Keep Calm and Leprechaun

There are a lot of reasons not to linger on the Valentine's holiday so we made new decorations for the fridge. We used a template of shamrocks cut in 3 sizes as stencils on St. Patrick's scrapbook paper. We glued a smaller onto a larger and tied it with ribbon. One resident in particular was able to cut the ribbon for borders and for the clovers, much to the amazement of her daughters. What I like about decorating is that everyone can take part on some level even if just to voice an opinion about placement.

We changed the table decorations for similar reasons and I can say that the idea for them was lucky inspiration. I gave myself a small limit to spend on them just for fun and found colored pipe cleaners that I knew I wanted to use. We already had garden stakes and small styrofoam balls and by cutting the pipe cleaners we  could make little rainbows between the stakes. It didn't look quite right so I thought to use cotton to give the styrofoam a more cloud-like look. In the jars we used green stones and a even a few "gold" coins. I think they turned out quite nice.

Our Dining is Dynamite

On Presidents' Day we began by making a craft for our friends in the memory care unit. Penny pendants involved cutting three sized stars of red white and blue paper, punching a hole, hanging ribbon, gluing a penny, and a trip to the bank. Afterwards we continued the celebration with Presidential trivia and even a crossword puzzle during happy hour.

This month is Dining Appreciation month and I know candy usually goes over pretty well. We used rolos, paper, curling ribbon, and a bunch of tape to make little stick of boom powder. We did not win a peace prize for them, but the kitchen staff were happy that they were finally recognized.

You Blow Me Away, Valentine

Always a lover of puns, my Valentines to the residents this year were packets of tissues with a note that read "You Blow Me Away, Valentine". They were decorated by a few residents who promised to act surprised.

For our music social I only played love songs. After lunch, we went shopping for Valentine's Day candy. It was the day after the holiday and there were still a few good deals. While the residents picked out things for their loved ones (and selves) I was able to pick up a few supplies for next week.

To end our lovely day, I read from two books of poetry. One was Tennyson and the other was from the owner of the company actually.

Throw Me Something, Mister

At the end of a busy day, the residents got to just have fun at our Mardi Gras party. I went during lunch for a King Cake and beads. The cake was something new to the residents.

Rather than just hand out beads we played a game called "Throw Me Something, Mister". Everyone cut out pieces of paper and marked half of them with an X. Then we took turns pulling out one piece at a time. If it was marked with an X then the resident said the key phrase and I threw him or her some beads.

My only condition was that they come up with an interesting story for how they got all their necklaces.

Bling for the Employees

Valentine's began early for us with a visit from the daycare children. Not only did they make Valentines to hand out to each of the residents, they also came and made heart men as an activity. The residents loved watching the kids and telling them how beautiful their "artwork" was and helping them with a cute decoration. The daycare director explained to the residents that they would get to keep the results of today because our retirement community lets the children keep their crafts when we visit them. She is very sweet.

After lunch we used kiss candies and pipe cleaners to make rings for each of the employees. Each got a tag that said "We like you and we're gonna put a ring on you". We used ribbon to attach the tags and each tag was decorated with a sticker.

An employee tries on her new ring

The day reminded me that thought is worth more than money when it comes to showing love.

Banners of Love

The Valentine's scrapbook paper I saved from last year has gotten a lot of good use. The latest endeavor was decorating the door in a banner that may make you smile.

We used ribbon, glue, black markers, and scissors. Everyone's banner turned out a little differently.

Animal Love

My theme days are on Saturdays. The night before I like to show a movie in our private activity room and have it relate to the theme if possible. For this month's theme I asked the residents for a good animal movie and they immediately agreed that the "Lassie" with Elizabeth Taylor was a great choice. I served popcorn and made sure the volume was at a good level and even the residents who have seen it many times seemed to enjoy it.

We began Saturday with a chat about animals. I asked for pet stories, took a poll about the resident's favorite type of animal, and then brought out a giant book filled with pictures of many different types of mammals. The pictures brought back many memories and spontaneous comments and we had some good laughs. One resident remembers the fence she had to crawl through on the way to school because a neighbor's sheep would always head butt her before she could make her way to the other side of it.

