One of my favorite memories with my own children was snuggling up together and reading. I read aloud to them well into middle school.
Russ, “Gramps”, and I, “Granny Annie”, have the desire to do the same with our grandchildren but they don’t live with us. In fact one of our grandchildren lives a thousand miles away! We have accepted that we won’t always get to snuggle, but with today’s technology, we have found a way to ensure that they will continue to enjoy sharing reading time with their grandparents.
While visiting my granddaughter, Josie, on the east coast I noticed that reading a good book once was never enough. “Granny Annie, read it again!” she would exclaim. I did, over and over, but eventually the time came that we had to leave. As soon as we arrived home, I video recorded myself reading that same book and sent the recording off to her. Our daughter said Josie was fascinated. In addition Mom was far more pleased to have Josie watch Granny Annie and Gramps than she was to have her view anything else.
Thus began our new venture to ensure our grandchildren have reading time with their grandparents. We are now in the video recording business! Russ records me and I record him. We have joined a “Book a Month” club. We choose the book and we record ourselves reading it. We then send both the book and the video to our grandchild who reads it over and over with granny’s or gramps’ help through the miracle of modern technology.
I have recorded Gramps telling a story and using toys as props. He used a small stuffed “mom” and “dad” and made up a story to go along with them. We made the video and sent it to our granddaughter. Our daughter decided not to show the video until Josie also received the stuffed “mom” and “dad” toys. After both had arrived we were rewarded with a video of a very involved Josie watching Gramps, while playing with “mom” and “dad.”
How do we do it? We use our smart phone or iPad camera. Initially, we just used the single video record function. Then we started getting more creative. We found we could make two or three separate videos on our iPad and splice them together in iMovie. The final project can then be uploaded to Google Photos, Google Docs, iMovie, or iCloud or wherever you have cloud space. My daughter can download it to her tablet or watch it online.
To see a sample of what we have done, click here!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/SkZ2AJcHiMk9PPW29
Perhaps someday Grandly will have a platform to store and share storybook movies!
Anne “Granny Annie” and Russ “Gramps” Robbins have two granddaughters and live in St. Paul, MN.
Copyright © 2019 Grandly: The Strategic Grandparents Club.