With an increase in two-career and single-parent families the role grandparents play in their descendants lives has grown substantially in recent years.  Whilst assisting with childcare means a great opportunity to form a strong bond with their grandchildren, it also means we should take even more time to say thank you for everything they do.

Grandparents’ Day, celebrated in September in America, was introduced to the UK in 1990 by the charity Age Concern and has been celebrated here on the first Sunday in October since 2008.

If you and your children are looking for a special way to recognise your older family members this Sunday, October 5, then download some of these printables ready to personalise for their grandparents whether they’re known as grandma, grandmother, grandmum, granny, gram, nan, grandfather, grandad, grandpa, pops or something else special to your family!

As well as best grandma and grandad certificates and rosettes, a card, bookmarks and a fridge magnet gift project, iChild also provides a My Family Tree template that children can fill in together with their grandparents.

eParenting offers a wordsearch at two different difficulty levels on the theme of Grandparents’ Day which could also be used as a joint activity.

Along with craft activity suggestions and a variety of colouring pages including Best Grandad/Grandpa and Grandma/Granny/Nanna diplomas, Activity Village‘s printables also include acrostic poems, booklets, bookmarks, cards, story paper and writing paper.

Free Printable Grandparents Day Coloring Cards are also available from grandparentsday-2014.com along with colouring pages and more cards and if you think your grandparents deserve to be queen or sheriff for the day then head over to the American Grandparents Association to download them a crown and badge.

Would you like a card that all your children can contribute to in one?  Becca from Who Arted? designed a lovely one that you can add your children’s thumbprints and names to, making them into quirky characters, as well as the top five reasons why they love the recipient.  The template is available in one to six thumbprint editions dependent on how many little ones need to be included.

The day could also be an excellent opportunity for your children to get to know their grandparents better and Jamie at Crafting Chicks has included a Grandma questionnaire printable as part of a previous Mothers’ Day post.  There’s also an all about my GRANDPA version available in Jamie’s Fathers’ Day post.  Why not print out two of each so your children can have a go at guessing the answers to give as a present on the day and then fill in the second print out on the day along with the grandparent to see how close their answers were?!

But, as we said at the beginning, grandparents often do so much for us that perhaps we should acknowledge that for more than just one day?  If your kids agree then Coupons are Great have a great gift idea – a Printables Grandparent’s Day Coupon Booklet that they can spread out for as long as they want including vouchers for artwork, 10 super-sized hugs, a car wash, letter and walk and blank ones to fill in your own promises on.

Do you love finding printables on the internet? Do you have particular favorites? Or have you featured some on your own blog? Email karen.malpass @ inkfactory.com with your links and we may be able to feature them in a future post.