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