Members Forum

I feel I’m slowly burning out, I don’t take much time for myself. Usually money commitments. It’s usually work then home. I love working I’m the oldest one at work and don’t plan to retire but I either don’t make the time or I don’t have the money, I’m working hard so I don’t have lots of commitments when I do retire. I did retire once and Didn’t like it and am still working at 70, my friends and family are off holidaying or working

Thankyou:) perfect for what I'm planning for our residents.

If we make smoothies/Ice cream floats the staff decorate the glasses with the chocolate and sprinkles with the residents so they have home made cocktails

I held a Wedding photo reminiscing activity last year... A HUGE SUCCESS!!! I placed all photos on a table covered with a lace table cloth, with a vase of flowers strings of pearls etc.... looked beautiful. I then picked a photo , naming the person whose photo it was , with them telling their story as the photo was passed around the group. I had a staff members wedding photo which I asked all to guess who it was. The room was packed and residents / family members , as well as staff talked about it for weeks. I have just started running a vintage photo group , again a hit, which I will be adding to our program monthly.

Glad that you and your residents enjoyed it Debbie. There is another similar one of Proverbs and several other quizzes to complete the sayings. Enjoy.
Owen

Our Dementia residents loved looking at the old pictures! They all remembered something about each of the pictures. It was fun for reminiscing, even when we were not playing Bingo.
The one comment that was the funniest was about Marilyn Monroe. When I asked one of the women if she knew who it was, she just shook her head and said "The Dress"! 60 years later, she still remembers the picture of the dress, that she did NOT like!

Thanks so much for your hard work! I will be using this tomorrow for "Name that tune"

Thank you for the Aussie Bingo game, much appreciated
I actually modified my sheets as many of my residents would not remember "Louie the fly" they would remember the Add but not the actual "Louie" and a few other pictures also would confuse them
I wrote underneath all pictures in (black per) as large as possible of what the actual picture is, and I feel this will help them greatly

I cut a piece of paneling the size of the game sheet, and used Mod Poge to hold the sheet onto the wood paneling. Makes a nice game board, and they can slide the cards off the board easily, because it is a little over an eighth of an inch [7-8 mm] off the table. It's difficult for them to get their fingers under the card to lift it off, so sliding it off is much easier.

Thank you so much for these!!!
-Katie

Thank you so much for sharing this. My group absolutely loved it and all joined in shouting out the answers.
I'll have a look to see if there are any similar activities :-)

A new activity has been posted by a Golden Carers member: St. Patrick's Day Bingo

Great, looking forward to it Sara. Your bingo is the best I have found. It isn't too childish looking and that is important.

Why not make some Valentines cards, or Valentines cookies 2 x heart shaped sandwched together with jammy (like a jammy dodger) put bunting up around the room and on the residents dining tables little heart shaped candles. Carry out a Valentines bingo and do some Valentines colouring - play a CD of love songs and for the afternoon entertainment how about a nice romantic film get one of your residents to choose one. Have fun and spread the love today :)

Hi Sierra, in group settings sometimes it takes more than one session for them to get into the activity. You shouldn't give up; try another time with something completely different. It requires a little planning. Think of the popular perfumes and colognes from the 1950s and 1960s: buy or borrow it from residents' relatives; all you need is 3 or 4 perfumes/colognes.
Spray on a small piece of blotting paper and pass around for the residents to guess the scent. If you have males in the group, add an aftershave and scented hair product (Brylcreem). You will find that it may regenerate a lively discussion. Here are some possible choices:
'Chanel no. 5' by Chanel
'Tabu' by Dana
'English Lavender' by Yardley
'Accomplice' by Coty
"Arpege' by Lavin
'4711' by Maurer & Wirts
'Joy' byJean Patou
You may also ask residents what perfumes they used or preferred and then get the scents according to their taste and run the session a couple of weeks later. They will come around, you'll see!

We tried this with our residents but had an issue with a lot of the residents not being able to smell the scents. Do you have any other suggestions on what we could do?

Hi Susan,

Did you hit the download button? It may take a few seconds, but it should then load the following page, which will let you print the poster:
https://www.goldencarers.com/pdf/4627/

Great idea Owen

You could also use these pictures as an Identitng game especially for lower functioning residents
You could enlarge the pictures for those who are visually impaired
You could do this as a reminiscing activity also

I put these in the break room to lighten up the day!
Thank You

Useful and some great activities ideas thanks for sharing .

Tried to print the valentines posters off but no success anyone else having the same problem.

I must admit that I do too, Glenda. In fact, I think most Activity Professionals struggle with putting themselves first every once in awhile - the fact that we are great caregivers makes us good at our jobs but not so good at caring for ourselves.
I hope you can make small steps to taking better care of yourself this month and this year - you are worth it!

A new activity has been posted by a Golden Carers member: Hollywood Stars Bingo

A new activity has been posted by a Golden Carers member: Sightseeing Bingo

A new activity has been posted by a Golden Carers member: Under the Sea Bingo

I will work on the St. Patrick's day bingo this week and post it as soon as I finish :) I also made other themed picture bingo games I will post as well

A new activity has been posted by a Golden Carers member: Something, Someone, Somewhere

I just joined and keen to browse through the materials, concept, ideas I can incorporate with my work.

