Activities at Rivermead Care Home

Rivermead encourages everyone to get involved, including members of staff! We had a little healthy competition in a Resident v Staff scrabble game. Contemplative thinking, strategic planning and battling each other for those high scores as resident Vivien put the home receptionist Justyna through her paces! 

Two games later and they both won one game each with only 1 point in difference. This is a great example of encouraged interactions for all the team at Rivermead! Vivien really enjoyed her afternoon with Justyna and definitely wants to have another game!

Rivermead was filled with joy and happiness when we had a visit from some fury friends! Butterwick alpaca retreat kindly brought 2 alpacas and 3 guinea pigs for an animal therapy afternoon. 

Everyone had the opportunity to pet and feed the alpacas, who were very hungry! Some of the residents had never seen an alpaca before but thoroughly enjoyed this new experience. The guinea pigs were also a big hit, especially for lap cuddles. 

Two of them were only 10 weeks old and very well-behaved. This enabled us to take the guinea pigs to residents in their rooms for everyone to enjoy and feel included.

Once again, Elvis was in the building! We all came together in the memory lane community as our Deputy manager, Simon, gave us a wonderful performance of his Elvis tribute act. 

The residents really enjoyed this musical afternoon, singing and dancing their afternoon away to familiar songs! One of the care team, Lee, also joined in as Elvis performed acapella vocals with Lee playing his guitar! 

Rivermead was full of animal mischief on 16th January when a group of alpacas and baby guinea pigs came to visit the home. Residents at Rivermead were pleasantly surprised to see their new furry friends roaming around their garden and inside their lounge as Butterwick Alpaca Retreat paid a visit.

General Manager Sarah Jackson said: “Our residents have really enjoyed their unusual visitors today. We knew that having the farm here would be a bit of fun for all our residents, especially as some find it difficult to go on many outings in our minibus.  We are always looking for new activities for the residents and today we have seen the seen the enjoyment and the therapeutic influence animals can have on people.”
 

We ventured out to Castle Howard to attend the Alice in Wonderland house display. 

The house was decorated absolutely beautifully in the Alice in Wonderland theme throughout and was simply stunning and we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit for the 3rd year. 

We took Jean, Audrey and Ken to have a look around and see the absolute beautiful delights. They all thoroughly enjoyed themselves and afterwards we sat down for a lovely meal in the café. 

We are thoroughly into all the Christmas celebrations and this has been the icing on the cake for the build up to Christmas and we are now thoroughly excited. 

We had the pleasure of welcoming a group of nursery children into our home. We spent the afternoon decorating some Christmas ornaments, reading stories and singing some familiar nursery rhymes and Christmas songs!

Our residents thoroughly enjoyed their afternoon interacting with the children.

Inter-generational activities are a great opportunity for both the children and residents by enhancing the children’s learning, and promoting positive wellbeing for our residents. It can also bring back some wonderful memories of taking care of their own children/ grandchildren.