ICE CREAM SANDWICH DAY
This can be celebrated on Aug 2 according to allabouticecream.com under history and then national days.
Discussions – Read the history from Wikipedia on ice cream sandwiches and talk about their funniest memory they had with ice creme sandwiches. Ask if they ever made their own and if they remember how they made them.
Cooking – Let the residents make their own ice cream sandwiches. This is how I make mine:
Prior to class take a box container of frozen ice cream OR freeze a container of cool whip, then dip bowl/box in warm water to remove from container. Slice either the ice cream or cool whip into 1/2 to 1 inch sections big enough to fit on two squares of the graham cracker.
Take two graham crackers (the entire cracker, break into) or cookies. Put one slice of ice cream or frozen cool whip on half the graham cracker/cookie and put the other cracker/cookie on top.
Word Game – Using the letters in “ice cream sandwiches” see how many other words your residents can make using only these letters. To make an extended game print out the vowel letters on index cards and let the resident draw a vowel card to use with the letters in ice cream sandwiches to make words. You can make your own rules to make the game work best for your residents.
FRIENDSHIP DAY
Celebrated on Aug 2nd according to friendshipday.org, which has the history, poems, activities and craft ideas that you can use anytime.
Discussion – Lead the group in a discussion on friendship. Do they remember their childhood friends?
Craft – Make an eyeglass case out of felt, or a braded eyeglass chain/strap (women and men can use this to keep their eyeglasses around their necks), or a hat/scarf organizer.
Eyeglass case – Cut felt or form felt into long rectangles and cool glue the two long sides and the bottom. Decorate with pen paint or stickers. If they write their friends name on it, then everyone will always know who the case belongs to.
Eyeglass chain/strap – Purchase different color nylon plastic string and cut into 24 inches long strands. Take at least three or six strands and brad them into a long cord. At both ends tie a small extra strong rubber band (the kind they use for mini hair tails or braces). The rubber bands will keep the glasses attached as long as they are fitted near the glass hinges.
Hanging organizer – You will need: 1 yardstick with one or two holes at each end, any color paint, four or six clothespins, glue and stickers for decorations. Glue (hot, cool or wood glue) clothespins at the same distance along the stick vertical or horizontal. After the glue dries then paint the entire stick. Once the paint is dry then decorate with stickers or pen pain the friends name on it. The organizer can be hung by using the hole(s) to hang on small screws or they could use the new wall removable sticky for wall pictures. They can hand lightweight items like ball caps, ties, belts or scarves, lightweight hats, necklaces, art work, pictures and the activity calendar.
Cooking – This will take more than just one day, but well worth the effort and the best part is the residents can share a starter with their family or visiting friends. Check out cooks.com and in the recipe search window type “Friendship cake starter”. They have many to choose from and they also have the Friendship cake recipe that you use the starter to make it. Note: This would be a good Christmas food gift for the residents to make because the cake freezes well.
Men’s Social – For the men in your facility let them social of their own complete a game of cards, so the guys can just be guys with no women around.
Women’s Social – Have a friendship tea for the ladies in the facility.
Community Friendship Social – Have a facility Friendship social that includes residents, family, staff, volunteers and go as far as inviting your vendors, sponsors that help keep your facility running in tip top shape….they are the friends you count on to provide the facility needs.
Movie – Friendship movie suggestions:
- How to Make An American Quilt, 1995 with Winona Ryder
- Now and Then, 1996 with Christina Ricci, Melanie Griffith, Demi Moore, Rosie O’Donnell
- Secret Garden, 1993 with Maggie Smith, Kate Maberly, Heydon Prowse and Andrew Knott
- Whales of August, 1987 with Lillian Gish, Bette Davis, Ann Sothern and Vincent Price
- Brian’s Song, 1971 TV movie which is on DVD now. (good male friendship movie, but the women will like it too)
- Rocky, any of the Rocky movies show good male friendships.
LIGHTHOUSE DAY
August 7th according to lighthousefoundation.org
Listen and learn – Wikipedia has great information on lighthouse history, technology, design and so much more that you can share with your residents. Let resident see some of your information. Print it out and enlarge it on your copier. They will appreciate having something they can take back to their room to read over at their leisure.
Group Craft – Make a large standing backyard lighthouse for the facility courtyard. There are many DIY kits on-line that are very affordable. You could order one and assign the residents to work on different parts, sanding, painting, reading instructions, pass parts to the main person assembling it together. You could also just get a wood plan and make your own kit to assemble out of scrap wood and old lamp light and glass bowls. The men that have high functioning skills should like this project. You could also ask your maintenance staff to assist with this project to give them some one on one time with the residents. The maintenance staff never seems to get involved in activities so this will highlight them to participate. If you don’t have any that are willing or have time to participate call on a local vocational school to see if an instructor or student will come out to help with this facility craft project.
Make a Christmas lighthouse decoration using thread cones and water bottle spouts. If you have a local seamstress, clothing, or Drapery Company nearby call and ask them if they have some empty thread spool cones that you can have. Most are very happy to give them to you. Collect water bottles that have the spout on them from anybody you see that is going to trash it. This is also a good recycle craft. You can find complete instructions on allfreecrafts.com under free Christmas crafts, scroll down to homemade Christmas decoration and click on Spool Lighthouse decorations.
Writing – Challenge all residents to write a poem or short story about a lighthouse. This will include the room bound residents to participate if you and your staff pass out a work sheet giving the residents the opportunity to be a part of the writing activity. Let them know they can also read or have someone to read it at the Coffee House Social.
Devotion / Social – A lot of good devotionals are based around the lighthouse and our Lord. Or you can try looking on thelighthouseboutique.com for poetry and articles or lighthouse news. Make this a coffee house environment and let the higher functioning residents read the poems or read the poem they wrote during the writing class.
