Lincoln grandparents get an afternoon at school

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BY CHUCK VANDENBERG

PCC EDITOR

FORT MADISON - It was standing room only at Lincoln Elementary School Wednesday with grandparents pouring through the halls with their grandchildren in a wildly successful day of sharing.

The school hosted its first "Gardening with Grandparents" day where grandparents were able to get a planter with sunflower seeds, all donated by Ty Louck of Ty's Greenhouse, to make a project with their grandchild.

For about four square blocks around the school, grandparents were walking up to the school and had taken up almost every parking spot on the street, in front of the school, and on the school parking area south of the playground.

The school encouraged the families to take pictures of the sunflower planting and transplanting process and share the pictures with school teachers. The pictures can then be shared on the school's Facebook page.

Kindergartner Honesty Fluke gets her plant container complete with fertilized soil and sunflower seeds while grandmother Teri McCracken looks on. The students are challenged to plant and transplant the plants with their grandparents and then photograph the growth and share with their teachers. Photo by Chuck Vandenberg/PCC

In addition to the gardening projects, the school also held a book fair in the gymnasium at the same time.

Principal Tracy King said the event was a shocking success.

"We had an RSVP of 403. We've just had an enormous turnout, it's been a great day," she said.

Grandparents Day used to be held at Denmark, King said. But since that school was closed this is the first year it's been done at Lincoln. Grandparents at Richardson were treated to a luncheon on Wednesday as well.

"Parents and grandparents like to be involved," King said. "Grandparents don't get to come to school much and this was their special day. It was just a time to share with their grandchild. We just wanted to get people in the buildings and try to get more family involvement in the school," King said.

She said the book fair was kind of a misfortune of scheduling.

"The book fair is usually during parent teacher conferences and for some reason we didn't align with that this year, so we moved it to coincide with this event and it's just been a tremendous hit with everyone. It's been very successful," King said.

Grandparents were also able to go into the classrooms and meet the students' teachers and see what projects are being worked on prior to the regularly scheduled Wednesday early out.

fort madison, Gardening with Grandparents, Lincoln Elementary, Pen City Current, Tracy King, Ty's Greenhouse

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