Elisa

We are having some large windows painted by an artist and other windows painted with stencils by the staff.
Also we are asking families for more Christmas cards and each resident has a cardboard card holder in their room (as it is in their individual room we are allowed)

Before things worsened here in Ireland, we were thinking about having the Christmas parties outdoors, in a marquee with the sides open as infection risk in ventilated areas is lower. Shouting and singing are considered high risk and so is eating. We had wanted to have a jazz group playing Christmas music because it still wiggle your memory but won't make anybody feel like singing along. We didn't get to think what the people could do beyond talking but I just got the idea that playing a board game might be fun.
Imagine a board big enough to cover part of the floor and questions or tasks for each square. Everybody should have their own dice and one person moves the markers
Something like this but Christmasy https://www.eslprintables.com/teaching_resources/classroom_management/back_to_school/Board_game_Back_to_school_440072/
I hope this helps

I have never done this with leaves. Only have ever done paper-mache bowls. But to make the finished bowl look nice I always varnish the inside and outside of the finished bowl a couple of days after it has dried complexly.
I have used mod podge and decupage varnishes for this and they always made the surface nice and even.
A friend uses spray varnishes for mixed media but I am not good at using sprays.

You could have a project about life story work were residents work on a particular part of their life every issue with collage, as a quiz, as word association...
Related to the recipe idea you could ask them about songs they like and make a songbook too.

Thanks Susan.

I love using yarn with people who have visual impairment because there are many different textures. If they want to we might learn to make pom-poms or wind it up.
Lately I have been thinking about using fingermazes but have not gotten one yet.
And for those with hearing loss but preserved vision I just find books with photos, reminiscence cards or print and laminate photos of things they would like.
At the moment I have a lady who gets a new photo of herself and a photo of a baby every Wednesday and keeps them in a box she looks through every day. And another lady who just goes through her bag of yarn breaking it into small pieces.

I would suggest finding things she used to do at work but be very mindful that because she will find difficulty they might make her worse due to low tolerance to frustration.
You might want to check out resources for people with autism as they have ideas for how to keep daily schedules and how to break down tasks in a way that prevents failure.
In the meantime, have you tried reminiscence photo-cards? Leaving the cards around so she doesn't feel it's an "activity".
https://www.winslowresources.com/famous-faces-events.html

I have not been able to find any published information about Christmas, COVID and nursing homes, y even looked at other epidemic illnesses in the past and when outbreaks or cuarentines happened around Christmas they just delayed it a bit which is not an option now.
I have been thinking that we could take information about how families with a deployed person celebrate Christmas as there is plenty of information there.
A pacifist myself I do not like the war-like language used with COVID but this simile might help many families to cope.

Hi,
I record levels of participation and wellbeing for each activity using symbols and letters on the residents logs (instead of only a tick)
I have a more specific record sheet for planned sensory sessions both individual and group

My experience is that we young people have more interest in celebrating Halloween that the people living in nursing homes at the moment (it will change soon).
Because of covid we are not celebrating Halloween at all but are focusing on being ready for Christmas. We asked the residents and they didn't fell they'll be missing out.
We will be celebrating all souls day though. We have mostly Catholic residents and thought that it is a good idea to remember the dead specially this year.