Sue Lawyer-Tarr, www.TeachingTolerance.org

• Visit a retirement center and put on a play that involves some audience participation. Examples: singing old songs that everyone knows, counting together, stomping their feet or clapping hands to a rhythm or whistling. Have the children take cookies and punch to serve the seniors. Children enjoy visiting with seniors after the play and enjoy hearing the seniors talk about their acting ability. Encourage as much interaction as possible. Children can hand out programs and song sheets and deliver each with a hug.
  
  
• Hold an afternoon New Years party at a local retirement home or nursing home. Take hats, balloons, noisemakers, streamers, and decorations the children have made. Play Bingo for prizes. Everyone can join hands and make a wish for the world for the New Year. Sing old songs the seniors know and can teach the children. Have a child dress up as Baby New Year and another child dress up as Old Father Time. Set your own time for a New Years Count Down and count out the old year. Enter the New Year with lots of hugs and humor. Have everyone share his or her favorite jokes.
  
  
• Have a group discussion about a value such as Honesty, Compassion, Integrity, Charity, etc. with both children and seniors participating. Have seniors tell stories about people they know and experiences they have had that demonstrate the true meaning of these words. Pair up a senior with a child and have them pick a word off the "Tree of Human Values" and look it up in the dictionary and talk about how they could incorporate this value into their daily life.
  
  
• Have children help elderly decorate their Christmas trees and take them down after Christmas. Children can make an ornament to go on their senior friend's tree. Their foster grandparents appreciate ornaments shaped like a Christmas tree with a school picture of them in the middle. Grandparents love to show off pictures of their grandchildren.
  
  
• Invite a senior who grew up in another country to be your guest at lunch and to speak to the children after lunch about their memories as a child. They can bring items and photo albums to show the children and perhaps a recipe for a snack the children could help prepare. Follow up by reading children's book about their country and possibly playing some music from that country. During the summer, learn about a different country each week. The Internet helps us all become global neighbors. It's a valuable resource in gathering information. Have children explore the web for the country they select and even call the different nationalities local clubs to see if they have a senior member who could be their guest. Empower the children to create this event. Children think, plan, initiate action and call, invite, and host the senior representative of the country they choose. Learn how to say "hello," "goodbye," "please" and "thank you" in each language.
  
  
• Have seniors conduct an etiquette class on the proper way to introduce and greet people, set a table, write a thank you note, order from a menu in a restaurant, etc. They can role-play one on one with the children in front of the larger group, asking the children to point out the right way of handling social situations.
  
  
• Have children role play a news reporter who is interviewing a senior citizen on video or cassette for a radio or TV show about the seniors' life. Children can interview their grandparents or a foster grandparent. Have children invite their friends over to listen to the interview. All it takes is a quiet corner, a cassette or VCR and some seats for an audience to listen to the interview. It is also fun to have children draw seniors while they are being interviewed. Use Golden Days - A Beginners Guide to Collecting Family History and Community Traditions. (see Resources sidebar) This student guide has questions to ask seniors that will stimulate them to tell about their past.

Sue Lawyer-Tarr is a national school-age consultant, college instructor, workshop leader and author based in Oklahoma. Sue has authored two books, How to Work With School-Age Children and Love Them and School-Age Child Care Professional Training: A Workbook for Teaching Staff, published by School-Age Notes.