CELEBRATE AMAZING WOMEN
Learn & Listen – In celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8th and Women’s History month today’s discussion will be around amazing women. Start the activity off with some historical information about women from all areas of life such as the Bible, military, medical field, royalty or inspirational. Examples: Biblical – Mary, mother of Jesus, inspirational – Mother Teresa, etc. Also find local community women in your area that are well known for their contributions to include in today’s topic. Then talk about amazing women in each of their lives such as a mother, grandmother, aunt, sister, friend, teacher or someone that was a mentor to them.
Game – Make a list of historical women and what they are known for in history. Ask residents to match the names with the accomplishment. Have at least 15 to 20 matches to make it challenging enough for the residents to want to participate while having fun remembering or learning some historical facts.
Exercise – During exercise time today play music only by women and point out during class any interesting facts about each of the singers to share with the group as they stretch and tone to some great songs by amazing musical women.
Facility activity – Make an announcement that you are holding a contest to celebrate three women that have made a big impact in their life. Set a nomination box at main points in the facility along with nomination slips and pen. Let all residents and staff members place one nomination each from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM for a women within your facility that they consider to be an amazing women. This nomination can be for a resident or staff women. At 2:30 PM pick up the ballet boxes and total all the nomination slips. The most nominations will win 1st place, the next highest nominations will get 2nd place and the next will get 3rd place. The winners will be announced during the social to “Celebrate Amazing Women”. If you happen to have a tie then place them in a bowl and let a voluntary draw them out with the first one being the 3rd place winner, then 2nd and the last being the 1st place winner.
Social – Decorate a cake to serve with something relating to the theme written on it such as “Celebrate Amazing Women”. Serve the cake with coffee and/or tea before announcing the winners to all residents and staff. Present a special award to the women who won 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. In order to recognize all the amazing women in your facility give each woman attending a single flower in honor of how special they are.
Movie – Suggestions (note – as always preview the movie to see if it appropriate for your residents)
• Amelia Earhart movies – several to choose from such as:
• Following Amelia Earhart: Heroines of the Sky
• Biography – Amelia Earhart
• National Geographic: Where’s Amelia Earhart?
• Not for Ourselves Alone – The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (1999). This documentary is an accurate story for their fight for women’s right to vote. No rating listed and if you can’t find it at the video story Amazon.com has it for sale.
• The Miracle Worker – The story of two extraordinary women, teacher Annie Sullivan and her deaf and blind student Helen Keller.
Check out these beautiful Springtime crafts and coloring books! |
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ST. PATRICK'S DAY
These may or may not be new ideas to you, but since I have some Irish heritage in my family tree I thought I would throw in some ideas just for fun.
Craft – Since most will have a party on this day how about decorating it a little differently this year. As a craft project the week before have residents make “Lucky Sleeves” for your chairs. These are simple chair covers that will add extra charm to your Irish party decor.
Materials:
• Pillowcases (standard) prefer light green, orange or white (you can check out the Goodwill store for used pillowcases to keep the cost down. Just remember to wash them.)
• Felt squares: light green, dark green, orange and white (you can use the kind that has the sticky backs)
• Pencil, scissors, felt glue, ruler, fabric glue
• Puffy paint (white, green, orange, black and gold)
• Sequins and beads (white opal, shiny green and shiny gold/yellow)
• Ribbon – at least two yards per chair (if you are in a large facility then don’t use the ribbon, it will be too costly, however if you want a tie to keep the chair sleeves on you could try white rope or enough ribbon to just tie a knot. Either way the chair covers will look great.) If they are a little long just tuck them under to fit the chair.
Instruction:
• Cut out for each chair two large (about the size of a drink coaster) shamrocks (one dark green and one orange) and two smaller shamrocks (one light green and one white).
• Glue the smaller light green shamrock on the large orange shamrock and decorate with white sequins. Do the same with remaining shamrocks alternating the colors (small white on dark green).
