There are so many small craft projects, with assistance that the elderly, handicapped and disabled can do! My most important suggestion is not to involve them in a lengthy project, but one they can accomplish in a short time frame.
Here are a few ideas, but use your imagination as there are a lot of brilliant members on Thrifty Fun!
I guarantee these projects will be a hit and very rewarding, both ways! Their motor skills and abilities may be impaired but, with your help, the possibilities are limitless! Please add your own creative ideas to this! Thank you!
By Missy MM from OH
I like these ideas and I intend trying them with the special Needs group I help at. A couple of weeks ago we had a "pottery painting evening". I cast models using rubber moulds and plaster of paris. We had dogs, cats, owls, (soccer) footballers, (British) policemen, lions, rabbits and crinoline ladies.
I work at a nursing home as an activities director. I need ideas for new and exciting things I can do with them. Please keep in mind, that not many of them can do anything. Many only have the use of one hand.
I have been volunteering for over ten years with my children at the local nursing home. We call it Moms, Tots & Pops. My five children range in age from 14 to 4. I set up a date once a month and we have about 20 - 30 people who participate. They love the kids being there and sometimes other moms and kids join in. The following are examples of things we do throughout the year. I try to tie it in with the season. We make suncatchers sometimes out of tissue paper and contact paper, we have also used beads and string, We have made sand designs, painted eggs for Easter, made picture frames, bookmarks, painted small pumpkins, marble painting on card stock to make cards, streamer windsocks in red/white/blue, memory cards, potpouri sachets, yarn dolls, pine cone turkeys, paper airplanes along with making magnet fish to have a game day.
Have fun and bring your kids/grandkids, neighborhood kids they make it that much more fun for the residents.
Bless you for your work and for reminding people to get involved as a volunteer at nursing homes!
A couple of decades ago I had a really large, mellow, declawed, twenty-four toed cat that I would take to the senior center a couple times a month and, man, did it ever feel good to see all those faces light up being able to see, pet and hold a pussy cat!
When my time comes to be in a nursing home or retirement community I think it would simply be fun to be a kid again with things like crayons and a coloring books :-) And maybe at Christmas time to even string popcorn garland for the community tree :-) Even those who only have use of one hand can team with someone else and feel job well done :-)
What about having them do some actual art activities? I am thinking of watercolor painting. If you do not know anything about watercolor, perhaps you could contact an art teacher or artist in the community to show you how to do some projects, or better yet, to volunteer to come into the home. I think this would be a very good activity. Those who are artistic can paint. Those who are less capable can do something abstract that may still turn out very nice. If you want to do something other than make paintings to hang on the wall, you could do small ones and turn them into greeting cards. I would use fairly good quality materials -- the paper is the most important thing. One of the homes that I know of had a professional artist in residence that facilitated art activities rather than crafty things.
One thing that would be nice for people who do like crafty things is to paint on precut wooden ornaments. I do a lot of this stuff with my middle years students at school. They make particularly nice wooden Xmas ornaments. You can use acrylic paints, but even easier is colored markers. We used white out pens to put "snow" on the houses, and you could use actual glitter and glue, or glitter pens to put shiny things on these if you liked that effect. Depends what you are making. I prefer them without the glitter. Coloring with markers -- fine tipped if you are making small things -- is much easier than painting, and much less messy. Even someone who has only one hand could do this. One kid picked a duckling cutout and just colored it over and over to get a glowing yellow duckling. It was very effective.
Another craft that is quite easy is to cover a bottle or a juice can (cardboard) with ripped up pieces of masking tape. Then this is polished with a medium brown shoe polish, and buffed to a shine. It makes a mock leather bottle or pencil holder if you are doing the can thing. They could make it for their grandchildren!!! Turn the tables on them!!! Even those with only one hand could do the tape and the buffing.
I am looking for an Easter craft for girl scouts to do for nursing home residents. Any help would be appreciated.
-Penny
It depends on the age and abilities of your girls. A really simple one is to take a paper plate and a piece of construction paper. Cut two "ears" out of the construction paper. Glue the ears to the back side of the plate and use a pink pom pom for the nose. Draw on the eyes.
