Remember May Day when you were a child? Traditional May Day celebrations seem to be making a comeback in some communities--Julie and her family discovered a group dancing 'round a May pole and enjoying a multifamily picnic when they lived in Palo Alto, California.

You might enjoy telling your grandchildren how May Day baskets, dances, and parades signaled the start of a more carefree season when you were young. Try sending your school-age grandchildren streamers and see if they and their friends can come up with a new version of a May Day dance around a slender tree or pole. Or rekindle a lovely, neighborly tradition with our grandchild-oriented version of the May basket (see below).

However you celebrate the mild month of May, we hope you'll make May 1 a special "new" holiday to share with grandchildren!

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Grandloving Activity Idea: May Day Memories

Do you remember making little May Day baskets, filling them with flowers, hanging them on your neighbor's front door handle, ringing the bell, and running away as fast as you could? Share that memory with your grandchildren--it's a tradition of friendship, flowers, and fun that shouldn't be lost in their new fast-paced world.

Ages: Two to five years

You'll Need:
* Spring flowers. Use whatever is growing in your area--perhaps forget-me-nots, daffodils, pansies, or just little wild violets
* Container to hold the flowers: a juice can, plastic food container, or little plastic flower pot
* Colored paper, lace, ribbons - whatever you want to use to decorate the baskets
* Glue, tape, scissors, pens

Here's How:
* The last day of April, go on a flower-picking expedition with water pail in hand so that the freshly picked flowers can have an immediate drink.
* Set the flowers aside while you and your grandchildren decorate your containers.
* Try a fancy lattice weave of colored strips of paper, or just wind ribbons around a base.
* Early in the morning on May first, have your grandchildren arrange the flowers in the baskets, hang the baskets on neighbors' door handles, ring the bell, and run!
* The neighbors will be thrilled with the thoughtful gesture, and your grandchildren will have May Day memories to treasure.

Mother's Day is a time for Grandpas and Grandmas to reminisce about their days as young parents. It can also be a wonderful time to encourage and reward the mothers of today who are doing the hard work of raising the next generation.

Perhaps this year you are searching for the perfect way to show the young mothers in your family how much you appreciate all that they do. Below are two ways you and your grandchildren to make this a day their Moms will never forget.

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Grandloving Activity Idea: Why I Love My Mommy

Put a new twist into the idea of the baby book — try a Mommy book or poster instead!

Ages: Two to five years

You'll Need:
* A blank scrapbook or posterboard
* Poster paints and permanent markers; crayons, ribbons — let your imaginations go!

Here's How:
* With your guidance, your young grandchildren can translate questions like these into a terrific visual memento that their Mom will treasure forever: What's your favorite thing to do with Mommy? What is the silliest thing your Mom does? How does your Mommy make you feel special? If you could give your Mom one thing in the world, what would it be?

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Grandloving Activity Idea: Grandma's Kit for Couchside Loving

A nursing baby and an older child can be a handful for a busy Mom. How about surprising her with this bag of snuggle-up activities for the big brother or big sister?

Ages: Eighteen months to four years

You'll Need:
* An empty paper, plastic, or cloth bag (we like the idea of stenciling a cloth bag to make it look extra special!)
* A collection of made or purchased "quiet" activities for your older grandchild. For a toddler, you might try finger puppets, a magnetic drawing board (such as the mini Magna Doodle), a small car or truck, and/or pipe cleaners for shaping. Young preschoolers will enjoy small animal figures, playdough (send along a box of birthday candles, too!), scented crayons and a small notebook, and/or a small reusable sticker book (such as Colorforms or Uniset makes). And you might challenge your older preschooler with a small maze book, mini Etch-a-Sketch, penlight flashlight, and/or rebus book.
*Don't forget outdoor possibilities as a twist to this theme — if you pop in a new one-inch paintbrush your grandtoddler can be encouraged to paint stones and the sidewalk outdoors; and a magnifying glass and list of things to find, bug-catching kit, or sidewalk chalks can occupy your preschooler grandchild while Mom has a quiet moment with the new baby.

Here's How:
* Send your kit to arrive in time for Mother's Day or present it to her then, and enjoy knowing that you've given her something she will truly appreciate — some time-honored tricks for entertaining a young child during a busy time!

What better month than May to start a weekly tradition of popping something easy and fun in the mail to your young grandchild? Here are five captivating ideas from our book, Grandloving, to get you started!

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Grandloving Activity Idea: Mystery Sounds

Familiar sounds from your home are the backdrop to this challenging "conversation-starter" of a game.

Ages: Three to five years

You'll Need to Send:
* An audiotape of sounds from your home

Here's How:
* Tape sounds in and around your home (door bell, telephone, clock chimes, dog barking, birds singing, water filling a tub, sewing machine, wind chimes, typewriter, Grandpa sneezing etc.).
* Ask your grandchildren on the tape if they can identify the sound riddles.
* Set up a time to discuss their answers, or have them mail the answers to you.

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Grandloving Activity Idea: Vest 'em Up

Indians, cowboys, robots, policeman, spacemen — you name it, you can make it!

Ages: Two to five years

You'll Need:
* Paper grocery bags
* Magic markers
* Construction paper, ribbons, yarn, aluminum-foil badges
* Glue

Here's How:
* Cut a vest out of the paper bag to fit your little "imaginator."
* Slit the bag up the front and cut a circle area out of the bottom of the bag to fit over the head. Cut armholes in the sides of the bag. Shortening it for a wee one is simple!
* You can either send a decorated vest or send the ideas and let your little "imaginator" create his own costume.
* If the bag has writing on it, just turn it inside out.

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Grandloving Activity Idea: Color Collections

This will make a fun activity for a toddler grandchild just learning about colors.

Ages: One to two years

You'll Need to Send:
* Sheets of construction paper in red, yellow, blue, green, etc.
* Post-it notes in different colors

Here's How:
* Ask your little munchkin to spread out the colored sheets on the floor and collect things on each paper that are of the same color.
* Another fun activity will be to suggest your little color coordinator pop a sticky post-it note on whatever matches the color of the note.
* When you talk on the phone, you can ask what is on each colored sheet or where the post-it notes have been placed.

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Grandloving Activity Idea: Reflecting Painting

The fun of guessing "what's missing" and then the magic of seeing the "missing half" in the mirror makes this a terrific project!

Ages: Two to five years

You'll Need:
* Paper and pen
* Drawings of half of anything bilateral: a heart, a butterfly, face, person, circle etc.

Here's How:
* Fold your paper in half and draw just half of the bilateral figure. Be sure that your drawing extends to the fold.
* Ask your grandchild to guess what the object is.
* To find the answer, your grandchild must place the fold next to a mirror; the half-drawn image will reflect its other half, creating a whole object.
* Ask how many other reflecting pictures your little one can then draw on his own.

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Grandloving Activity Idea: Smell and Tell

Send a simple science activity that will be fun to discuss over the phone.

Ages: Three to five years

You'll Need to Send:
* Little envelopes filled with things your grandchild can identify by smell — crushed mint leaves, cocoa, orange peels, rose petals, cinnamon, cloves, vanilla on a cotton ball, crushed pine needles, etc.

Here's How:
* Put one "smell" in each envelope and seal it to avoid "peeking."
* It'll help keep the smells distinct if you then put each envelope in a separate small plastic bag.
* Number the envelopes and keep a record of what you have put in each one so you can have fun testing your little one over the phone.