Next we played Animal Sounds Bingo. The Bingo cards have pictures of animals on them and a CD of animal noises gets played. The residents must identify the sound then mark off the corresponding animal on their card until someone fills up their nine-space card.

After lunch we took a walk and then I offered everyone "Parrot Cocktails" (mostly ginger ale and grenadine but I put grenadine in other beverages as well). Finally we were ready for our party.

pony fruit snacks, teddy grahams, gummy bears, goldfish, and animal crackers

Everyone got a sheet with a word search on one side of people who have February birthdays and the other of an animal word game. For that there were two phrases using one common animal word that must be filled in the middle. For example "Gummi _____ Hug". The answer is "Gummi Bear Hug"

When everyone had a snack and a drink and time to finish up the sheet we went over the answers together. We sang happy birthday for the residents born this month, years ago. We recognized one resident for completing her goals in a program she was in. The last thing we did as a group was to give captions to funny pictures of cats I had printed out.

I wore a shirt with XO's and cartoons of cats and dogs. Also, I made sure when we took our walk that everyone got to play with my sugar glider if they wanted. I hope the day was a nice distraction for anyone who gets sad around Valentine's Day and reminds them that there are still lots of types of love they can give and receive.

Voodoo Bird Feeders

I decided this month's theme day would be animal love. We began the day before by making Bird Feeder Cakes. To hang, they needed a hole through the center so we inserted straws into them before they hardened. We used cookie cutters including gingerbread men shapes as molds. I left them overnight and I'm sure they looked pretty questionable to the people coming into work later that day.

The next day we took out the straws and strung the cakes on ribbon. One resident in particular wanted to help me hang them despite the cold and we put them in a few different places where he thought the birds would like to eat.

The recipe turned out well. Of course I had to try my own version and used cereal rather than bird seed. Those ones were mushy and unpleasant to touch.

Glenn Miller's Early (or SUPER Belated) Birthday

Last week I mentioned that Glenn Miller's birthday is coming up. As in one month from now on March 1st... In my mind, when it comes to activities, the future is all on the same mental playing field. For instance if I learn that you can make tortilla chips from tortillas I deliberate whether to do it on Mexican Independence day in September or Cinco De Mayo in May or for the Day of the Dead in November. They are all equal to me because when I come up with an idea I just need a place to put it. However, to one of my residents the future doesn't seem so broad and she was disappointed to think that she would need to wait 3 more weeks. I already got music for a special music social so I just told her we would celebrate early. I asked the room whether they had celebrated last year and everyone shook their heads. "We're just making up for lost time then!"

Typically I play one CD of music from the various artists so that the residents can guess the title, singer, and band. Friday was special because I brought in 58 Glenn Miller songs and just let them guess the title. To make time for all the songs I didn't play the whole thing, just enough of the music until someone was able to guess or it was clear no one could remember. I noticed that the color he mentions the most is blue. It went well and I would do this again with other musicians.

The Sixth State

I'm no artist, so my clue of a hand-drawn whale to guess which state joined the Union yesterday wasn't much help to the residents.

1. It joined the union on February 6th, 1788
2. Mother Goose (real surname Vergoose) and Dr. Suess came from there
3. poet Emily Dickenson was a native
4. Louisa May Alcott wrote her famous "Little Women" there
5. their "big dig" has been causing headaches since 1991 but should turn out to be an underground highway
6. Paul Revere was from there. I learned he was a silversmith
7. two of their famous islands are Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard
8. I went whale-watching there in middle school
9. they have the oldest college, Harvard
10. the capitol is Boston
11. they produce a great deal of cranberries
12. I find it funny that their state flower is the Mayflower
13. they were founded by the Puritans
14. they had a famous Tea Party that set the state for the Revolutionary war

We talked a lot about what we knew about Massachusetts, what we didn't know, what we had visited and what we would be interested in visiting. As we learned more facts about Massachusetts I wrote them on the board until it was full and everyone had an answer when I asked what the most interested fact they picked up was.

