Simply Wonderful

My counterpart at another facility lent me a few ideas, one of which is the concept of a simple painting involving a background shape and one color for the patients to focus on. On top of this, they paint on printed pictures of their choice for something achievable but attractive. My favorite so far has been their green painted trees with birds of choice.

Bingo Prizes

Bingo can be a challenge in a psychiatric geriatric hospital. I give a bowl of cereal to each player to use as chips on their Bingo card to play. Easy clean up, and not a big deal if they accidentally eat the "chips".

Prizes can be even more of a challenge. Prizes represent success, inclusion, and a reward. However, I cannot spend too much money on prizes. The items must be safe for all patients. The nurses don't want me to offer too much candy due to glucose readings, and I also have to offer something for those who are on special diets.

On a regular basis, I use soft stuffed animals, mini candies, and stickers as prizes. I have also begun to print out things to offer the patients so they can get more than one prize per activity rather than just giving everyone who participated in some way a prize and not honoring those who were able to follow along and had an especially lucky day. An example of this was for "Clover All Over Day"- I printed shamrocks with unique sayings on them and let the patients choose one as a prize everytime they got BINGO. Another example would be to print paper trolls and let them choose one each time they won.

Margarit-na

For Margarita Day we introduced ourselves and our favorite cocktails, discussed the genesis of Margaritas, played a word guess where the clue was a type of spirit, and finally made mocktail margaritas with salt rimmed cups.