Activities at Cubbington Mill Care Home
Every day we run different activities throughout our home. The activities are designed and adapted to each individuals personal needs. The activities are designed to mentally and physically stimulate the people we care for and also to enhance their life skills and feelings of purpose and self-worth. The activities encourage interaction on a one to one basis, in small groups, in large groups and some are designed for the whole home including staff to be involved in.
We are registered with the National Activity Providers Association (NAPA) which ensures we are able to achieve and continually progress to enhance the quality of life for those we support in the home. We provide entertainers such as singers, musicians, magicians, puppeteers, poets and dancers. We also have regular exercise classes and arts and craft classes. Relatives and visitors will be able to see what me make in these classes on display around the home. We have regular trips out on the mini bus to visit garden centres, enjoy high tea, visit the butterfly farm and spend the day at the zoo with a picnic. We encourage the local community, schools, colleges and relatives to come and join us for activities, tea and cake and to visit to share their skills as much as possible.
Staff from across the home are always willing to help and share their knowledge and skills across a whole range of activities we have had everything from carers preforming Bollywood style dancing to cooking classes from the chef. We feel activities are a vital part of the residents lives to ensure they are stimulated mentally and entertained.
Rose Tucker
Hi my name is Rose and I am the activities coordinator at Cubbington Mill!
I have been working in care since I was 17 and very passionate about my role, always trying to do bigger & better. I am one of Cubbington Mills Dementia Champions. I'm very privileged to work with the wonderful people and residents at Barchester's Cubbington Mill and hope we all make some lovely memories together! I LOVE to find out about residents interests & hobbies through tools like the “Getting To Know Me Booklets”.
We are always open to new ideas. If you would like to get involved in any of our Life Enrichment activities or have a skill, or project you'd like to share with our residents, please click here to contact me direct. New entertainers and community links are always welcome.
Read our brochure 'Life-enriching activities' for more information about life in our care homes.
Read our brochure
Activities and Events Partnerships
As part of our bespoke life-enrichment programmes, we host a number of live virtual events in the home on a regular basis through a number of partnerships with places of interest and world class performance companies
Life at Cubbington Mill Care Home
Celebrating Easter at Cubbington Mill
Residents at Cubbington Mill enjoyed an eggs-tensive range of Easter activities, from hosting a community Easter Bunny Hunt to attending church services and Easter egg painting.
They tucked in to a delicious Easter meal of Sumptuous Slow Roasted Shoulder of Lamb with Mint Sauce followed by Easter cake prepared by the home’s head chef Oliver Hopkins.
Each resident also received a bouquet of daffodils, Easter eggs and handmade cards from the children of Cubbington C of E Primary School to mark the occasion.
General Manager, Laura Russell said: “As always, we’ve all been looking forward to Easter. It’s such a lovely time of year – the residents love all the colourful Easter decorations on show in the home. It’s really been an eggs-cellent few days!”
John, resident at Cubbington Mill said: “It has been so lovely to spend time with our families this Easter, though like every Easter, I think I’ve eaten too much chocolate! It was so wonderful to see everyone go to so much effort. I really enjoyed painting the colourful Easter eggs outside in the sunshine this weekend.”
Baking Matzah Bread
Residents at Cubbington Mill marked Passover with a cooking class this afternoon. They had a go at baking Matzah Bread, the unleavened bread enjoyed by Jewish people at Passover as a symbol of their ancestors escape from persecution.
Passover is an eight day festival that is celebrated from the 15th to the 22nd of the Hebrew month of Nissan. It commemorates the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt when God ‘passed over’ the houses of the Israelites during the last of the ten plagues.
General Manager, Laura Russell said: “Passover is a very special event in the Jewish calendar and so we wanted to celebrate the occasion in style. We have all enjoyed learning about the ancient rituals involved.”
PAT Dog Belle Delights
What a treat it was having PAT dog Belle, and her owner Emily from Appoint Us Services in to see our residents earlier this week. Belle is a really crowd pleaser, visiting each and every bedroom and lounge to say hi and offer herself for a stroke or cuddle.
Our residents really look forward to seeing Belle, she's such a sweetheart; very calm, a real furry tonic to put a smile on everyone's face.
Eastern European Easter Eggs
The traditions of all countries are of interest to our residents. Today, Marija the Cubbington Mill activities assistant enlightened us on a big part in Lithuania's Easter celebrations; decorating hard-boiled eggs.
'Margučiai' is one of the oldest methods which involves using the tip of a needle, to paint various patterns such as the sun, stars, plants and snakes on each egg before dipping in a natural dye.
The eggs are then put on display over the Easter period to call for good harvest, and ward off evil spirits.
In celebration of Easter they're used in a egg rolling game. The eggs are tapped and rolled off an incline plank in turn as each player tries to hit the previously rolled eggs.
Each player who hits another's egg collects that egg, whoever collects most eggs, wins.
Our residents are so egg-cited to try this out when Marija is back in over the weekend. Do send us your photos if you are doing the same or have a tradition you'd like to share with our residents.
Bizarre Food Combinations
Residents at Cubbington Mill enjoyed an afternoon full of flavour explosions with a ‘Bizarre Food Combinations’ sensory tasting session from Oomph Wellness. Sampling a whole variety of weird and wonderful ingredients which had been made into bitesize dishes by Head Chef, Oliver Hopkins. They tried Apple Pie with Cheese, Strawberries drizzled with Balsamic, Honey coated chips and Watermelon with Salt to name a few!
The session involved residents trying each dish and describing the texture, taste and smell to each other. They then rated the dish out of ten and created a leader board. Residents felt as if they had stepped outside of their comfort zone in this activity which led them to discuss which other combinations they could try next month.
One resident said “We had lots of fun trying all of the different flavour combinations, sweet and salty always seems to work together- my favourite was definitely the crisps and chocolate, they were delicious!”
World Book Day competition
The children at Cubbington CofE Primary School have been busy writing reviews of their favourite books for our World Book Day competition. Residents have spent the past few weeks reading through every single review and choosing their favourite. The reviews were so good we've even had a request to stock Diary Of a Wimpy Kid in our Cubbington Mill library!
A BIG well done to winner of the competition... Rebecca, who's book review and amazing illustration you can see below.