I really struggle with the whole self care thing

Hi Nesha,
The first months of a new job can be especially stressful. I'm so proud of you for noticing and listening to your body. You can't give your all to your residents when you don't have anything to give. Good for you for taking time for yourself - I hope you noticed a difference in your energy and health, and that you make self-care a part of your regular routine. Cheering you on!

I'm so thankful you find community, validation, and value here at Golden Carers, Lesley! Your residents are lucky to have you - and remember to take time to care for yourself too.

Sara, will you be sharing a St. Patrick's bingo like you've been having for the other holidays? I love your bingo games.

I love your quiz activities, I am always looking for a new quiz as our residents love them, it can be hard to keep up with them. I know I can always find something on G. C.
Thank you so much for your help
Heather

Great article!

I'm not the greatest at managing aggressive behavior, but I now feel a little more confident after reading this article!

Here is an idea that you can add to the outings for Seniors. We recently visited a garden model railway. Despite the fact that there were some people who did not like gardening or others who were not interested in model railways we persuaded everyone to make the visit. The host really turned it on for us with chairs in the shade , drinks and nibbles as well as the trains running of course. It was a great visit which all enjoyed and could not stop talking about afterwards. Garden model railway enthusiasts are always keen to show off their handiwork so 'T' one up now, you will not be disappointed.
Owen, another model railway nut.

I used this activity today with my memory care residents and they loved it!
I gave them the facts and waited to see if they could guess before showing the picture of the bird. They got all but 2 which I thought was really good. Thanks for this activity. Would love some more similar to it.

February is my birthday month so I was interested to see what happened then to light up the world. You have done some great research and as always the site covered a multitude of news and activities. I was able to take part in some of them on the actual date of my birthday when it fell on the same day as my visit to The Redwood Club. I go here every Thursday with a number of other Seniors for activities, games, quizzes, fellowship, exchange of interests, and a very enjoyable cooked midday meal. We get on fine together and love taking part in activities from your site as well as supplying some too. Thank you for the chance to access them for the others at the Club. We are most grateful. Owen

I think I'm hitting a burn put at the moment. I've been moody all weekend, unmotivated let week now my skin is dry and breaking out and I have ulcers in my mouth.
I've only been in the job 5 weeks.

I saw this email whilst I was making Valentine's activity packs earlier and decided to have a much needed night off. I had a bath, a face mask, a good movie and now I'm reading a chapter of my book with a hot drink before bed :)
Thankyou very much for the advice I will definetly be baring this in mind :)

Without Golden Carers to lean on l would have burnt out months ago.
I like to easy steps for preventing burnout and at the present l am making up a look after yourself sheet for families, caring for a loved one with dementia, so that will help me out there also.
Your site gives new ideas to old activities, and the quizzes for my group are wonderful. They fill in that time before lunch arrives and all the clients are worrying about is lunch. Thanks again to all who have part in the wonderful site of Golden Carers.

I started this Proverbs and Parables and a Quiz yesterday. This is age-old wisdom that transcends time. If you get them to guess the endings and then ask them what it all means, you can come up with an unusual, thought-provoking discussion, much like a university lecture. It gets Residents/ Clients involved with what you are doing, and by including them in the discussion, they feel happier. (hopefully)

Haley has submitted a new article: 15 Ways To Practise Self Care And Avoid Burnout

Have enjoyed chinese new yaer activities. Good work!!!

These are lovely, I'm thinking a photo copy of a recent photo of a loved one could be glued on the cut out heart too! I've done similar thing with large heart shaped paper doilies purchased from $2 shop, very cheap and effective activity, then staple onto curling ribbon/ ribbon to make bunting

So glad there is a new one of these

Absolutely fantastic to receive and share with residents in Retirement Housing, I am constantly being badgered for next month's edition!!
Thank you for such a valuable item!!

Hi Cara, well done! It sounds so much fun!

We do this quite a few times and add different items all the time it brings great hilarity in the group.

We had so much fun playing this with both residents and staff and families. We kept it secret to have an element of surprise. we just promoted the game as Irish Carpet Bowls, didn't mention Potatoes or turnips, with everyone asking what's Irish Carpet Bowls, how do you play it. We kept up the suspense by telling them you'll have to come along and find out. We also added a little twist, we play carpet bowls in teams of two, so we coloured our potatoes red & blue and we added lots of lucky 4 leaf clovers to our carpet mat to give the residents more opportunity to win as the potatoes have a mind of their own, but here's my evaluation of using food dye as suggested by our Irish chef (bad idea) as the dye also stains your hands, so we sealed the potatoes with clear gloss to stop the food colour leaching onto your hands which made the potatoes lovely and glossy, but not such a good idea to do this on a weekend before your games on the day, cause by the time you play, the potatoes are getting soft spots resulting in roars of laughter when the residents heard the potatoes go splat and split in places, so we had to apply a quick remedy of wrapping the potatoes in glad wrap resulting in more laughter. So if you want to colour your potatoes don't use food colour. We are yet to solve this issue of colouring or adding something to distinguish teams for this years game, but I'm sure whatever we do it will be lots of fun, like others, the roars of laughter from discovering they are rolling potatoes brought everyone to the activity room to find out what the heck are they all laughing at., which in turn resulted in staff joining in and having fun. You can use Red potatoes and White potatoes but they are more uniform in shape, its much more fun with the larger odd size shape potatoes.