Be Calm and Carry Arrows

Inspiration hit me as I was driving to work this morning. I knew I wanted to decorate the fridge with Cupid but thought it needed more. Our collective efforts produced this:

It set the scene for afternoon Cupid milkshakes (chocolate ice cream, banana, and topped with conversation hearts).

Lucky Dragons

Friday was National Wear Red day to promote discussion about heart disease (a good choice for February/love month) and not only did I wear the color, we also used red balloons for physical exercise, I played songs with red in the title for our music social, and finally we made red dragon decorations for the upcoming Chinese New Year.

Of course the residents who wanted to keep their dragons were able to. The rest left them with me to help set the mood for Chinese New Year trivia next week. "They make great BINGO luck talismans" I warned. The names I remember for our dragons were Ming, Scotty, Bo-Jo, and Cool Boy.

UPDATE

Today was Chinese New Year and we brought out the dragons and I asked questions for prizes. Also we looked up what the Chinese believe is important for the residents based on their birth year. At Chinese food outings I usually need to calculate because the menu doesn't go back far enough in years. Anyway, we really learned a lot:

 1. it's lunar based

2. lasts 15 days

3. the "years" (represented by animals) occur every 12 years

4. there is no year of the cat

5. not only is your year supposed to tell you about yourself, but also hints at which year your friends and mate should belong to (or not belong to)

6.  tangerines are usually doled out because they represent prosperity

7. the New Year ends with the Lantern Festival where the well known paper lanterns are hung to light the way to a place to view the full moon

8. cleaning symbolizes getting rid of the bad spirits and is usually done in preparation for the new year

9. 2013 is the Year of the Snake. 1929 was also the year of the Snake.

10. Red is a color that keeps away back luck and brings in good luck. That's why it's used more on wedding days than white which is the Chinese color representing death. To them, wearing white to your wedding would be like wearing a black dress to us.

11. eating squid during the new year festival could mean loss of your job

12. ancient firecrackers were made of bamboo

Crumb Day

Actually, it was Croissant Day, but all I was able to capture by picture were the crumbs.

For our taste test today I picked up four types of pastries from Panera and gave a small piece of each to the residents to taste and decide which was their favorite. The options were cheese, cherry, chocolate, and plain (cheese and cherry got the most votes).

We discussed the history of the croissant, much to the amusement of one British resident, "Everything has a history in America!" They descended from Kipferl and are distinguished by their cresent shape. They have many layers divided by butter and can filled or topped. Some people eat them for breakfast while others consider them purely a dessert. We discussed different preferences of countries and of the residents themselves.

Afterwards, I took my tray with me to tempt the male residents to come to Men's group. There we discussed Valentine's Day and wrote more letters to children.  The sweetest one so far was by a resident who told me Valentines Day, to him, meant nothing special for him and his late wife because for them every day was filled was sweetness and romance. They didn't need to single out one day to focus on that.

Sunflower State

Let's see if you can guess which state joined the Union on January 29th, 1861 (the 34th state)
1. President Eisenhower was born there
2. Amelia Earhart was born there
3. wheat is grown in great quantities
4. they have prairie dogs
5. meadowlark is the state bird
6. Bat Mastersen and Wyatt Earp got famous keeping law and order there
7. "Home on the Range"
8. "Get out of Dodge"
9. Topeka is the capital
10. there is a slightly famous movie about called "The Wizard of Oz"
11. one of it's cities, due to geographic location, is known as the belly button of the continental US

Today was one of those days where everything went well and I got a lot of residents out of their rooms.

One thing we did was make new table decorations. I was thoroughly excited about this and the results were better than I expected. For February I wanted something to do with Valentines day so we used a mix of red jar marbles, confetti, and paper folds to put into our table jars. Then we folded paper into cones and punched out hearts to tape on top. As always the residents made versions as unique as themselves and we are better for it. To sit the cones I had the inspiration (one night as I was trying to get to bed but unable to turn off my "activities" brain) to spear the small styrofoam balls we have with the flower picks so that the cones would sit at the right height.

