Skype With Grandchildren

Grandma Robin e-mailed me with a Skype conundrum. 

(We pause here for a vocabulary lesson.  Conundrum is pronounced kuh – nuhn – drum. It means a riddle, something puzzling, a mystery, a problem.  There.  You’ve had your vocabulary building for the day.)

Grandma Robin’s conundrum was how to use Skype effectively with her 16-month old granddaughter who lives in Philadelphia while she (that’s Grandma Robin) lives in California.  (Drat it!  Don’t we just simply hate it when our grandchildren live so far away??)

I shared some ideas with her that I want to share here with you.  I’m even going to throw in a couple more for good measure.  Kind of like a baker’s dozen — only this isn’t baking and I don’t have a dozen ideas. . .

Before I share my ideas, I want you to keep this rule of thumb in mind: the length of a child’s attention span is one minute for every year that the child is old.  So, if the child is four years old, the child will generally have a 4 minute attention span.

Knowing this will help you adjust your expectations on how long you can expect your grandchild to pay attention and be involved in a Skype conversation with you.  Knowing this, you won’t be disappointed (hopefully) when you want to keep interacting but your grandchild would rather get down and go play somewhere else.

So, here are some Skyping ideas that you could do with 16-month old grandchildren.

1.  Before your Skype call, collect a few pictures from magazines or newspaper ads (a cat, dog, doll).  Hold the pictures up one at a time.  Make a comment about a feature such as the color of hair or what the dog is doing in the picture.

2.  Say a nursery rhyme incorporating appropriate actions.  See if your grandchild can do the actions with you.  If you have a book of nursery rhymes with pictures, show her the picture that goes with the rhyme.

3.  Sing a little song like the Eensy Weensy Spider or Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.  Have her do the actions along with you. Here are some more examples of songs that you can learn and sing with your grandchildren.

4. Ask her to point to her eyes, her ears, etc.  Or, you could have her point to “your” eyes, etc., which means she would touch the computer screen to indicate where your eyes are.

5. Before you Skype, ask her parents to have her favorite toy nearby.  Then, ask her to show you her toy.  Ask her a question or two or make some comments about the toy.

6.  Ask her what sounds different animals make such as ‘What does a cow say?’

7.  Have some alphabet blocks nearby.  Hold up a block and tell her which letter it is.  See if she can repeat the letter after you say it.  Also, see if she can spell her name as you spell it out loud with her.

8. Read her a very short picture book.  Point out items in the pictures for her to look at.

9.  Have her draw a picture (while you are watching) and show you what she has done.  Comment on the beautiful colors she uses and how artistic she is.

10. Have a finger puppet and have it ‘talk’ and ‘play’ with your grandchild.

11.  Have a bottle of bubbles and blow bubbles for her while she watches.  She may get frustrated and want to do it herself so maybe her parents can have a bottle on hand for her to use.  Then, the two of you could blow bubbles together.  See who can blow the biggest bubble.

12.  Play peek-a-boo where you go ‘off screen’ then come back on.  Play peek-a-boo with the finger puppet or some other item.

13.  Have her create something out of Play Dough while you watch.

14.  Touch your finger on your computer screen and move it around.  Ask her to see if she can follow your finger with her finger on her computer screen.

15. Have her show you how she can play catch with a parent.

16. When she gets older, play Candyland.  She will roll the dice and move the marker for both of you.

17. If you are really adventurous, put on some music and dance.  (You can’t be self conscious to do this activity!)

Well, lookee there.  I didn’t think I would have twelve ideas and I’ve ended up with 17.  Remarkable!

Remember, keep it short.  If your grandchild doesn’t seem to be interested in what you are doing, change and do something else — even be willing to end the conversation.  Good luck!

What Skyping activities do you do with your grandchildren?