Activities at Southerndown Care Home

During Dementia Action Week, were so pleased to receive a delivery from The Theatre, Chipping Norton; ‘Take Part’ team and our Activities Coordinators couldn’t wait to utilise the contents with our wonderful residents earlier today.

Our box was jam-packed with games and activities to help our residents reminisce through the years. From ‘Tin-Can Alley’ to ‘Hook a Duck’ and plenty of arts and crafts for our team to set up 'All the Fun of the Fair' activity sessions within the home.

Each game helped stimulate found childhood memories of trips to fair grounds, and the addition of retro sweets as the winner’s prizes went down really well too!

We look forward to taking a trip into Chipping Norton and attending the ‘Memory Lane’ open-air exhibition this June (24/06 – 01/08) 2021. Thank you so much The Theatre Chipping Norton for this wonderful gift of kindness from all at Southerndown Care Home.

This morning, our memory lane residents gathered together to help one another complete some more of our Active Mind jigsaw puzzles. Today's theme of the wild coast generated many conversations about holidays, in the UK and abroad with family and friends, swimming in the sea and even diving from the rocks!

The residents of Barchester Healthcare Southerndown care home in Chipping Norton were so excited to get creative with their planting for the Oomph Wellness project. From deciding which items to recycle and rejuvenate into creative containers, to the choice of flowers and foliage to brighten each item and where they should be placed in our gardens.

Old wooden planks were used to create a large planter for vegetable growth and pretty climbers, a suitcase and wicker basket were packed with flowering plants for visiting bees and mini beasts. They used an old bedside cabinet, with its ‘bits & bobs’ draw open to create the ideal planter for fragrant florals. The gardening group had a wonderful time taking part, and planting each with love… 'Henry the hoover' has never looked so good!

We'd like to send a BIG THANK YOU' to our Oomph trainer #AmberDarbyshire and the Oomph Wellness team for setting such a fabulous challenge, (green) fingers crossed you love our residents entry as much as we enjoyed taking part.

Our new ‘Target’ tournament game went down a storm (like the weather) on Sunday. The rules are straight forward, the highest score out of 5 throws is the winner - however it’s not as easy as it looks!

Fortunately our residents had it down to the tee within a couple of practice throws. As Joan commented “it’s easy when you know how” and apparently when Peter mastered his throws, he advised “Overarm, that’s the secret”.

Everyone agreed... it was a great way to spend a rainy Sunday morning.

During our weekend daily living baking activity, our residents decided to bake bread, make waffles and ginger bread muffins.

Whilst baking we had some amazing aromas flooding through the home which brought back so many memories especially for Margaret who used to bake homemade bread every morning with her mother. The session was a great success; we had our homemade bread with soup for lunch, and all of the other delicious bakes were saved for our afternoon tea.

Reminiscence therapy is a key part of our life enrichment program. This afternoon we spend time going through one of the specially designed 1920-1940's rummage boxes.

These boxes contain many replica items from the era, including newspapers, comics and magazines. Our residents enjoyed looking through each, and had fun remembering what they brought with the old the coins; 'back in the day'!