Afterwards I encouraged the residents to rest while I cleaned up and then set up for tea. Once everyone had their cups I asked willing residents to write letters to children. This is my latest idea for a program to keep us in touch with the youth: we write letters telling them about our traditions of holidays and they write back to do the same. Many of the residents wrote that they didn't think of Valentines Day as a real holiday and didn't practice giving out candy or going on expensive dates. They are interested to hear how different it is for the second graders we write to. If this goes well we'll do it for St. Patricks and Easter.

Sears Shack

My favorite activities are free.

This morning we did "Flashbacks" where we discuss what growing up was like for the residents. I take notes and eventually would like to put together a small book for the residents to have and give to family members.

Today's topic for Flashbacks was inspired by Thomas Crapper's death anniversary. He made flush toilets popular before he died in 1910. Plus, his name is fun to say. To the residents I invited I said, "There is no better way to begin the day than with a chat about outhouses." We had a great turnout.

Highlights of our talk included many memories of visiting the outhouse in the cold. One woman remembered her father being the one who dug out a path in the snow. She also remembers the cold coming in through the cracks, so she wallpapered the outhouse when her mother had leftover paper. Another woman remembers the rooster chasing her to the door and being afraid of getting out lest he come at her with his spurs. One man remembered using a cornhusk for toilet paper. "Abrasive".

All the residents recalled taking the Sears catalog in with them and tearing out the pages they had read to wipe with.

This afternoon we made a visit to the memory care unit. Last week we made decorations for them for Valentine's day and much of our visit involved me taping and tying them to the room in which they do most of their activities. I think the residents in the memory care unit enjoy our visits and helping to decide where to put decorations. The residents from my unit enjoy seeing old friends. Everyone enjoys the pet visit at the end.

New Year for Trees

I invited the Jewish residents and anyone else who was interested to come discuss Tu B'Shevat yesterday and it went pretty well. I learned a lot about the "New Year for Trees" celebrated this time of year because in Israel the fruit bearing trees are beginning to bloom.

For those unfamiliar with the Holiday I laid out a plate of olives and said, "You may be wondering why I'm offering olives at 10:15 this morning..." Eating fruit singled out in the Torah (including grapes, figs, dates, pomegranates, and olives) is one custom for Tu B'Shevat. Another is planting trees or collecting money to send trees in Israel.

Some residents told of their family traditions on this day (which is celebrated not a specific day each year but according to the year's Jewish calendar) and we all discussed the novel concept that we recognize many new years throughout the calendar year such as a school year, the fiscal year for taxes, our birthdays, anniversaries, etc.

The Eyes Have It

Tuesday I turned into TwoEyesDay (you have to say it really, really, fast) and we began by using sight on funny pictures of kids and coming up with captions for them. I encouraged the residents to look at the picture and add a caption to it if they could but otherwise just read it and hand it to the next person. The pictures traveled around the table many times. They were enjoyed so much they got passed on all day and I ended up taping them to a resident's door because she didn't want them to be thrown away.

 Later we did some simple sewing. Using the case that came with my sunglasses as a template we cut out two pieces of felt, sewed them together, and turned it inside out.

I thought we might be able to use a little inspiration so I came up with a playlist for us to listen to while battling with needle and thread. It included:
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes -The Platters       
Hungry Eyes   -Eric Carmen   
Brown Eyed Girl  -Van Morrison       
Green-Eyed Lady  - Sugarloaf          
Cotten-Eyed Joe  -Burl Ives   
When Irish Eyes Are Smiling -Frank Patterson   
Bette Davis Eyes - Gwyneth Paltrow  
I'll Be Seeing You  - Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra Feat. Frank Sinatra  
I Only Have Eyes For You  -Kurt Elling           
Looking At The World Through Rose Colored Glasses  -Frank Sinatra & Count Basie  
I Only Have Eyes For You -Frank Sinatra & Count Basie          
The Way You Look Tonight  -Fred Astaire  
Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes -Johnny Cash  
I Can See Clearly Now  -Johnny Nash   

Thesaurus/ Synonyms Day

Not everyone believes in synonyms. Some people are even enraged at the way they cloud the precise meanings of things.

The residents who came to celebrate Thesaurus day do not fall into either of those categories. I began with a simple word like happy and asked for synonyms. When no new ideas came popping I took the last word in the list and began a new one. After we had several lists we looked back to see which words came up often and which were unique. We talked about the man who must have spent a great deal of time determining which words were related enough to count as synonyms.

