This was an awesome activity in our high care section.
We used white card and had the ladies paint the flower their favourite colour. I then cut their photo out in a circle shape and then cut a white circle slightly larger. The white circle was a backing for their photo which was the centre of the flower.
We have them on the wall in a line sprouting up from the hand rail. Every body comments on them. We will be putting them in their room beginning of June.
OMG you have no idea how popular this is in our facility.
We bought a set of plastic bocce balls from Kmart & a set of real stainless steel balls from rebel sport (sometimes the steel ones are too heavy for some residents).
We play every Saturday morning and once during the week. We have 2 teams and they get quite competitive. We have just started visiting our sister facilities and playing against them too.
We have recently just modified an indoor bocce game as the weather is becoming colder and wetter. For the indoor game we get everyone to sit in a circle in the room. (We are lucky we have a room with carpet).
I then alternate coloured balls around the room. They still play in 2 teams. The jack goes in the middle of the room and they take turns throwing the bocce ball to see who ends up the closest to the jack(all balls stay in play until everyone has had a turn).
They don't have to leave their chair. We laugh our heads off, sometimes the balls go under chairs and under tables, they love it so much and the feedback from the residents is that they are actually enjoying the indoor version better.
They say they don't have to rely on staff to stand all the time, they like not getting out of their chair.
Absolutely fantastic, recommend giving it a go, the balls in Kmart are cheap.
What a nice idea Heather. I have also made a coloured fruit salad bingo for the residents that can't recognise numbers. They love it and most of them recognise common fruits no matter how advanced their dementia is.
We did these with our residents last year and will do again this year. We got the residents to paint a leaf in autumn colours and when it dried we asked them what Autumn meant to them or what jumped into their head when we said Autumn. We wrote their first name and their answer on the leaf and then blue tacked them to a corridor wall (scattered and making the leaves look like they are falling from a tree), so all family and visitors could read them. People stood there for ages reading all the comments and thought it was a great idea. We often do something similar with each season ie snowflakes for winter etc
I only joined Golden Carers tonight secretly wondering if I was going to waste my money when I hit the 'join now' button, well I have now been sitting in front of my computer for hours with my eye balls hanging out of my head, wanting to go to sleep and just can't sign off. I will definately be bragging about this at work tomorrow & trialling alot of these ideas in the weeks to come.I will not be missing out on sending my feedback in. What a fantastic site !! Keep up the good work...... Kelly
You have the best activity and recreation site out in the world. I use about 4 sites, and yours is always the best! I can always find the best from your site.
Chick Hatching Program for Seniors