High Tech and Low Tech Birthday Gifts

Post date: Sep 27, 2017 4:57:48 PM

My oldest grandson turns 7 this week, which is amazing. I can still remember holding him as a baby, watching him take some of his first steps, and watching Veggie Tale cartoons as we played with big lego blocks.

Over the past couple of years, I have been blessed with being able to spend time with the boys, babysitting them during the summer and on holiday breaks. I love doing it, and feel very thankful for the opportunity. They live just 20 minutes away. Becoming a grandparent has been one of the most amazing experiences, and I would not trade it for anything. It has also helped me to reconnect with my memories of my mother, who was the world’s best grandmother. My sister Cathi is a close second. I’ve learned from watching both of them.

I became a single parent when my daughter was in kindergarten and my son was a preschooler. My sister Cathi and my parents were my support system. Cathi babysat them while I went to graduate school in Ames. Cathi and her husband bought clothes for my children and got their pictures taken when they were little. The children loved to go there after school and we lived just across the street for many years. She was a wonderful cook and knew how to fix my daughter’s hair.

My folks kept the children on weekends from time to time to let me work on school work or spend time with my own friends. So I feel as though I am passing down a tradition from parent to parent when I take care of my grandchildren.

Cherie, baby Michelle, her mother Charlotte and grandmother Nellie

My parents moved to the country to the old school house they had remodeled; it was a lovely home with four bedrooms, and plenty of room for grandchildren. She bought the children a lot of toys, books, records, and movies. She read to them, helped them with their letters and numbers, encouraged them to read, encouraged them to sing and enjoy music, to run around outside in the fresh air and play with the kittens. She also had a geek girl side and loved to use her tape recorder to capture the children singing or talking.

I’ve tried to follow her lead. Corbin has been playing games and watching videos on my iPad since he was a toddler. Recently I have been trying to come up with low tech ways to entertain the boys. So when I find a bargain on the clearance aisle, I get excited. I found a big plastic sheet with a city scape on it, intended for use at parties as a prop for taking photos: next I got a superhero cape on Amazon and we had fun taking pictures, taking turns wearing the cape. Even grandma and grandpa wore the cape!

A friend, Laurie, found a fabric puppet theater at a garage sale; the boys love puppets and we will have hours of fun with the theater, which goes into a door frame. Picking up a puppet seems to turn on the story telling switch: it’s magic and a lot of fun to see them using their imaginations.

Next, I bought a couple of boogie boards on clearance and the boys love them. This device looks like a tablet of sorts; you can draw, scribble and write on it with a stylus and then press a button and erase it. One style comes with four different types of stylus. I didn’t have to tell the boys they could erase it; they saw the button and pushed it. It’s totally low tech: no internet required, and requires just an occasional battery which powers the backlit screen. I think they are going to be great for doodling as well as practicing letters, numbers, math and writing.

I try to find a balance; it is too easy to get so focused on tech toys that don’t necessarily engage the imagination as much. So, for his birthday, I got Corbin some Pokémon pajamas, two books about a pigeon that he finds funny, a children’s Bible, a Boogie Board, and a game called Silly Sentences. The game was a huge hit! We had fun punching out the little cards and noticed that parts of speech were color coded and given a kid-friendly name. Then we began to play, combining words to create sentences. They fit together sort of like puzzle pieces and even little brother wanted to make sentences from the various cards, which helpfully included pictures of the words.

High tech or low tech, all grandmas find a way to have fun with their grandchildren and create memories.

http://myboogieboard.com/

The Boogie Board website

https://www.dk.com/us/9780789454720-dk-toys--games-silly-sentences/

Silly Sentences: the game that makes grammar fun

Last Updated September 27, 2017