A great way to connect your residents with each other, with their families and with the world at large would be to start a blog for your community.
This blog would be written by resident of your community, discussing a short topic on their minds that day.
This is how it will work on the resident side: Each day, it will be a resident's turn to write a quick blog post. Let them know in advance about whose turn it will be so that residents can brainstorm what they might want to write about. When it is a resident's turn, either bring a laptop into their room if they don't already have one, or walk the resident to a computer in the community. Discuss what they'd like to write about. Then, log them into the blog, show them the website used to post all of the resident's blog posts, and let them read through what has been written by other residents since they last wrote for the blog. After that, leave them 20 to 30 mins to write their thoughts down and post it. After they're all done, thank and congratulate the resident for contributing their ideas! Disinfect the computer, and you're done!
Blog posts can even be added right onto your home's website for added content.
This blog can incorporate as many topics as residents have interests. It will also help residents keep thinking, and share valuable knowledge and experience with the world. It can even be shared with family members to keep track of what their resident is thinking about!
Potential free websites with which to start your blog are: Wordpress, Wix, Weebly and Blogger
Also, here is a guide to starting a blog by Wix.
You write a word on a white board and have your residents form other words, either using the same letters or by finding smaller words written within. Use a word with 10 letters or more to make the word discovery more interesting!
10 example words are: California, everything, aboveboard, Washington, basketball, weathering, characters, literature, perfection, volleyball & depression.
More words can be found here!
Click here for the original idea.
Jamie Hott had the idea of creating a wisdom tree to engage residents and staff in sharing their ideas, and as a medium for learning.
A simple tree trunk can be posted on the wall, with a station near it supplied with leaves from the dollar tree, a sharpie and sanitizing supplies.
This can be a community-wide project where ideas are added during an entire week, with one person writing one idea each. Following this, the tree can stay within the community for weeks for staff and residents to absorb the wisdom of their peers.
Adding ideas can even be made into a coordinated and engaging activity, versus being passive, by designating certain days of the week to be days where only residents born within a certain decade will add their wisdom. A reward can be given for each resident that participates, like candy. This strategy lends itself to being able to deliver the leaves to residents whose birthdays match the decade of the day to rooms, and then collecting the wisdom at the end of the day to be posted on the wisdom wall.
Check out the original idea here.
Tiffany Grace has been helping residents continue to play bingo with a few ingenious modifications to the game!
Instead of having everyone in the same room, residents stay in their rooms, and plastic bingo cards and chips are brought to them.
Then, she uses this Let's Play Bingo website to draw the bingo numbers used in the game. Once a number is drawn, she announces it to residents with a megaphone while walking the halls. Walking the hallways lets her attend to individual residents as well when needed.
After the game is finished, she collects all bingo materials in a bag from all residents and disinfects them all. That way, no one comes into contact with another's bingo game.
Apparently, this style of bingo is going over well with Tiffany's residents, even if it's not what they're used to.
Click here for the original idea.
Chantiel Hoeppner had the great idea for an affordable system to create colouring bundles for her residents.
The bundle includes:
Her trick to creating these bundles cheaply is to purchase 1 colouring books and make photocopies of the drawings going into the resident colouring bundles. Another resource-saving idea is to break the coulouring pencils in two to make more pencils to share with residents.
The original idea can be found here.
Holding a reading session with willing residents to read an elementary grade book will get your residents to give something precious to their community.
Crystal Stamper says that since schools are closed and reading is lifelong fun y’all, what better way to give back than by sharing stories. Her residents are loving this idea. They record the reading and then share it on Facebook.
Especially now that many schools are online, creating online material also helps the teachers that are adapting through this change!
Check out the original idea here.
To have fun with residents individually, and to decorate, painting beautiful window murals with acrylic paints mixed with soap (for easy removal) is ideal!
Some residents might have hidden painting skills that would really spruce up their room. Others would surely enjoy the social aspect of the activity with staff.
Easy ideas for what to paint could be a your resident's favourite landscape, a tree, your facility's logo, a flower or beautiful mountains.
Check out the original idea here
This is an isolation game that you can play with seniors using home made pill bottle shakers!
To make a bottle shaker, take a small to medium sized plastic bottle of any kind (like a used pill bottle) and fill about 1/3rd of it with dry foodstuff. Ideas are using rice for a gentle sound or popcorn seeds for a harsher sound.
The dance follows the instructions given in the lyrics of the song, which may be prompted by a resident leading the group. A sample instruction sequence with sakers would be:
You put your [right arm] in,
You put your [right arm] out;
You put your [right arm] in,
And you shake it all about.
You do the hokey pokey,
And you turn yourself around.
That's what it's all about! Yeah!
Watch a video of residents doing the Hokey Pokey to a '50s version of the song.
Click here to check out the original idea.
Sue Pierson decided to host a poker run spanning across time, not distance, for her residents.
In a usual poker run, participants travel from checkpoint to checkpoint, drawing cards at each one. The participant with the best poker hand at the end of the run wins and receives a prize.
Sue decided to deliver a random card in an envelope to each resident each day of a week. She also made sure that she took note of the cards when the resident opened their envelope to keep track of their poker hand
At the end of the week, the resident with the best poker hand won a $25 gift card to Walmart!
Here is a list of the best poker hands to assess what resident won your poker run.
Check out the original idea here.
A food cart going from room to room delivering snacks is a very good idea to implement. But it can be hard to find new snacks to offer if you've been at it for a while.
Dede from the Delaney at Lake Waco in Texas found that serving fresh fruit in a waffle cone was a hit with her residents! On top of that, it's a healthy snack that can be offered guilt-free. You can even serve it with a selection of yogurt for extra taste.
Decorating your cart as a specialty fruit-cart is a nice extra touch too!
Check out the original idea here.
