Activities at Cheshire Grange Care Home

We recently celebrated World Poetry with a variety of activities, we read some short verses, with groups, we also explored some well-known poems including Wordsworth's Daffodils, which many residents remembered learning at school.

We also took the activity to residents in their rooms, reading and discussing what we thought some poems might mean.

We decided that we could be poets and residents chose the subject of 'Time' and with lots of suggestions to work with the activities team created two works from the residents ideas.

Time Is…..
Poetry time, family time
Things to say & do time

Making time, gin time,
Love things all the time time

Memories Tim, reminiscing time
Time waits for no man time

Learning time, visiting time,
Don’t let time pass you by time

Snooze time, quiz time,
Leading to conversation time

All these things involve meaningful time
Don’t let time pass you by!

As with all our activities we learn so much about our ladies and gents and the staff and discovered that we had published poets on the staff and also a resident who had read their works at church gatherings

Residents had asked us for something a little different to the usual entertainers we have, so they were delighted as well as a little apprehensive when we invited Home Safari to visit. The ladies and gents were able to get up close and make friends with Jethro the Skunk, Tom the Tortoise, Salt the rabbit, Alfie a tenrec who tipped the cuteness scale into overload!! There was also a lizard, a very fluffy guinea pig and a skinny pig – a hairless guinea pig. Residents, along with staff and visits all soon relaxed and were cuddling the array of animals and asking lots of questions about them.

We are very fortunate at Cheshire Grange to have strong Community links  and a strong volunteer base who bring different skills and talents to our home, enhancing our residents wellbeing. One of our Duke of Edinburgh students Georgina brought her violin in and played for the residents in their rooms, she played a beautiful piece ‘ladies In Lavender’ as well a piece from the musical Annie.

We like to involve all our residents in activities within the home and taking the activity to those who are nursed in bed, or choose to spend more time in their rooms is a priority in our planning. One of our residents had a family member visiting and she got in touch later in the day to say thank you ‘Mum seemed to love it, she was certainly enrapt, and so did I! It made my day’

We have many regular events and entertainment happening at our home with our residents enjoying a variety of life enrichment activities for their minds, body and soul on a daily basis until now we’d never had a ventriloquist visiting Cheshire Grange, until earlier this week, when we invited Donna and her friends(puppets) along.

Residents were introduced to Vinnie the Monster who had quite a curmudgeonly view on life and Big Bear who loved hugs and honey.

There were songs, jokes and a little bit of magic with help from our very own Debbie McGee, in the form of Activities Assistant Sophia, and of course lots of hugs from Big Bear, who was a little sad not to have got any honey and was happy to go back into hibernation.

I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from, everyone loves music – a quote from musician Billy Joel, and it’s very true for our residents at Cheshire Grange who love music and this year as well as our regular favourite entertainers we are trying out new performers and it’s fair to say they are bringing the joy of song and dance to the residents , staff and visitors.

This past month we have had Cheshire Grange debut performances from singer Julia who brought us a variety of musical theatre songs and delighted her audience by taking requests and singing duo Adare who had residents rocking in their chairs with an upbeat 60s and 70s show.

Residents have asked when both will be returning

As part of our Nutrition & Hydration week we held a Reminiscence Tea Party. We chose old time favourite cakes courtesy of Mr Kipling, Battenberg’s, Angel Slices & Chocolate Rolls, which brought memories flooding back for the residents and sparked many wonderful conversations about baking, children’s favourite treats, rationing and much more, to bring a garden party feel on a wet March afternoon we played a few games of quoits which had every laughing as well as bringing out the competitive side in some of our residents.