With another lockdown comes another push to stay interactive with residents as they cant see their family and friends. It can be hard to think of activities for everyone that still follows the government guidelines. Here are a few ideas to get you started so everyone can join in.
Activities residents can do alone in their rooms
Reading
Not everyone can mix and some residents have to self isolate, but this doesn’t mean they can’t do activities themselves. Encourage residents to read during lockdown to keep the mind active. Reading is also a great way to escape real life, so getting a book full of imagination and stories will help distract your residents from remembering they are stuck inside their room all day.
Portraits
An idea for a care home who are isolating is a home portrait. Give all the residents a piece of white card and art supplies they can use individually. All residents then draw and colour themselves and write their names on the bottom. After this you can collect all the work together to form a home picture of all the residents being together in their hearts (and in card!) Even staff can have a go and design their own pictures!
Socially distanced group activities
Charades
A fun game to play with a group is charades. Firstly, decide on a category for each round, this could be music, tv shows, films etc. Then split the residents into two distanced teams. One team at a time has to nominate a player, then the leader secretly tells the player what they will be describing to their group. The tricky part is there are no words or sounds used when describing, so your team has to guess based off of your actions. Every time the team guesses correctly they gain a point. The game is over once everyone has had a turn describing and the team with the most points wins!
Distanced Dance
Dance keeps the mind and body active, which is crucial in lockdown. Distance the chairs into a horseshoe shape where everyone can see the leader. Then grab a speaker and a playlist with songs your residents will know and like and encourage them to dance from their seat. You can lead them in arm stretches, toe taps and sat down marching, while singing along to the music.
Family activities
Homemade postcards
A nice way to contact families is with a homemade postcard. Get your resident to draw a special picture for their family and decorate the card how they like. Then on the other side next to the relatives address they can write their own note. It’s important to keep regular family contact up, even if it’s not face to face. This also creates a gift that the family can keep as it is unique just for them.
A trip down Memory Lane
A fun game to play with residents is trip down memory lane. Give every relative a piece of paper and a pen/pencil to write with. Then tell everyone to write down their favourite memory of their lives which they dont mind sharing. Next collect all the paper and fold it into small pieces to put into a bowel. One by one residents draw out a memory, read it out loud then try and guess whose memory it was. This is beneficial as it keeps their minds active but it also creates a blond as everyone learns more about each other.
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