We love our grandparents!

After weeks of planning and preparation our annual Grandparents Day celebration began with a lovely morning tea in the Savio Centre on Wednesday. It was a wonderful sight to see so many generations enjoying our beautiful Grandparents Song. Students had practised for several weeks to be able to sing with gusto and volume to fill the Savio Centre.

Our guests moved quickly to classrooms to share as much time as possible with their grandchildren. Some had plans to divide and conquer two classrooms at once to efficiently use time spent with each of their family member. This special day is growing every year and highlights not only the unique and loving bond that grandparents share with their grandchildren, but their capacity to share themselves amongst many children at the same time. Some of our Grandparents volunteered to become adopted grandparents for the morning as well, thus making sure everyone had someone caring with whom to share our special morning.

It was delightful to see the obvious engagement in each activity. In the Early Years, the activities ranged from rotations focusing on what makes grandparents special to Maths activities that had everyone checking answers with their fingers and possibly a few toes! Each classroom also had games for sharing which were eagerly shared by all. In the Year 1 rooms everyone bravely painted their handprints to decorate Grandparent poems - it is always astonishing how far paint goes when mixed with water for cleaning!

As we moved into the older classrooms the activities appeared to become more sedate but on closer inspection this was not the case. One classroom did have an enthusiastic game of Twister happening in the Art room - in which a Granddad won several games in a row! And in Year 5 there were animals - the lambs, ponies and alpacas visiting from our Animal Husbandry Year 9-10 elective, as well as grandparents, was a big hit.

With the ever increasing scale of our event, there are many people who have worked on the logistics of the day and we say a special thank you to them. Many thanks to our amazing Administration and Maintenance teams as they organised the catering and drinks, the setting up and cleaning up of the Savio Centre and ensuring all parking was as trouble free as possible. Special thanks must go to our students, teachers and teacher assistants who made each classroom experience enriching and engaging for all involved.

And most of all thank you to our community for supporting our students for what was a wonderful family celebration.

You can see more photos on pur web gallery: Grandparents Day

Mrs Jane Doyle, Coordinator of Teaching & Learning K-2