Today is Grandparents Day at School

Today is a special day. I was invited to Grandparents Day at Paul Jr's school - Elmwood Franklin - in Buffalo, New York. I arrived at 9 a.m. and was greeted warmly by a staff member who took my coat and gave me a name tag. Pastry and coffee were available which I passed on. Pau's retired paternal grandfather, Art, was to arrive later, so I was ushered into the newly-built auditorium to await the start of the program. I was told to save a seat for my grandson who would be seated next to me. I saved one for Art also.

Paul is in kindergarten which is called Prep II at Elmwood Franklin. Very soon, the Prep II children were led in and found their respective grandparents. We were shown a slide program of the various activities at the school, and each child's picture came up two or three times. At this time Art arrived and Paul gave him a big hug. After the slide show, the children were called to the stage where they sang four songs to their grandparents. Looking around, it was pleasant to see the smiling faces on all the visitors.

The morning was very well organized and each student had been drilled beforehand about the procedures. Each child had a different colored circle pasted on his own name tag. Paul's circle was yellow, which indicated we were part of the group whose first stop would be story time where Paul was to read us a story. Paul had a mind of his own, and he brought us to the snack room instead where a green circle was pasted on his name tag to show that we were completing that part of the program. Juice and muffins and doughnut holes were the fare for the morning. Paul is extremely outgoing and talked and laughed with each of his classmates we came across.

Our next stop with Paul was an activity room (red colored circle pasted on name tag) where each child sat at a long table covered with pieces of colored construction paper and glue. As we stood around the table, the children were told to make a turkey according to the model that was hung on the wall. Paul was in a bit of a hurry and his turkey was more or less thrown together in a few minutes. But it was recognizable as a turkey nevertheless.

When we left the activity room, our last stop was a room where we would have our picture taken with our grandchild. Paul had the required blue circle pasted on his name tag for this event. The photographer remarked that we three had the biggest smiles she had seen that morning.

Yellow, green, red, blue. We had come full circle. Paul did a great job. He walked us to the lobby to get our coats, where we also received a cloth shopping bag with the school's name embroidered on it, as part of the school's green effort. After giving us a big hug, our grandson returned to his classrom and we left the school.

Grandparents are important people. It was nice to be singled out and honored for our connection to our grandchild. I learned that Elmwood Franklin is a very special place where the students are very happy and are learning so many good traits and manners. My visit was surely the highlight of my week.