• Cut out a green hat and add black paint to resemble a leprechaun hat. Add either a dot of gold paint for the buckle or a yellow sequin instead. Lay down the pillowcases and arrange the shamrocks and hat so it can be nicely seen on the back of the chair. I suggest the first shamrock be placed three inches on the left top corner, then the hat about five inches down from the first shamrock in the center position and the second shamrock about five to six inches down on the right hand corner. Keep both shamrocks about three to four inches from the side. Think of a large check mark with the decorations being the three points. Once all are in place then glue or peel and stick the decoration on the pillowcase.
• Now randomly glue sequins over the back of the cover or you can use puffy paint instead of the sequins when finishing the decorating. Only do this towards the upper half of the cover, so not to take away from the ribbon or rope if you plan on using them. After the glue and paint are dry then slip the covers over the chair. Finish off with the ribbon in a bow or the rope in a knot.
Lucky chest
Material:
• Medium to small box, brown and black paint, floral foam blocks (enough to fill the inside of each box)
• Silk flower stems – any kind will do as long as you use orange, yellow and white flowers
• Silk Irish Ivey and/or shamrock stem (enough to fill in for fullness in the arrangement)
• Chocolate candy coins covered in gold foil
• Floral stems
• Glue (hot glue will work for everything, but be careful when you glue on the stems to the candy…you don’t want them to melt)
Instructions:
• Painted box brown and paint black lines down front to resemble a treasure chest.
• When paint is dry glue in floral foam blocks inside. Let dry.
• Arrange silk yellow, orange and white flowers along with Irish Ivey and/or shamrock stems.
• Glue about 10 to 15 floral stems to the back of the candy coins (less if the arrangement is in a small box). Let dry.
• Add the candy coin stems in the arrangement as fill in to complete the arrangement.
• When placing the lucky chest on the table make sure to have some loose candy coins to spread around the chest and it gives the residents a lucky treat they can take with them as they leave the party.
Check out these St. Patrick's Day Goodies |
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Treats –Leprechaun Squares: Makes about 16 treats
Ingredients:
• 6 cups of Lucky Charm Cereal
• 1/2 stick butter
• 40 large marshmallows
• Irish-themed candy cake decorations
• Aluminum foil and Square 8 inch pan
Instructions:
• Line square 8 inch pan with aluminum foil with about a two inch hang over for easy removal. Spray the lining and pan sides with nonstick cooking spray.
• In large pan melt the marshmallows and butter over medium heat until smooth.
• Add Lucky Charms cereal and stir till well covered.
• Spread in pan and press evenly in pan. Let cool for 10 minutes.
• Take the aluminum foil hang over and lift the treats out from the pan. Cut into 16 square and top with Irish cake decoration candy.
OR make regular Rice Crispy treats and call them “Blarney Stones”.
Follow the Rainbow – This game can possible take all day to play depending on how fast the residents find all the rainbow pieces. Now you can play two different ways.
• Make an extremely large rainbow and divide it into many pieces, kind of like a puzzle with numbers on the back of each piece. This will make it easier to reassemble. Cut out all the pieces and hide them throughout the facility OR pin them on the back of staff member’s shirts.
• Tell the residents to find the rainbow and collect the rainbow pieces. They can collect as many as they find.
• At a designated time have all residents to come to the appointed room with all their rainbow pieces. The one that collected the most wins a prize. Then let all the residents take part in putting the rainbow back together by taping it on a wall so everyone can enjoy the finish rainbow.
If you are pinning the rainbow pieces on staff members shirts then instructed them to have fun and back out of residents room or try to hold on to their rainbow piece till the appointed time. They cannot cover it or hide it anywhere else; they just have to be creative in sliding past the residents so they can’t see it pinned on their back. If a staff member can keep their piece of the rainbow by the appointed time then they get a prize too.
