This past week, the intergenerational community “Story Book Picnic,” sponsored by the Opelika Public Library and Lee Russell Council of Government Agency on Aging, sparked memories for me of the poem “All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” written by Robert Fulghum.
I love the closing statement: “And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.”
Oh, how true that is when it comes to the relationship between young and old.
Our community is so very good at providing intergenerational outreach. Whether it’s by inviting senior adults to come read to students, inviting them to volunteer and teach in Vacation Bible Schools, planning intergenerational events through local agencies — the list goes on. There are opportunities aplenty in our community.
The National Council on Aging defines intergenerational programs as activities that increase cooperation and exchange between two generations. Studies show that a relationship between young and old enlightens both generations. Being a senior adult myself, I have observed several of these benefits firsthand. I would like to review a few observations and philosophies related to this notion that I have shared before.
1. Name tags: It is so good for intergenerational events in the community to provide name tags. Name tags are so helpful for the adult/child pairs to get to know each other, and this starts with names. We like to hear our names called, and name tags provide an invitation for interaction and communication between the young and old.
2. Art: I loved that the Story Book Picnic offered art activities through face and hand painting, chalk drawing and other forms of art for the young and elderly to do together. We can also create loving bonds this summer as we draw and color together, paint sun catchers, decorate T-shirts, create with Play-Doh, build sandcastles and paint portraits of each other.
3. Reading stories: At Story Book Picnic, the children and senior adults gathered under the pavilion to watch a story come to life. In the classroom, I love when the children gather around me in my rocking chair to listen to a good story. With the dynamics of our society and culture, many children live far from their grandparents because their parents take jobs in other areas. Story time not only provides a warm opportunity to build listening and communication skills between young and old, but it helps to meet the socialization need of grandparents as well.
4. Puzzles: This activity offers objectives in cognitive development, social interaction, teamwork and cooperation. As Sunday School teachers, we seniors love to work on puzzles with our young students. Putting together puzzles provides teamwork challenges and discussion opportunities for the young and old.
5. Blocks and Legos: This seems to be a favorite activity for the young and old alike. It provides small motor activities, which helps both generations. It also provides a teamwork challenge in creativity. Building trucks, trains, tracks and homes or stacking blocks in new and creative ways provides hours of quality interaction.
6. Home center: This is truly my favorite activity to share with young children as we pretend to fix meals, take care of baby dolls and do household chores like ironing, setting the table and cleaning our pretend home.
7. Math: Seniors remember math as “arithmetic.” There are plenty of math-related activities that offer practice for hands-on counting, which is good for both young and elderly minds. One-on-one correspondence helps these minds recognize a set of objects and their assigned numbers.
8. Science: Planting seeds, cutting flowers and growing vegetables can all offer hours of wonderful intergenerational interaction. Children and their elderly friends can water and care for their plants together, and it’s always a joy to watch the flowers and vegetables grow. This can be done in the yard, or even in pots, as an exciting intergenerational project.
9. Play: I loved the way Story Book Picnic provided bubble-blowing everywhere. Seniors and young children thoroughly enjoyed chasing and playing with the bubbles. Free play is a child’s work. But adults of all ages can still play, too. We all instinctively know how to play. Intergenerational play promotes cognitive, social, physical and emotional benefits for the young and old alike.
Young children are truly blind to age differences. They provide such a needed spark of energy and enthusiasm to adults. As someone who teaches but also observes different positive situations that I can share with our community to bring us closer, I can truly say that we seniors need to grab the hand of a young child and follow a rainbow of joy.
Classroom Observer
Beth Pinyerd