Activities at Ottley House Care Home
At Ottley House, we offer a person-centred activities programme, and aim to match residents' abilities and interests with meaningful activities of the correct degree of challenge that promotes their health and well-being. We also provide visual, tactile, audible and olfactory sensory experiences. There are weekly music/movement therapy sessions, 'Oomph' sessions, and arts & crafts classes to help improve, maintain and refine motor skills. We enjoy regular visits from entertainers, musicians and animal therapists, as well as pub nights, 'food from around the world' days, and minibus outings to places of interest.
Alex Evans
My name is Alex and I am the Activities Co-ordinator at Ottley house care home.
I am passionate about enhancing the lives of our residents the home and aim to bring a smile to their faces through different types of activities. My personality is warm, enthusiastic, bright and bubbly and i aim to share this each day at work. I am keen to involve the residents in the decision making within the home to enhance their experience through gathering their likes and dislikes. Come and join us for our life enrichment programmes which promote social interaction, mental stimulation and physical well-being.
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 Ottley House Care Home
Going Shopping
Our residents love it when they can go out and go shopping. We try to make sure there are a couple of trips a month. They love going to Tesco and grabbing all the bargains they can find.
They also love the feel of being able to go out and feel like they used to when they were at home. They love being able to go out and choose what they would like to buy.
The trips out always end with having a nice cup of tea or coffee in the café, and sometimes we enjoy a cake or two.
Getting Creative with Art
Once a week, we’ve been holding a weekly art club where the residents get to express themselves however they would like through art. We get lots of different art supplies, from pens, pencils, paints and even pipe cleaners, so they can make what they would like.
For some of our residents, it’s a nice way to relax and learn a new skill they may not have ever known they’ve had. They are really pleased with their artwork when they’ve finished. It always goes down well when they enjoy a hot drink and biscuit whilst getting creative.
Burns Night Celebrations!
We enjoyed celebrating Burns night with the amazing Katriona and Grant. They enjoyed coming in and singing and playing some classical Scottish music, they even did a dance for us.
The residents really enjoyed it as Burns night is something they really enjoy celebrating. Burns night is a celebration celebrated on January 25th. It is a very important national cultural day in Scotland to celebrate the life and work of Robert Burns, who is a famous poet all around the world.
On Burns night people usually celebrate by eating haggis, neeps and tatties.
Good Will at Christmas
Over the month of December our residents received so many cards from schools, colleges and even nationwide bank.
Our residents were really surprised with how many cards they received.
They were so grateful for the kindness of others to spend the time to write, make and send the cards to the home.
Some of our residents don’t have many family members that visit them so it really does make a difference to them at this time of year receiving something as simple as a card. We are so grateful to all the places that have sent cards in.
Residents Christmas Party
On Tuesday 17th December our residents and staff got into the Christmas spirit as we had our Christmas party.
We started our party with a fantastic buffet lunch made by our amazing kitchen team. The residents love a buffet as it brings them back to when they were younger at birthday parties.
There were plenty of drinks from beers to J2O’s. We had Christmas music blasting and everyone sang along whilst having lunch.
After our buffet lunch we played Christmas pass the parcel where everyone won a prize from ted’s to chocolate. We finished our party off with some carol singing.
Getting Ready for Christmas
Throughout November we’ve been doing many activities to get ready for the festive season.
One of the first activities we did was decorating wooden Christmas ornaments for the trees so each resident could have one with their names on. One resident commented they hadn’t done painting since they were in school and forgot how fun it was.
We’ve also had a demonstration from one of our chefs, Milen, who showed our residents how to make a Christmas cake. They all enjoyed tasting the ingredients.
Our dementia residents have enjoyed making Santa countdown to Christmas clock faces and helping with making centre pieces for the dining room tables for Christmas day. We’ve had a busy month and our residents are so excited to see what December brings.