It was an interesting activity and gave me a few ideas for opposite day.

Compliment my Complement

Next Thursday is National COMPliment Day and one activities person in particular is gung-ho about it. I decided to COMPly with her wishes and we decorated a board to collect nice things about each other. The residents used sticker letters which COMPlemented each other to spell what we thought was important in our board.

Snowman Toss

 There were styrofoam boards left over from a project and I like to decorate them once in a while for a special toss. The snowman I colored and cut was used with small marshmallows to determine the order we played Jeopardy on Monday night.

Jeopardy itself is a great activity. I use a dry erase board to write topics along the top and values along the side. I print the answers and questions and when a resident gets the correct answer I write his or her name in the proper place in the grid on the board. If no one guessed I draw an "X" and this has been the easiest way for me to keep score.

Maintaining Thanks

I read somewhere that January is a great month to show appreciation of Maintenance workers so a few weeks ago I sent out an email to the whole building (minus our three maintenance men) that I was collecting stories and kind words for them. On Tuesday I printed out all the responses and then went around to each resident to ask for more anecdotes and I got many. I took three cards from the greeting card club's stash and slipped the messages inside.

Then we made a snack I knew the maintenance director was fond of: chocolate pretzel candies. The residents lined up the pretzels, unwrapped the chocolate hugs, then smooshed down the candies when the hugs were warm from the oven (2 minutes at 350F). It wasn't easy to do in gloves, but the look of happy surprise when I called the maintenance number and gave him cards and food instead of a work request was worth it.

Christmas Card Craft

Every year I receive beautiful Christmas cards I hate to part with but don't know what to do with. I figured this also happened to the residents so I resolved to use them somehow and my idea was to cut cards into circles, hole punch them, and hang them from a ribbon to use as a banner next year.

We spent a while yesterday tracing circles onto the cards to capture the best image (I brought in old CDs for the tracing), hole punching, tying ribbon loops through each, and today we ordered them to look nice on a fancy Christmas ribbon.

The result was gorgeous, and I'm sorry I didn't take a picture before we rolled it up.

First Radio Broadcast

Flashbacks is an activity I use often to jog memories and bring up stories about what life used to be like for the residents. I take notes and hope someday to make a book version for them to gift to family members.

On Sunday we talked about the radio since it was the anniversary of the First Radio broadcast. I asked the residents to tell me what they remembered about the role radio played in their lives. They remembered three shows in particular and some characters and details of each. That came in handy when we did a crossword about it and the shows they mentioned came up a few times.

I took the opportunity to use my new ipad for the first time during this activity. On youtube I looked up the shows they mentioned and played excerpts from them much to the residents' amazement.

European Day

Yesterday we had a simple theme that went well. I wore my Italian scarf, striped shirt, and hair to the side.

We began the day with a chat about the places everyone had visited in Europe, favorite memories, and how it is different from America. This could have gone on for a while but a fitness instructor came in and I encouraged the residents to stay and participate in that.

Later on we had our monthly party and I printed European puzzles as well as pictures of European symbols. Not everyone wanted to paint, and for them I encouraged working together on the puzzles and word games. For those who were willing to make something to take away from the day, I asked them to pick their favorite symbols (a famous building, the shape of a country, a skyline, etc) and a flat piece of wood. If necessary I made an enlarged copy and then they cut it out and traced it onto the wood. Then they painted around it in black for a reverse silhouette.

Something everyone participated in at the party was smelling perfumes. Scents like that make me think of French women for some reason. I asked the residents to bring a perfume of choice and we sprayed it on a strip of paper I had left over from the caterpillar craft we did with the children.  I wrote names on the back and we passed the strips around discussing which were our favorites and reasons we wore perfume in the first place.

To stay hydrated we drank Swiss hot chocolate and talked about German food. It was a lovely day.

Birthday Pins

Over a year ago I began making birthday pins with the residents and occasionally we replenish our stash. Our greeting card club not only makes these, cards for illnesses or injuries, but also now makes birthday cards for employees. They have such giving spirits.