course) without revealing what the rhyme is until all the words have been supplied. Have a look at Our Nutty Nursery Rhymes.

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  • Make a date with your grandchildren to stargaze on the same night in your separate locations. We found a site where you can download a free Evening Sky Map each month. Go to Sky Maps.com to do this! You will get a map and a list of objects easily seen with the naked eye or binoculars. Choose something to look for and then compare notes about the experience. Draw a picture of what you saw and e-mail each other. Look for myths and legends about what you found or make up your own. We looked for legends at Starlore of Native America and in the books The Way of the Stars by Kenneth McLeish and Star Tales by Gretchen Mayo.