2009 Calendar
Date Host Presenter
July 12 Virginia Bea
Sept 13 Dee Group Activity
Nov 1 Sandy Susan B
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July 12, 2009 Meeting
When Being a Grandma Isn't So Grand
Our July 12 meeting will be hosted by GaGa Diane in San Carlos. One of the benefits of being in the GaGa Sisterhood is hearing other grandmas' stories and getting reassurance, and even some solutions, for the challenging situations. GaGa Bea will lead us in a discussion about some of those challenges.
Come prepared to talk about your
own difficult experiences, so that we can have a dialogue about those
times when being a grandmother isn't all milk and cookies.
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Forward this Newsletter to a Friend
GaGa Barbara L. has paid me the highest compliment and told five of her friends about the GaGa Sisterhood. They've all joined.
Recently, I've been asking the grandmas I know to pass along the link to my blog to all their grandma friends.
I would appreciate your doing the same or forwarding this newsletter to a grandma you know. Just scroll down to the bottom and click on "Forward email."
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What's New With You?
I'd love to share tidbits from other members in this newsletter. Please send me emails with fun activities you're doing.
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Greetings!
My husband and I just returned from three days in Yosemite National Park, where we celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary. I could not stop raving about the spectacular views. I saw many grandparents enjoying Yosemite with their grandchildren and prayed that I will be able to share the Park with my two granddaughters someday.
I returned home thinking about the sense of wonder I experienced during those three days. I was inspired to retrieve a National Wildlife article a GaGa gave me two years ago. It was an excerpt from an essay by Rachel Carson on nurturing the love of nature in children. I've always tried to nurture my granddaughters' love of nature right in their own backyard.
What better time than summer to explore the outdoors with our grandchildren. I'm excited to share two resources that I discovered in the article. I hope they inspire you to share some fun in nature with your grandchildren.
In Sisterhood, 
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The modern environmental movement was launched with the help of Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring. She also wrote about fostering children's appreciation of nature. Carson spent many hours exploring the forests and rocky coast of Maine with her grandnephew. She wrote an essay for Woman's Home Companion magazine in 1956 titled "Help Your Child to Wonder." The article was excerpted in National Wildlife April/May 2007 in honor of the 100th anniversary of her birth.
If a child is to keep alive his sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.
- Rachel Carson
Green Hour
We can be one of those adults who help our grandchildren discover the wonder of nature. You can find loads of resources from a program called Green Hour. The National Wildlife Fund promotes Green Hour to encourage parents and grandparents to get outdoors with their children and grandchildren and discover the wonders of nature. The Green Hour website provides inspiration and ideas for activities to explore nature and the outdoors.
On their About Green Hour page they state some bad news: "As a society, we are raising the first generation of Americans to grow up disconnected from nature. But the good news is that we can reverse that trend by giving our children a "green hour" a day - a bit of time for unstructured play and interaction with the natural world - to set them on the path toward physical, mental, and emotional well-being."
The Discovery Journal and Activities page gives short activities accompanied by book suggestions, a list of what you'll need for the activity, and a parents guide for getting the most out of the activity.
Here are a few examples:
- Build a "fairy house" with twigs, pebbles, acorns and whatever else you find on the ground. Check back the next day to see whether any fairies have moved in!
- Make Sunprints. You just need water, sunshine, and a little imagination for hours of fun making photographic-type prints with the Sunprint Kit. To make a Sunprint, place an interesting object on a sheet of Sunprint paper, expose it to the sun for a few minutes, immerse the paper in water, and watch as a permanent image appears.
- Take a nature walk and just follow your nose. Stop and smell things in nature that have a scent, like lavender, pine needles, rosemary, or the musty smell of pollen. Take a basket with you and collect some items for a potpourri.
Under the Parents Guide you can find downloads for a Wildlife Observation Hike Checklist and a Nature Scavenger Hunt.
Last Child in the Woods
Richard Louv's book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, rivals Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring. It's the first book with research indicating that direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development and for the physical and emotional health of children and adults.
 But instead of just raising an alarm, Louv offers practical solutions and simple ways to heal the broken bond - and many exist right in our own backyard. He states that for this new generation, nature is more abstraction than reality. He inspired the "Leave No Child Inside" movement to reconnect children to the natural world.
The book includes:
- 100 actions you can take to create change in your community, school, and family.
- 35 discussion points to inspire people of all ages to talk about the importance of nature in their lives.
- A new progress report by the author about the growing Leave No Child Inside movement.
- New and updated research confirming that direct exposure to nature is essential for the physical and emotional health of children and adults.
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GaGa Member News
GaGa Susana Young, who sings with the Sweet Adelines, competed in a "Forever Plaid" YouTube contest to celebrate the 20th anniversary of that show. Susana joined Sweet Adelines 5 years ago in Kansas City, took a year off when she moved here, and has been singing with Bay Area Showcase Chorus for 3 years.
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New Chapter Forming
A
grandma in Utah is starting a GGS chapter in Lindon, Utah. They had
their first meeting on June 24. I spoke with them by phone during the
beginning of their meeting and told them how excited I was to see my
vision of a national organization becoming a reality!
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