Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Gray Maneuvers



Staff wore gray on Respect the Aged day, a holiday in Japan. We began with relaxing chair yoga, then did one of my new favorite things and added sticky notes to a laminated sign with our list of phrase finishers. The phrase was "Elders Deserve Respect Because..." and they said things like "they worked hard all of their life," "everyone deserves respect", "they gave respect", and "they raised us".

I will re-use this poster for new answers next month. In the meantime, it and others stay on a board in the common room.

In the afternoon I added gray to decoupage and we painted "respect your elders" onto canvases. Then we finished the day with heated towel massages so I could show the patients my respect and admiration.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

51 Card Pick Up

Have a deck that is incomplete? Instead of throwing away the cards, use them as brushes. Our patients did to varying effects.

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Passport to Fun

On vacation memories day, we made paper passports with color photos of patients. They filled out their names, favorite modes of transportation, who they like to travel with, and one thing they never forget to pack. As always, we had some hilarious adult-only answers. I also stamped the places they recalled visiting in the past in their books. This activity led to some great discussions between patients, staff, and visitors long after I left for the day.

Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Carat Day

On Carat Day we chatted about jewelry we've given, received, found, and lost. Patients and staff shared proposal stories. We learned about the 4 C's of diamond buying (hint: carat refers to weight, not size).

For Bingo their prizes were matching games of birthday gem stone cards.

After that, patients made thank you tags for jewel candy rings for staff. And of course, we listened to Neil Diamond.