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.