We rounded out our summer meetings with an Intergenerational Book Club about a summer pastime that grandparents are sometimes able to share with their grandchildren: fishing. Certainly, not every grandparent fishes, but some do and it’s an activity that those who do participate in, are often eager to share with their children and grandchildren.
For this meeting, we read, Skyfishing, by Gideon Sterer (illustrated by Poly Bernatene). This relatively new book is a sweet story about a grandfather who moves from the country to the city to live with his children and grandchildren. What he finds after he moves is that he misses his previous home and especially his former hobby, fishing. In the city, there is nowhere to fish. His granddaughter notices his sadness and comes up with a creative pretend play game for her and her grandfather to play together: skyfishing out on their apartment deck! Soon they are “catching” all kinds of “fish” from down below on the streets of the city! The book captures the contagiousness of youthful joy, but also tenderly touches on the very real depression that older adults can face when moving away from their independent lives–something possibly familiar to the residents we visit at the assisted living center.
After a resident read us the book, we did a little pretend fishing of our own. We used the Melissa & Doug Catch and Count Wooden Fishing Game pieces along with rods that we had from a previous book club meeting. We also had some extra paper fish with paperclips attached (to attract the fishing pole magnets) that I had made to match the fish from the Melissa and Doug game (using the same template from our previous book club meeting). We passed the spinner from the Melissa and Doug game around to each resident. The residents spun the spinner and the kids took turns fishing for the color the residents spun. We played until the kids lost interest and then we just let them “free” fish!
We didn’t realize it at the time, but this was our last Intergenerational Book Club meeting (at least for now). While we may revive the Intergenerational Book Club over the summers, many of our regular attendees have children who have now grown and attend school during our daytime visits. We are so grateful for the time we got to spend visiting residents and many of us will likely return for unscheduled visits. While we know that the children brought joy to the residents, we gained so much from the residents as well! Not only did we enjoy talking to them and hearing their stories, but our children became familiar and comfortable being around older adults.
Baby Toddler Book Club 