Family activities for grandparents and grandchildren

Time with grandparents often becomes some of a child’s happiest memories, and it doesn’t need to be elaborate. The best activities are simple, unhurried and give you something to talk about while you do them.

Here are ideas for home, outdoors and at a distance, with notes on ages and on activities that suit grandparents who prefer to stay seated.

Activities at home

Baking together

Baking is the classic for good reason: it involves measuring, mixing, waiting and eating. Choose something simple like scones, fairy cakes or biscuits, and let children do as much as they safely can. If you have a family recipe, write it out on a card for them to keep. Children from about 3 can join in with plenty of help, and older ones can follow the recipe themselves.

Colouring and drawing

Colouring is one of the easiest activities to share across generations. There are no rules, nothing to set up and no batteries, and it is calm enough for a quiet afternoon while leaving space to chat. Detailed pages suit grandparents and older children; bold, simple pages suit little ones. A colouring book filled with the family’s own photos gives you a story on every page: “That’s your mum when she was eight” is a far better conversation starter than a cartoon. It works from age 3 and is easy to do seated.

Looking through old photos

Children are fascinated by photos of their parents as children, and of their grandparents when they were young. Get the albums out and tell the stories behind them. From about 4, children can help to label photos, and older ones might enjoy building a simple family tree.

Card and board games

Snap, pairs and Happy Families suit younger children, from about 4; rummy, draughts, dominoes and longer board games suit older ones. Games teach turn-taking, counting and how to lose gracefully, and a grandparent often has more patience for that than a busy parent.

Storytelling and reading

Read their favourite books, or tell stories from your own childhood. Children often love hearing what school, toys and Christmas were like “in the olden days”, and older children can take turns reading to you.

Jigsaws and building

A jigsaw spread out on a table can be dipped into over a whole visit. Building blocks and construction sets work across a wide range of ages, with a grandparent as chief engineer or as apprentice.

Making music

Sing nursery rhymes, teach a song from your childhood, bang some saucepans or play a simple instrument together. It is one of the few activities a toddler and a grandparent can enjoy on exactly equal terms.

Outdoors

Gardening

Give children their own small patch or a pot. Fast-growing seeds such as cress, radishes or sunflowers show results quickly, and watering, digging and finding worms are all highlights.

Nature walks

A slow walk suits grandparents and small children perfectly. Turn it into a game: collect five different leaves, spot birds, look for animal tracks, or take a bag for conkers in autumn.

Library visits

Libraries are free, warm and full of books, and many run activities for children. Let the children choose a book to read together back at home.

Parks and feeding the ducks

Simple outings can be the most memorable. If you feed ducks, take small amounts of suitable food such as oats or defrosted peas rather than bread.

Museums and days out

Many museums have hands-on galleries for children. Keep visits short and focused, and stop for a snack.

When you live far apart

Distance doesn’t have to mean missing out. Some of the best ideas use a little technology and a lot of post.

If you both have the same colouring book, choose a page on a video call and colour it at the same time, then hold your pages up to compare. (That’s why we sell extra copies of the same book: £44.97 for two and £15 per additional copy after that.) A bedtime story by video works the same way, with a copy of the book at both ends.

Children love getting post addressed to them, so send letters and postcards, perhaps with a drawing for them to colour and send back. A long-distance project gives you something to talk about for weeks: grow the same seeds in both gardens and compare progress, or keep a scrapbook that travels back and forth by post. And simple games like noughts and crosses, I-spy and twenty questions all work on a call.

Activities for grandparents with limited mobility

Plenty of activities can be enjoyed sitting down:

• colouring, drawing and painting at a table
• card games, dominoes and board games
• jigsaws
• reading and storytelling
• looking at photo albums
• simple crafts such as threading beads or making cards
• potting seeds at a table rather than in a flower bed

Children often enjoy being the “fetcher and carrier” for a grandparent, which gives them a role and a sense of responsibility.

Tips for making time together go well

Let the child lead sometimes: ask what they’d like to do, or offer a choice of two. Keep things short, because young children’s attention moves on quickly and two short activities usually beat one long one.

Passing on a skill is one of the most special things a grandparent can do. Knitting, woodwork, cooking or a card trick: children love learning something only Grandma or Grandad knows. Side-by-side activities like colouring, baking and gardening also make conversation easy, without the pressure of sitting face to face.

Take photos as you go, because they become the next album, or the next colouring book. And check with the parents about snacks, allergies and any house rules before you start.

A gift that becomes an activity

If you want a present that turns into time together, a colouring book of your family is a lovely choice: every page is someone you both know, so colouring turns into storytelling. Ours is printed on one side of 150gsm paper, so felt tips are welcome, and you can order copies of the same book for each set of grandparents. See our gifts from grandparents page for ideas.