Activities at Cheshire Grange Care Home

Studies have shown that interacting with a PAT Pet can improve a person’s mental health and overall wellbeing. There's often an increased connection with carers and family too, and those living with dementia can feel energised and elated. It comes down to a very simple truth: pets just make us feel happier.

We are very fortunate at Cheshire Grange to have regular weekly visits from two registered Pet As Therapy doggies, George a very playful SprockerDoodle and we have our newest edition to the doggie squad, Snoop a gentlemanly Cockerpoo.

It appears that Snoop gets as much pleasure from his visits as the residents do.

We marked the 79th Anniversary of VE Day in true Cheshire Grange style. The home was decorated with bunting, flags and photographs from the era, residents' had listened to music and historic newsreels as well as reading some very poignant poetry. Residents shared some of their memories of the day, many recalling that everyone was singing and dancing but not really understanding why as they were only young children at the time.

After lunch it was time to don our dancing shoes, as we welcomed singer Lainey to take us on trip down memory lane, songs of the day got residents into the party spirit, there was much flag waving, singing and dancing and of course an abundance of smiles.

Chinese Language Day gave Activities Coordinator Robecca, the perfect reason to teach the residents some basic sayings in Chinese. Residents practiced simple phrases, Hello, How are you and Thank you and quickly picked them. There were some cookies for residents to try too and the hospitality included a sweet & sour dish and Chinese curry on the days menu.

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’