Activities at South Chowdene Care Home

We were very lucky to have Eva bring her Giant African snails to show us along with friend Ellie to help out. As ever, animals of this sort brought many facial expressions and there was a lot of amazement at how big they are despite only being 2 months old! We are hoping to see them again when they are fully grown to experience the adult hand sized molluscs. Residents were quite astounded as we learnt about ‘Mike and Mollie’s’ feeding habits, care required and habitat as well as having to be very gentle as their shells still aren’t hard and can easily be damaged.

Staff and residents donned purple in recognition of Alzheimer’s day. We had a look at what this terrible disease is as well as what we can do to help prevent onset. Residents have been choreographing and practising a new ‘Pom dance’ to ‘Thank you for being a friend’ to exercise body, brain and coordination and today was performance time! There were some excellent scores in a general knowledge quiz and the afternoon saw a very competitive ‘Tissue tennis’ tournament keeping the lightning reactions in tip top condition. Our lovely volunteer Jayne brought us matching purple prizes to complete the day.

Apple day saw us on another learning curve as we celebrated one of our native staples and found out about the thousands of varieties from home and away! There was a ‘Name that apple’ quiz for residents, visitors and staff during the morning and a factfile and apple tasting with a different quiz during the afternoon. Amongst all this, residents made ‘Apple Pie slices’ with Janice keeping us right as ever with the recipe whilst we reminisced around favourite apple recipes and uses. These were ready by the end of the second quiz – a well-deserved delicious refreshment to go with a cuppa. As ever our fantastic hospitality team got on board and served up a delicious apple crumble with lovely creamy custard at lunchtime.

Day of Arts in Care Homes gave us plenty to get our teeth into. A full bold up to the day itself took us through various arts and crafts – some new to us and some promoting reminiscence. The theme this year was ‘Reflection’  and we linked our Arts and Crafts into Alzheimer’s day too as reflection can really help those with dementia.

We started with window painting with reflection on the Autumn season and what the different seasons mean to individual residents.

Next, the paints came out and residents chose and mixed colours to reflect ‘Autumn’ and made cascades representing thought processes, passing skills and traditions through the generations. We had some great discussions and were very pleased with the outcome.

We decided that Pie making was also an art and linked nicely to Alzheimer’s Day with memories of Bramble picking and Autumn afternoons baking. We had a great debate about measurements of lard and margarine (or just margarine) as well as to ‘bake blind’ or not. Residents reminisced around their own traditional family recipes as well as own favourites and what is the best accompaniment for either sweet or savoury pie. The end result didn’t last long and was served warm with cream.

Staff and residents at South Chowdene Care Home in Low Fell held a charity coffee event and bake sale on19/9/23 to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Having a coffee morning is the perfect chance to catch up over a cuppa and a slice of something delicious for a great cause. The money raised helps everyone with cancer to live life as fully as they can.

We started the month with the Autumn Fair and as ever, it was a great afternoon with lots of visitors to the many stalls on site selling beautiful homemade craft items. Visitors and residents sang and danced along to Dave Brewis and enjoyed some well-deserved refreshments. The raffle and tombola raised a good amount of money for the residents’ fund and the Brik a Brac stall raised £30 for RNIB. At the end of the month we held our Macmillan coffee event where residents enjoyed spending time with friends and relatives, and members of the local community.  Staff at the care home and their children had baked lots of lovely cakes, biscuits and pastries for everyone to sample and for guests to buy to take home.  Some residents had baked cakes and biscuits for the occasion too. Everyone was spoilt for choice!