Grandparents and Special Friends Day

Often times in MS on Grandparent's Day you may find Grandparent's in your advisory class from the start of school and they won't want to go to the planned activities. Some students may not have a Grandparent or a special friend all day. Planning for the day can be tricky. You may be able to link student's without a visitor up with those who do have one... or two.

Task
Encourage your students to work cooperatively with a grandparent to make a record of his/her life in any one of the following ways and then be prepared to share with the class.

• Write an essay about your grandparent
• Perform a monologue about the thoughts and feelings from a moment in their life
• Write about a favorite memory the two of you share
• Create a poem
• Set up an interview skit like on a talk show
• Draw a biographical sketch

Listen to a Life- Interviewing project/ essay idea from a contest.
http://www.legacyproject.org/contests/winners.html



With a little more prep time you may choose to do something like this:

Genetic Ingredients
This is an activity a child can do with the help of a parent or grandparent.

Materials
Photos of parents and grandparents, and great-grandparents if possible; mirror; photocopy of a photo of the child's face; large sheet of paper; glue; pen/pencil.

Task:
We all inherit different traits from our parents and grandparents. Each person is a mixture of the people who came before him or her, and has a specific genetic "recipe" made up of specific "ingredients" from each parent and grandparent. Almost at birth, a child is described as having "her mother's eyes" or "his grandfather's nose." Some traits may skip a generation, appearing in you and your grandparent, but not in your parent (e.g. you and your grandmother may have a talent for drawing, but your mother can't draw at all).
A child can start by getting a photo of each of their parents and grandparents (and great-grandparents if available). Try to get photos with the faces as large as possible. Sit in front of a mirror and study each feature of your face, noticing its size, shape, and color. Compare your face to the faces in the photos.

Now glue a photocopy of a photo of your face onto a large sheet of paper. Draw an arrow to each of your features and write down the person you think you got that feature from. Facial features include your hair color, eyes, eyebrows, nose, cheekbones, mouth, chin, freckles, ears.

In one corner of the sheet, make a list of your traits other than facial features (e.g. artistic interest, athletic ability, mathematical skill, scientific interest, a love of reading, etc.) and write down which parent or grandparent each trait may have come from.
Talk about your chart and observations with your parents and grandparents. Do they agree or disagree with your comparisons? Do they have any of their own observations to add?

More activity examples can be found HERE