Article Link: http://stage.exchangepress.com/article/woodworking-with-the-grandpas--an-intergenerational-activity/5019948/
“It’s Grandpa Day!” grins a three-year-old girl as she hops out of the family car in the carpool line. The children, both boys and girls, look forward to this day. Grandpa Day is a very special day that happens once a month; it’s the day that a group of retired men from the community and the church with which we are affiliated come to our school to do woodworking with the children. We call them our Grandpas as a show of respect rather than to indicate a familyrelationship.
“What would you like to make today?” asks a Grandpa.
“I want to make the fastest race car ever!” “I want to make a tree.” “I want to make a princess with real hair.” “I want to make a mermaid.” These, and many other projects dreamed up by the children, ages three years through kindergarten, spur the imaginations of the Grandpas as they are challenged to help turn these ideas into reality.
Going to cardboard boxes set around the periphery of the playground patio, the children and Grandpas look in the boxes, each filled with scraps of wood sorted according to shape and size, to find just the right pieces to construct the ...