BY DARRELL HALEN

Sitting behind his grandson, 7-year-old Parker Webb, Enio DiPietro watched the boy work on a sheet about telling time.

Later, DiPietro shared with Parker’s second-grade class and other guests in the room that he and his grandson enjoy cooking together.

It was part of “Grandparents Day – 2007” at Barron School in Salem.

During the morning of Thursday, Sept. 27, students in grades 1 through 5 welcomed their grandparents to their classrooms. It’s an annual event at the school.

“It’s so meaningful to the grandparents to spend some quality time here,” said Principal Anthony DiNardo, adding that the event allows them to see some of the positive things going on inside the school.     

Janice Laliberte of Salem came to visit her 7-year-old son, Zachary. He had called her the previous Monday night and invited her to come.

“It was so cute,” Laliberte recalled as she waited for school to start.

Ned and Sylvia Leone came from Methuen, Mass., to see two of their grandchildren, John Leone, a fourth-grader, and Lucia Leone, who is in second grade.

“When they see us, they light up,” Sylvia said.

In teacher Kathy Gibney’s classroom, where Parker is a student, the grandparents got a look at their grandchildren’s school work.

“Kids, you can take some books out of your desk and show your grandparents what kind of math we do,” Gibney told her class.

A few minutes earlier, the students asked the grandparents what school was like when they were children.

Some of the answers seemed to surprise them. They didn’t use backpacks, the grandparents told them, and
many of them did not eat at school but instead went home for lunch.

Ryan Quinlan wanted to know if the grandparents rode a bus to school. Many replied that they walked instead.

What games did they like to play, another student asked. Jump rope and hopscotch were popular, they were told.

What did the grandparents learn in school when they were kids? The answers: the usual subjects like math and spelling, but also how to listen and how to behave.

The grandparents were also invited to talk about a particular hobby they enjoyed.

Mary Ann Manning of Salem told the class that she and grandson Joshua Manning, 7, have fun painting together. She likes to use watercolors and acrylics.

Manning showed two paintings and said another painting hangs in the dining room at Joshua’s home.

Later, as DiPietro, and his wife, Dorothy, left the school, they carried homemade cards that Parker had made for them.

“I love you so much, I am so happy you came,” their grandson had written in each card.