Grandparents’ Day: Sharing Stories Across Generations
September 8, 2024
Grandparents’ Day, celebrated on the first Sunday after Labor Day in the United States, is a wonderful opportunity to honor and appreciate our grandparents’ wisdom, love, and experiences. It’s a day dedicated to bridging the generational gap, fostering connections, and sharing stories that enrich the lives of both the young and the old. Here are some ways to celebrate Grandparents’ Day, ensuring that stories are shared across generations, even if distance separates grandparents from the nuclear family.
Preserve the Stories
Gather Round Written Stories: Compile the stories into a family history book or journal. Kids can help by illustrating the stories or adding their reflections.
Record Stories
Audio/Video Recording: Record grandparents recounting their personal histories. These recordings can become treasured family heirlooms. Make sure grandparents can share their favorite memories from childhood, their experiences growing up, or significant historical events they witnessed. If grandparents are former military, they can use United Through Reading’s free app to record books their grandchildren loved as kids and add bits of their oral histories before or after recording the story.
Theme Stories: Focus on specific themes, such as “first job,” “school days,” or “adventures,” to help guide the storytelling. Use our extensive book list, broken down by theme, to help curate a list.
Digital Sharing
Family Blog or Website: Create a family blog where stories can be uploaded and shared with extended family members.
Social Media: Use social media platforms to share snippets of these stories, creating a digital archive that can be accessed by family members near and far.
Memory Lane Activities
Photo Albums: Go through old photo albums together and let grandparents tell the stories behind the pictures.
Family Tree: Work on a family tree project, tracing generations and learning about ancestors.
Craft and Activity Sessions
Scrapbooking: Create scrapbooks with photos, letters, and other memorabilia that tell the family’s story.
Recipe Sharing: Cook or bake family recipes together, with grandparents sharing the history and significance of each dish.
Cultural Heritage
Traditions and Customs: Have grandparents teach traditional customs, dances, songs, or crafts from their cultural heritage.
Language Lessons: If grandparents speak another language, have them teach the younger generation some basic words and phrases.
Community Involvement
School Projects: Encourage the children’s schools to invite grandparents to share their stories with students, fostering a sense of community and intergenerational learning.
Local Libraries or Community Centers: Participate in community events or programs that celebrate Grandparents’ Day, often featuring storytelling and history-sharing sessions.
Virtual Celebrations
Video Calls: If grandparents live far away, set up video calls where they can share stories with the family.
Virtual Scrapbooks: Create digital scrapbooks that can be shared online, allowing everyone to contribute and view from different locations.
Games and Activities
Memory Games: Play games that involve recalling family history, such as trivia questions about family members or events. Use online quiz creators to create trivia games about family history and share the links.
Ancestry Hunt: Thanks to technological developments in ancestry research, you can create a virtual or in-person scavenger hunt with clues related to family history and stories shared by grandparents.
Read-Aloud Sessions
Experience the Classics: If you are lucky enough to live near a grandparent, schedule and implement read-aloud times together. If you are not local, consider setting up time to read together via video, or if grandparents are tech–capable, have them record videos of themselves reading aloud. Choose from beloved classic books that grandparents can read aloud to the family. Stories like The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter or Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White can be enjoyed by people of all ages.
Chapter a Week: Make it a tradition to read a chapter a day or week from a longer book, such as Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder or A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, during the holidays. Each family member reads the chapter and meets virtually to discuss the book.
Grandparents’ Day is a perfect occasion to celebrate the rich tapestry of family history. By sharing stories, we honor our grandparents, create lasting memories, and strengthen family bonds. It’s a day that can leave a profound impact, teaching the younger generation to appreciate and cherish their roots.
United Through Reading’s programs and services are available to all service branches, including Guard and Reserve, Veterans, and retirees. Our literacy tips are brought to you by Reader’s Digest Foundation.
