It was the wrong month, and it wasn’t in person. So would grandparents stay away from Colorado Academy’s annual Grandparents Day? Not on your life!
Postponed because of a Snow Day in December, Grandparents Day moved to March. The traditional live visits to classrooms were canceled because of COVID-19 safety precautions, so grandparents had to drop in via Zoom. But if you measure success in smiles, none of those changes made the least bit of difference on this special day.
Head of School Mike Davis began the day with a presentation about the measures CA has introduced to keep children safe during a pandemic.
Davis also shared images of the new Leach Center for the Performing Arts, scheduled to open in August 2021.
Davis and Lower School Principal Angie Crabtree fielded questions from grandparents who wanted to know if they could visit CA post-vaccine, and how CA’s model of remote, hybrid, and in-person learning was going this year. Grandparent Brenda Rivers took the opportunity to thank CA for giving her “peace of mind about my grandchild’s physical and social-emotional health.” And then it was time to head to the classrooms.
In the Pre-K Cottage, students performed a series of favorite children’s rhymes, including one that had been renamed for the day: “Pre-K Teachers had some lambs.”
In the Pre-K Casita, Little Bo-Peep was looking for her sheep and didn’t know where to find them.
In Margit Patterson’s Kindergarten class, students talked about why they love their grandparents.
In Christine West’s Kindergarten class, students shared pictures they had drawn of their grandparents. Members of the audience pressed the unmute button and gave them a shout-out: “Hugs and kisses!”
In Sarah Ingham’s Grade 1 class, students were met with a round of applause as they spelled out what every letter in “Grandparent” meant to them (“D is for delightful!”).
In Jessi McCoy’s Grade 2 class, heartfelt applause also greeted the performance of a special poem: “Grandparents, grandparents, it’s your day….Thank you, thank you for all you do.”
In Ali Elkins’ Grade 3 class, grandparents also Zoomed in to watch student presentations with rapt attention.
In Maria Chavez’s class, students asked their grandparents to share memories of when they were in the fourth grade. One grandfather entertained everyone with memories of being stymied by the work in class, until someone realized that he was a fourth grader who had accidentally landed in sixth grade.
In Chelsea Grantham’s Grade 5 class, students played charades with their grandparents, who had no trouble guessing that those were “cowboys” twirling their ropes.
And in Jessica Ohly’s Grade 5 class, grandparents worked on a math problem with their grandchildren and learned the answer to the age-old question, “Are you smarter than a fifth grader?”
It was a day of many smiles and much joy, as grandparents pulled out their phones to record the Zoom presentations that were being shown to them. With a little patience and a lot of technology, no pandemic could stop Grandparents Day at CA.