DOG DAYS OF SUMMER
Between July 3 through August 17 depending on source
Discussion – Print out information from Wikipedia on the Dog Days of summer. Start the discussion group with the residents to see what they were taught as children or young adults on the dog days of summer.
Animal therapy – Invite someone that has a very social dog to come visit the residents. If any of the local dog kennel clubs have dogs that can do tricks to entertain the residents then ask them to come for a visit.
Craft – Make fans out of wall paper samples you can get from the wall-paper store. If you ask them to let you have some old discontinued sample books they will for free or for a very low price. Make the old fashion according style fans, staple the end and add a ribbon to protect the hands from the staple. You can also us cardboard or poster paper to cut out a 6x6 or 8x8 inch circle or square and then glue on a large wood craft flat stick that looks like a Popsicle stick on one side. Let dry and fan away the hot summer air. Men might prefer cleaning or repairing a fan to use later on the porch or courtyard.
Cooking – Make several types of ice tea and cucumber sandwiches that will be served at a facility social. Tea suggestion: Mint Julep, raspberry tea or make some fresh lemonade.
Facility Social – there is nothing better than sipping cold ice tea and enjoying a cucumber sandwich on a hot summer day, complete with fans to keep you cool.
Movie – Marley and Me, rated PG for thematic material, some suggestive content and language.
VACATION DAY
Suggestions for things you can do relating to a vacation:
- See if there is a local baseball game to take the residents to for fun. Call and ask if the local team will give free tickets or half off prices for the residents.
- Have a picnic in the local park or set up a picnic in your facility courtyard.
- Beach party or outdoor barbeque
- Encourage wearing shorts, tee-shirts and sun-glasses.
- Serve ice cream
- Play summer related word games
- Play badminton outside, or play a game of horseshoes
- Play croquette, blow bubbles
- Have a water balloon fight, but use sponges instead
Just have a fun filled relaxing day!
PARK EXPLORATION
In honor of National Park Month
Learn & Listen – To make any Learn & Listen activity a success you must do some research of your own. I try to make it a little easier by providing websites that have the theme topic information and/or questions to get your discussions started. And as we all know sometimes topics can stray off on a path of their own, which can be the best or funniest Learn & Listen activity ever. Don’t worry if the residents get off topic, but as the closing time for the activity gets close try to pull them back to the theme topic so they will remember what today’s fun theme is all about. Check out information about National Parks on us-national-parks.net to share with the residents. Get them reminiscing about their family vacations they took to a National Park or even a local State Park. Ask if they took a picnic, hiked a trail or camped out under the stars.
Game – Which Park is this?
Below are the top 10 most visited National Parks. See if your residents can figure them out.
• tainsnuom mykos retag (Great Smoky Mountains)
• nacnoy radng (Grand Canyon)
• demoyeti (Yosemite)
• wolstelyeno (Yellowstone)
• mypiclo (Olympic)
• tainnuom orkcy (Rocky Mountain)
• nioz (Zion)
• evalye hoaygauc (Cuyahoga Valley)
• anrgd toten (Grand Teton)
• daiaca (Acadia)
Food – Food for the trail – Let residents make trail mix. There are lots of easy recipes, but if you need one with simple ingredients look on eatbetteramerica.com and in the websites search window enter “trail mix”. It will bring up a list of all trail mix. They have lots of easy mixes to use with most everything you need from your facility kitchen. Let the residents bag some of the trail mix so they can enjoy later in their room.
Exercise – Set up a walking trail to entice the residents to get up, get out and walk. First you will need to map out a walking trail inside and/or outside for your residents to follow. Just like a park map you will have set points of interest for the resident to stop and rest. This can be a rest area in the facility outside the facility. Depending on your residents mobility you can map out laps, 1/2 mile or mile points. Make sure everyone meets in the normal exercise area to do some stretches before they start to walk. Encourage them to complete the walking course you have set up so they can get their daily exercise in for the day. When they finish their walk remind them to do a few stretches to cool to help them keep limber for the next activity.
Craft – There are so many nature crafts to make that you could Google and find one you want to do with your residents, however I found a site that had some really cool ideas. Allcrafts.net has lots of ideas. Just scroll down and click on Nature Crafts then scroll down to view the list of ideas. One I found that is really a nature project, not a craft is the “Make Rain in a Jar”. I just think it is different and the residents will get a kick out of telling people they made rain. The craft idea I like on this site is the Nature Bracelet. The residents could collect items for their bracelets in the facility garden on in their nature area if you have one. Only you the AD will know which nature craft will be best for your residents and hopefully this site will be a big help to you.
Game – Matching Game – Match the famous site to the National Park it is located in. Write the list of famous site on one side of the board and mix up the park names on the other side. Ask residents to match the site to the park. You can either draw a line from the famous site to the national park or draw a line through each when they have made a match. Here are some I found to get you started and each famous site has one hint to give the residents to help them out and the park site is in the ( ):
• Old Faithful – hint: Wyoming, Montana & Idaho (Yellowstone)
• Frenchman’s Bay – hint: Mt. Desert Island, off the coast of Maine (Acadia)
• The Keys – hint: Florida (Biscayne)
• Yavapai Point – hint: Arizona (Grand Canyon)
• Clingman’s Dome – hint: Tennessee (Great Smoky Mountains)
• The Crater – hint: Island of Maui, Hawaii (Haleakala)
• Going-to-the-Sun-Road – hint: Montana (Glacier)
• Skyline Drive – hint: Virginia (Shenandoah)
• Trail Ridge Road – hint: highest continuous paved road in US. Colorado (Rocky Mountain)
• Sierra Peaks – hint: highest highway pass in California (Yosemite)
Movie – Any of the National Geographic National Parks movies
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CHRISTINE'S THEMES: 