Anyone else had the WORST cold ever in the last month? Apparently, it’s going around. And while I dodged the summer colds my children brought home from daycare, I was completely flattened by the latest one.
One day when I was feeling particularly miserable, I cuddled up on the sofa with my 3.5-year-old and we watched Blippi.
Have you heard of Blippi?
He is super entertaining. I don’t mind my little one watching his shows because he is educational and interactive.
As my son was reacting – and talking to the screen – I thought of all of you. Blippi had my son’s full attention – and was doing something you could do with your grandchildren on a video chat – with a few adaptations.
(you can watch this Blippi video here)
So…..inspired by Blippi and my son – and the never-ending head cold, here is the adaptation:
(If your grandchildren are older – check out the second half of this blog for other ideas)
Pumpkin Patch Grand Date
- Print out 4 copies of the first orange pumpkin from the website Freebie Finding Mom:
- Tape the pumpkins in various places throughout your house.
- Video call your grandchild and tell them they must yell pumpkin when they spot a pumpkin.
- Add in a little packet of stickers for each pumpkin they find or anything small you can mail afterwards to make it more fun.
- For the little ones (under 4), once they find all the pumpkins, draw faces on them (like Blippi did) and your grandchild can guess how the pumpkin is feeling.
You could use real mini pumpkins, plastic pumpkins OR you could adapt this for any time of year and play spot the dinosaur/unicorn/truck/whatever they are into right now.
The goal is to make it more interactive for your little ones to engage on the video chat with you.
In The LDG Society, we call this a Grand Date: time you spend together on a video chat with your grandchild with something simple, but fun planned to do together.
This next Grand Date will work with any of your grandchildren who are trick or treating age:
Take them Trick or Treating – virtually!
- Ask them to get into their costumes (before or after Halloween, not on Halloween because there is waaaayyyy too much going on already for little ones on that day).
- Place treats or stickers/small toys in a few different rooms in your house.
- Take them along, using your phone, to each door and they must ‘knock’ and say trick or treat.
- When you open the door, make sure the camera shows them the treat they get to have!
- Bring along a bag to collect their treats for them and let them know you will mail the treats once they have finished trick or treating.
We did this last year and it was SO much fun. It doesn’t have to be much behind each door.
If you do it before Halloween, tell them you want to help them practice trick or treating.
If you do it after, tell them you really want to see how good they are at trick or treating.
And finally for older grandchildren, Halloween is a great time of year to tickle your grandchild’s funny bone. This is a superb list of Halloween jokes for kids:
https://tinybeans.com/funny-bones-halloween-jokes-for-kids/slide/2
Top Tip:
- Write out the jokes on different coloured pieces of paper
- Add them to a decorated mason jar
- Hold the jar up to the camera
- Ask your grandchild to choose the colour of joke they want to hear.
Anything to give them more of a role during the call will help with engagement.
Don’t forget to take screenshots! You can print off a few and include them in the trick or trick package. Or just send along at some point in your next mailing. Frame one and put it on your fridge to show your grandchild how much it meant to have that time together!
If you need a little inspiration about the possibilities of nurturing strong bonds from a distance, check out how this Canadian grandmother started Halloween in a Norwegian village for her grandchild.
Happy Connecting!