For older girls, go to craft store and buy small flower pots. Have the girls paint them or cut flowers out of magazines to glue on the pots. Add some grass and a few jelly beans. If you want to get really fancy, you could tie a ribbon around the rim of the flower pot. Hope this helps!
Hi, hope you are getting some good ideas. One activity I did with my patrol was for them to trace and cut their hands out (which will be the wings). (Some of the older people wanted to do it, so the girls traced around their hand.) Then you draw an egg shape on another piece of paper (which will be the body). then you make beek and two legs. attach the hands onto eiter side of the egg. Attach the legs and beek then draw eyes. And you will have a chicken. It was a very easy and fun activity for both the older people and my patrol of 7 year olds.
Happy Easter
Panther
One that I plan on doing with my daughter's first grade class is a Easy basket. You will need styrofoam cups. Poke a pipe cleaner into the sides for the handle, add grass (I'm going to use the different color grass) and add candy inside the cup. You can also use stickers to decorate the basket.
My Venture Crew went to the local nursing home last year when I really felt a tug on my heart to hold an Easter service in addition to our usual Christmas service there. Our first year we got the pastel colored Construction paper (cutting it into an egg shape pattern we found online) and used the foam stickers and regular stickers in addition to crayons, markers, and glitter glue pens and gave each person their own Egg to decorate. The majority of the patients loved it. I think it went well.
I am the activities director at a memorial home and last year a group of cub scouts made our residents sun catcher crosses. Just use clear contact paper and colorful tissue. Cut the crosses out of white paper and stick to the contact paper and then fill in the space with the tissue paper. Our residents loved them.
I work volunteer hours working an assisted living home trying to earn my silver award for Girl Scouts. We do crafts every other week or so and we do a craft usually for each holiday. We have done a Halloween craft but now I need ideas for a Thanksgiving craft that the residents could hang on their door. These crafts need to be not very complicated and not use expensive supplies. These people's hands are shaky and have trouble with gluing many parts together. They love to paint (they use the foam brushes for sponge painting) so painting is okay.
my grandsons class made the cutest wreath. they took a thin white paper plate and cut out the inside circle which left a round circle about 3-4 wide to use as the wreaths base for building.Then they cut out the same shape of a maple leaf using construction paper in fall colors like red, orange, yellow green, and glued those on in a clockwise circle slightly over lapping each leaf on the one before it until the wreath was full one layer around. Then a ribbon piece tied into a bow was attached (the wide 2 inch wire tulle ribbon0 it was attached to the top with glue. simple yet so pretty. It can hang anywhere because the inside circle was open. Hang on there doors, bedpost, in the window. Even add a picture of the person on the wreath.
Supplies used were:
1 white thin cheap paper plate
various colors of paper construction paper
elmers glue or glue stick
scissors
wire tulle ribbon
you could even cut out the leafs prior to the day of fun for them.
Can anyone help me with clay pot crafts or any other easy craft ideas for a nursing home residents' craft day.
By margieT from Australia
Read Archives, also here are a few websites.
www.ehow.com/
This website gives some craft ideas that have been made by the Girl Scouts. You might be able to find some fun crafts for the residents to do.
forums.gardenweb.com/
I would like ideas (and pictures) of easy crafts using recycled items that nursing home residents would enjoy making.
By sandi from Brookville, IN
I am trying to find online craft ideas, with directions, for elderly people in a nursing home. I have found a few things on creatingtogetherjournal.com, but it only gave me two sample ideas because it is a craft magazine. I volunteer and don't have the money to buy a craft book. If anyone has suggestions, as to where online to find ideas, please respond. Thanks.
By Cora
I am looking for some easy and cheap crafty ideas for Father's day for disabled, elderly residents at an independent living facility.
By KATHY BELK from Bowling Green, KY
I am starting my summer clinicals shortly with elders from a local retirement home. I will have a mix of men and women with varying degrees of ability. Anyone have any ideas for "therapy inspired" craft projects? I need something different. The elderly at the retirement home get to see groups like us every semester. I want to really engage them cognitively, socially, and physically (fine motor mostly). But here is the kicker - it MUST be fun! I don't want to bore them with "oh, this again".
By KisanOTA from Appleton, WI
