One of the joys of being a grandparent is doing things with your grandchildren. There are many activities you and your grandchildren can enjoy together; some will just be fun activities, and others will create memories that will last a lifetime. In fact, often what children remember the longest are the simplest things we do with them.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• You might periodically plan a baking Saturday. You and your grandchildren can spend the day making treats for family and friends. This would also be a good time to teach them to share and help them make up boxes or baskets of cookies and take them to nursing home residents.

Depending on the ages of your grandchildren, there are many kinds of cookies they can help make. For example, the older grandchildren can help make and decorate roll-out cookies; the younger ones can make drop cookies or Rice Krispies treats in fun shapes.

• Help your grandchildren turn coffee cans and oatmeal boxes into gift containers by covering them with self-stick vinyl, wallpaper leftovers or gift wrap. Fill it with cookies or fudge or other candy individually wrapped in plastic wrap. Tie the container with colorful ribbon. Glass jars, plastic margarine containers and fancy canning jars also make pretty and reusable containers to fill with goodies and give to a neighbor or acquaintance who is a shut-in.
• As each holiday approaches, help your grandchildren design and make holiday place mats and table decorations. The place mats can be laminated and used year after year.
• Make a budding cook a cookbook including favorite family recipes. Help him/her create simple dishes from the book.
• Read stories to your grandchildren. Tell them stories about when you and/or their parents were young. If you took home movies, share them with your grandchildren.
• If you enjoy sewing, you could teach your grandchildren to sew. You might start with a simple block quilt. Again, maybe some of the blocks could be from material you once used to make them :quot; or their parents :quot; clothes.
• Handy with wood? You and a grandchild could create a birdhouse, toy or other item. Mark it with the child’s name, your name, and the date you made it.
• Create a video family history using old slides and pictures. Narrate or just set it to music. Give a copy to each grandchild.

For more grandparenting ideas, write the Young Grandparents Club, a nationwide organization offering information to help improve relationships between grandparents and grandchildren. For a copy of the club’s newsletter, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Grandparents Little Dividends, P.O. Box 11143, Shawnee Mission 66207.