April Showers brings........fun activities. April was a pretty busy month around our facility. We of course had a monthly birthday party. This cake above was too cool to pass up. I just had them add April Birthdays and we partied like it was tye-dye cool 1970. The residents were even more energetic in the month of April. They were dancing and swinging in their chairs at the birthday party.
One of the Spring activities we did was make these cute Hummingbird Nests. So super easy. Use equal parts melted chocolate chips and coconut and mix together. Have residents shape into a nest. Add jelly beans. Give to other residents and eat and enjoy.
Alzheimer's busy hands sorted jelly beans by color and counted jelly beans.....and of course ate most of them.
Our painting group painted little wooden animals. This is one of the residents "doggy." They painted turtles, squirrels, cats, bears, and dogs.
Of course with Easter comes egg coloring. Our residents color around 100 eggs. They are dried and refrigerated and each residents gets a color egg with their Easter Dinner.
To help raise money for our activity department we had an Easter Basket raffle. I got our hospice companies to donate 5 baskets and our activity department made one. We had 6 baskets to raffle off. It was a great success.
Don't forget Peter Cotton Tail. Yes the Easter bunny visit our facility and took pictures and handed out candy to residents. This was a great opportunity to get residents who don't normally get in the newsletter to get their pictures in. They all loved him although he looks a bit creepy in this picture.
Alzheimer's residents also strung cereal onto yarn to make bird feeders to hang outdoors on the trees. It's a great activity to help them concentrate on something and it's super simple and super cheap.
Tissue paper flowers give residents smiling power. We had a total tissue paper flower morning. Not everyone wanted to make a flower, but they sure all wanted one for their wheel chair or rooms. We made tons of these babies. I ended up making some extras to take to my Gram in the hospital, and to put in the top of my mom's gift bag for her birthday present. Super easy.
Alzheimer's residents took cut up pieces of tissue paper and glued them onto a coloring sheet of a butterfly. Making pretty purple, pink, yellow butterflies.
Decorating Easter bunny shaped cookies. This was actually a kit I picked up at Wal-Mart. It came with everything you needed to make these cookies (except a little butter & a little milk to make frosting) and they were actually very tasty.
The Easter Bunny & me.
Some other activities we did this month:
For April Fool's Day we made
Purple Cows. What, you say? Purple Cows are vanilla ice cream and grape soda. Sort of like a root beer float, but with grape soda. Something goofy for April Fool's. It was surprising tasty.
One of the bulletin boards for the month I decorated with
baseball facts, trivia, and pictures. Official opening day April 1st.
Games: Tic-Tac-Toe, I Want It Game, High Rollers, Wheel of Fortune, Pokeno, and of course Bingo
We also celebrated
Twinkies birthday. By what else?........eating Twinkies, duh.
Other activities: Wine & cheese social, Sing-A-Long, Bible Trivia, Manicures, Exercise, making bread(more like eating bread), and Music Entertainment.
Passover: residents enjoyed Grape juice and Passover Coconut Macaroons while visiting.
Passover Coconut Macaroons
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp. vanilla
dash of salt
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/3 cups coconut flakes
Grease a cookie sheet
Beat the egg whites, vanilla, and salt w/ electric mixer until soft peaks form. Slowly add sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.
Fold in coconut gently.
Drop by teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
When macaroons are cooled, they can be dipped in melted chocolate for variety.
Makes 23 Macaroons
