The School library hosted a "Grandfriends' Day" to celebrate Seniors Week and the International year of the Older Person..

The purpose of the day was to develop and foster respect and mutual understanding between the younger and older Australians in our community. 

Children are waiting for their grandfriends. 

Excited Grandfriends began arriving from 9am in the morning, and after being directed by the School Library Monitors to the K-2 plaground, where they were welcomed by the Principal, Miss Richards.

Children invited their Grandparents or in the case of this not being possible, a "Grandfriend" to visit the school between the hours of 9:20am and 11.30am, during which time they enjoyed planned activities in and around the school and library, followed by a special devonshire morning tea.

The classrooms were all open for Grandfriends to visit. The children were busy taking their Grandfriends on a guided tour of the school, showing them their work and the displays on the walls around the rooms.

Some of the Grandfriends had a chance to meet the teachers as well and have a little chat.

Some Grandfriends sat in little chairs and watched their grandchildren working in their books and listened to them reading out their stories and poems.

The children certainly enjoyed having the Grandfriends in their classrooms.

It was a very exciting time as children of all ages and abilities entertained and interacted with the Grandfriends. Many children and their Grandfriends took the opportunity to read together in the library from a great selection of literature about grandfriends. Grandfriends also visited the library, classrooms and computer room to explore and view technology and displays by children on the theme of grandfriends.

There were books for sale if the Grandfriends wanted to donate one to the library. Many grandfriends sponsored a book to be added to the library collection.

An acknowledgement with the name of the child and a "thank you" to their Grandfriend is pasted in the front of the book for all future borrowers to read.

Children were able to demonstrate how Internet can be used to access information for their research.
Grandfriends made a valiant effort to understand what was being demonstrated - some Grandfriends are keen users of Internet themselves. Others were amazed at what is happening in education these days.

The children presented an acrostic poem based on the letters from the word GRANDFRIENDS.

The children put on a concert for the grandfriends.

Children in 1K dramatised "Mr Gumpy's Outing" by John Birningham, entertaining the Grandfriends as they enjoyed their morning tea.. The band played "The Bavarian Folk Dance".and 4/5 and 2B children presented a wonderful acrostic poem on "Grandfriends" emphasising the importance of Grandparents in the family and their special characteristics as the children see them.

Over 280 Grandfriends attended and positive relationships were developed or reinforced. The Grandfriends showed a very keen interest in what the children were doing which is a great encouragement to the children (and their teachers!)

Awards

Miss Richards gave out many awards - e.g. to the grandfriends who had travelled the furthest to come, to the grandfriend who had the most grandchildren, the newest grandchild, those who were over 80 years old and the one who had the largest number of twins or triplets amongst their grandchildren.

An award for someone
over 80!

Many parents volunteered to cater for the Grandfriends' Devonshire Tea, and were responsible for a very smooth operation attending to almost 300 grandfriends.

Here is a modern day
Grandfather busy on his
mobile phone - taking time
out from the Devonshire Tea
to attend to one of his many
other responsibilities.

On the right is a modern day Grandmother. She took time off work to attend the Grandfriends' Day but there was a crisis in the family so she brought the little one in the stroller with her.

She then took him with her to work and settled him in the factory day care centre before starting in on the backlog of her own work.

Well done! And it is obvious that her granddaughter appreciated having Grandma there at school together with her little brother.

There was a delicious devonshire tea - scones with jam and cream plus tea or coffee - where Grandfriends could relax and meet with one another. 

This was a GREAT DAY. Nearly 300 grandfriends attended and positive relationships were developed or reinforced. Various grandfriends also donated over 230 books to the school library.