Remember when you were a kid and you used to deliver handwritten valentine’s day cards to your classmates? Why not replicate this in your community. Using simple items like shoeboxes, residents can make a valentine mailbox to hang outside their door. Help them create valentine cards to deliver to other residents on February 14th.
Don’t put that Christmas tree away! Set out a basket of paper hearts. Seniors can write anonymous compliments for other residents and hang them on the tree. It’s a great way for your residents to be reminded that they are loved, cared for, and seen.
When love is in the air, romantic comedies are nourishing and fun for the soul. Create a rom com movie marathon – it’s one of the easiest Valentine’s Day activities for your residents. Turn on nostalgic classics like An Affair to Remember as well as new favorites like It’s Complicated. Or, let residents vote on the movies they want to see.
Relive happy memories for your residents by hosting a Name That Love Song game as one of your Valentine’s Day activities. Find a list of tunes by decade, play a few bars, then see who can name the song or artist first. Bonus points if residents sing along!
February is the shortest month. No wonder it’s also National Haiku Month, celebrating the shortest form of poetry. One of the best Valentine’s Day activities for seniors is a haiku writing workshop. While haiku doesn’t rhyme, poems follow this format:
Line 1 – 5 syllables
Line 2 – 7 syllables
Line 3 – 5 syllables
Take haiku Valentine’s Day activities for seniors one step further with these ideas:
The traditional Christmas chain now gets a Valentine’s Day upgrade. Residents can write the name of a loved one on each link in the chain, then work as a group to tape each piece together to hang around your community. As you create the chain, you can encourage your residents to share stories about the person.
As a kid, you probably dreamed of what you wanted to be when you grew up. Most every kid does, but did that dream come true?
A unique twist on that childhood dream is to dress up as what you hoped to be. Maybe you dreamed of being a professional baseball player, but you ended up taking over your dad's septic business instead, or perhaps you wanted to be a pilot, but you became a nurse.
While there is nothing wrong with whatever it is you do (or did) for a living, it just might not have been what you dreamed of as a child. Pull from those long-ago memories of childhood. What did you want to do? Rescue gorillas in the rainforest, track the dolphins with Jacque Cousteau, or did you just want to stay home and have a dozen children?
Whatever it was, dress the part, even if it is for just one night.
When you have been through 60 or more New Year's Eve parties, the memories are endless. Hosting a party that embraces those memories can be a refreshing twist to the normal hoop-la typically associated with this night. For a walk down memory lane, your guests will bring items from their past to display around your community. Some item ideas include:
Throughout the evening, guests can browse through each other's displays and get a glimpse into each other's lives.
There is no telling the conversations that will take place once everyone begins to look at all the memorabilia. What a fun way to spend the evening – not only reminiscing but also getting to know each other.
Choose a time-period from your past and use that as the basis for your New Year's Eve party. Let's just use the 50's for an example. Your residents can expect a sock hop with a little Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and Jerry Lee Lewis playing on the radio, maybe cheeseburger sliders with root beer floats, poodle skirts, and perfectly greased hair.
Have you ever wanted to be a detective? Are you that person that always solves the crime before the end of the show? In a nutshell, residents receive individual character dossiers and are encouraged to mingle and spread out in order to bribe, blackmail, and, in general, be sneaky in obtaining as many secrets about the other characters as possible. At some point during the event, someone dies. Yes, one of the participants dies and one of them did it! An investigation ensues with lots of finger-pointing as the secrets become revealed. There are lots of website and businesses that offer support to run a murder mystery party within your community.
