Grandparents as Primary Play Partners

By Gayle Stuber

Grandparents are often the adults picking up and dropping off the children in your care. They also may be the primary caregivers for their grandchildren. How can you help them support and enhance the learning of their young grandchildren?

As a child care provider, you can be a neutral party—one who understands the learning and social-emotional needs of the child, as well as the needs of the family AND the extended family, i.e. grandparents. If the grandparent is the primary care provider (no or little parent involved on a consistent basis, for example), you can be a strong support by providing activities and ideas for a learning environment that enhances child growth and development.

The specific activities will depend upon the age and needs of the child, and resources of the family and community. Many of the activities you do with the children in your care can also, with some tweaking, be done by grandparents at home. They will appreciate your help and the children will benefit from more learning time.

Things to consider:
1. Be sure that the materials are easy to find in a home and are age appropriate for the child. Consider and be sure to share if there are any safety issues that could arise.

2. Describe the skills the activity will support and why they are important for the child. Connect the skills to the Kansas Early Learning Standards if you have a copy. Draw connections to school readiness and success. For example, reading a book to a child supports literacy activities such as listening to a story (Communication and Literacy Standard, Informational Text (CL.IT).

3. List any prerequisite skills. Does the child need to have mastered specific skills in order to complete the activity? For example, if a child wants to sort buttons, this is an activity for preschool-aged children, not younger children who may still be putting small items in their mouths. Sorting also requires an understanding of "same and different." For young children, even infants, this could be something as simple as big and little. Older preschoolers can sort by number of holes or color.

4. Provide some examples of how the grandparent might "scaffold" or help the child more easily complete the activity. Explain how to start at a level where the adult helps the child complete the activity and then slowly moves to letting/encouraging the child complete the activity independently. For example, helping a child fit a piece into a puzzle by moving the piece close to the correct space and, eventually, letting the child put the piece into the space independently.

Click here to view NAEYC's "Marketing in a Backpack" article, Finding Low-Cost Materials and Toys for Home Learning, for more great ideas.