Things to Do With Grandkids Over FaceTime

You ask what they did today. They say "nothing," then "bye," and you end up talking to their mom about the weather.

It isn't you. Young kids don't do conversation well, especially through a screen. What they're good at is doing things: showing, making, finding, pretending. Give the call something to do and the talking happens on its own. Pick one of these for your next call and keep a second in your back pocket.

Show them your world

You have something your grandkids don't have at home: your house. Take the phone out to the garden and let them spot the tomatoes, the bird feeder, the cat asleep in the sun. Let them direct you ("left, no, the other left").

Keep a treasure box of odds and ends (old keys, foreign coins, a magnifying glass, a jar of buttons) and let them pick one thing per call while you tell them where it came from. Don't be surprised if they start asking for "the box" before they say hello.

Or just prop the phone on the counter while you cook. Watching grandpa crack eggs is surprisingly good entertainment when you're three.

Make something together

Color the same picture

Coloring gives you both something to do with your hands, and the conversation comes from the page ("What color should the elephant be?" "Purple."). On regular FaceTime you each color your own sheet and hold it up to a blurry camera, so you're coloring near each other rather than with each other.

That's the problem PaintPal was built to fix. One of you starts a room and sends the link, and you color the same picture from your own devices while you see each other on video. It works in a browser on a laptop or tablet, and as an app on iPhone and iPad. If setup feels like a lot, ask your grandkid's parent to start the room and text you the link. Then you can color together online.

Build the same thing

Grab a few blocks on each end. You build something simple and they copy it, then swap. Make a few mistakes on purpose; kids love fixing a grandparent's work.

Cook something simple

With a parent on their end, pick something with very few steps, like decorating a plain cookie or making a face out of a sandwich, and do each step together.

Read and tell stories

Read a picture book slowly, holding each page up long enough for them to really look, and let them tell you what's happening.

Tell them about their parent as a kid ("When your mom was your age, she put a frog in the bathtub"). Nobody else can give them those stories, and they'll ask for them again and again.

Or start a story that continues from call to call, about a bear who lives in a bucket, say, where the kid decides what happens next.

Games to play on FaceTime with grandchildren

Grandma Says (or Grandpa Says): Simon Says with your name in it. Let them be in charge for a round.

Animal charades: act out an animal, the other guesses. Guess wrong on purpose sometimes.

What's missing? Put five things from the treasure box in front of the camera, turn the phone away, take one, turn back. What's gone?

Mystery sock: describe an object hidden in a sock without naming it ("It's cold. It's smooth. It has a hole in the middle.").

There are more games that work on a video call here, and tips on how to make FaceTime with grandkids actually fun.

Small rituals

Start and end every call the same way (a song, a big wave, a kiss to the camera). Kids like knowing what comes next, and a goodbye ritual makes it easy to hang up while everyone's happy.

Give them a job between calls: "Next time, show me one thing you made." And mail a small envelope (a sticker, a drawing, a leaf from your garden) to be opened on the next call. That's a very big deal when you're four.

By age

Under 3: keep it to five minutes. Songs with hand motions, peekaboo, the pet.

3 to 6: the sweet spot for most of this list.

7 to 9: cooking with a parent's help, longer drawing sessions, and letting them teach you something (a game, a dance, a card trick).

For things to do online between calls, there are more online activities for grandparents and grandchildren. If you're a parent reading this for a grandparent, I also wrote about helping kids stay close to grandparents who live far away.

And if coloring together sounds like your kind of thing, try PaintPal with your grandkids. I'd love to know what they make you color first.