EASTER
 Easter Trivia Tree - At my previous job I was part of our departmental social events team which created special events just for our department. During Easter I was asked to develop a game that all employees in our department would feel comfortable participating in. We had a diverse group, which meant that I had to provide a game that covered the religious celebration as well as the playful side of Easter. I filled select colored plastic Easter eggs with questions ranging from Biblical, traditional, food and rabbit relating to Easter. I decorated one side board with a large sketch of a tree where I taped the eggs randomly over the branches. The middle white board had instruction about the Easter Trivia and gave the color codes so participates could choice their category they prefer to select their question from. On the other side of the white board I hung an Easter Bunny flag to make it cheerful and add more color to the display. Participates had their appointed time to come in to choose their egg and see if they could answer the question. If they got the answers right then they received an Easter goody.
You can get most your questions and answers on the Internet, just Google Easter Trivia. Make sure you have the questions with answers printed out so afterwards you can post them for all to read for themselves. Instead of a display you could use a real tree branch in a bucket to hang the eggs from in the activity room so you won’t have to worry if the eggs will disappear because you will be there conducting the activity.
 Fun centerpiece for an Easter table
As part of the same Easter event as described above one of my tasks was to create a centerpiece to decorate our food table. Since we did not have a budget for extra decorations I had to use what I had at home. I took a plastic vase covered it with some gold plastic wrap and filled it 1/2 of the way with some gravel we had stored in the garage. I taped together two cardboard paper towel tubes and spray painted them silver. Then I added the tube to the vase adding more gravel around and in the tube to give it support. I blew up some pastel balloons, tied them together and attached them to the upper part of the tube. To complete the centerpiece I added pink Easter grass and lots of ribbons. The best thing about this centerpiece is I did not have to buy anything since these were items I found in my craft bin at home. Afterwards I pulled out the tube with balloons so one of the co-workers could take to her child and the rest was easy to carry home.
JOHNNY APPLESEED
Often celebrated September 26th (his birthday) or March 11th (his disputed death)
Discussion – Talk about the story of Johnny Appleseed and read the history on Wikipedia with the residents. Ask them if they have an apple story to share with the group.
Cooking – Cook or bake anything with apples. If you want to try something different then try making apple chips, or apple dumplings, or caramel apples or maybe apple butter to can and use all winter long (note, canning is a lot of work but worth the effort and something the elder women most likely have done in their past).
Hot Apple – Game played like hot potato, except they pass an apple while music is playing and the one caught with the apple in their hands when the music stops leaves the circle. The residents that leave the circle can watch while they enjoy some apple juice and apple wedges or apple chips or apple cookies.
Basket fill – This game requires the residents to be set up in teams. You will need two baskets for each team. Set up two tables at each end of the room. Place one basket on each table and on one side the baskets will all be full of apples and the other side the basket is empty. Line up chairs spreading them out from one table to the other table. The object of the game is to have one resident take an apple out from the basket and pass it to the next person on their team. Each team member has to pass the apple until it gets to the last person next to the table with the empty basket and they must put the apple in the empty basket. Once their team basket it filled with the apples from the original basket then they are pronounced the winners.
Finish the sentence – Here are some phases relating to apples that the residents can see if they can finish the phase or quote.
• The apple never… falls far from the tree. (Proverbs)
• A is… for Apple.
• The Big Apple refers to … New York City.
• An apple a day… keeps the doctor away.
• Baseball, hot dog and … apple pie.
• One bad apple… spoils the whole bunch.
• The apple of … my eye.(or can be “his eye”, either way is correct)
• American as… apple pie.
• Comparing apples… to oranges.
• Don’t upset the … apple cart.
• Rotten to … the core.
• Sour as a… green apple.
• When the apple is… ripe it will fall. (Irish Proverb)
• A stone from the hand… of a friend is an apple. (Moroccan Proverb)
• “I tell you, all politics… is apple sauce.” (Will Rogers quote)
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CHRISTINE'S THEMES: 