Usually the children go to school and the parents and grandparents stay home. That wasn’t the case yesterday at Tyrone Elementary School when more than 120 kindergarten students played host to their grandparents.
All of the kindergarten teachers got together and planned a day where the children’s grandparents could visit the school, get a tour of the facility and see what a day in the life of an average kindergartner was like.
“It was our decision as a grade level to do it, and the administration supported us,” said full-day kindergarten teacher Linda Knarr.
Other kindergarten teachers at Tyrone include: Karen Rafetto, Brooke Bock, Kandi Winters, Melissa Russell and Dorothy Habecker. These teachers spent hours of time and planning for the special day. For the six kindergarten classes, the teachers had to work out a schedule to be able to feasibly fit everybody into the school and move them around from place to place.
The children spent even more time in preparation for the big day. They were very excited at the idea of their grandparents coming to visit them for a day at school. Knarr said that some grandparents traveled from as far as New Jersey to join their grandchild, and about half of the grandparents were able to make it for the event.
“A lot the kids made a word splash mural to describe how their grandparents are, lots of kids wrote about their grandparents, some drew pictures of their grandparents, and when they came to school they read stories and did a craft activity with their grandparents. My kids did a math activity with the grandparents,” said Knarr.
The grandparents were treated to an extensive tour of the school, a snack in the LGI room and activities in their grandchild’s classroom. All of the murals and pictures of the grandparents were pasted on the walls of the classrooms and in the hallways for everyone to see during the tour.
The day was a complete success, and the kindergarten teachers plan on having Granparents’ Day every year.
“We really enjoy doing it every year that we’ve done it. We feel it’s important for the community to be involved in the education of our children. We want them to see where their tax money is going and what we’re doing in school,” said Knarr.
