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For us it depends on what we are going to do. Outings to the mall where we have a place to converge, we usually go at a 1:3 ratio, plus the driver if needed. Also families may meet us there. Picnics and lunch outings usually 1:4 with the driver not included. If we go to walmart or take a trip to the casino we are 1:1, and we gets lots of volunteers for the casino trips.

If you find somewhere please let me know also. We found sitting on the floor and risking injury from flying pins or balls easier than the bend

If you find somewhere please let me know also. We found sitting on the floor and risking injury from flying pins or balls easier than the bend

We play Bingo 4 times per week. Sunday am, Monday PM, Wed PM and Saturday PM. We play for points. Regular bingo is worth one point, cover all game is worth two. At the end of the month the top 3 point earners get 5,4,and 3 dollars respectively. They can use the money on whatever they want typically getting stuff at the general store or in the break room.

I too have problems with low level programming. From what I am reading what some AD's are thinking as Low Level are what we consider moderate to high level here. My low level people are the ones who are in Geri- Chairs and are total care residents. The ones who if they make eye contanct when you call their name its a big deal. They are the ones who we have trouble keeping awake even during our most noisy activities such as rhythm band. I am having issues coming up with activity ideas for these types of residnets.

Our local newspaper prints letters to Santa. Every Year we have an activity where we ask the residents what they would ask Santa for as a child and then read the letters to Santa from the paper. We do not read all the letters and we usually have a good time with it.

We will be holding our annual Thanksgiving Family Dinner on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. We invite each of the residents contact list ( Usually 1-3 are listed as contacts). We dont have a limit on how many family can attend and we don not charge for this meal as it is a pot luck kind of meal. Our dietary dept does turkey, stuffing, mashed taters ( and ham usually) and then the families each bring a covered dish and dessert. We normally have 150-200 people show up.

This has been the first year our Activity Staff has had to work Holidays. Basically the staff is here that day to help with meal time ( feed people). The first Holiday we worked we had 1 person who was able to decide wether to attend the activity or not show up. On the second we had 2 people show up. There were others in the room but they would have been content with just putting a movie that deals with the holiday on the televison. I am not having people work Christmas ( double time) just to help feed.

Believe it or not we had the same issues not so long ago. We play for points and who ever has the highest ammount of points at the end of the month gets 5 dollars, 2nd place is 4 and third place is 3. One day after hearing numerous complaints about cheating, people sitting in someones seat, just petty things I had enough. I went in before the next game and said for the month of June they were only playing for fun. Then before July I made a list of bingo rules and read them to them. Havent had nearly as many issues.

I actually had my admistrator suggest looking into getting the residents a wii. Im in the process of looking for one ( has been budgeted for just hard to get ahold of). The cost of it is 250.00 My hubby will be getting one for christmas as my mom already has bought one for us. I think a lot of the residents here will enjoy it and get exercise without realizing it. There are a lot of games that I think they would enjoy. Brain age is one that I plan on getting them as is the cooking one.

The company that I work for sends out montly satisfaction surverys to different families. We then are required to respond to any low score. There are 2 types of residents that I consitantly get lower scores from: Ones who are there for a re-hab/short stay, or ones that are room bound due to their medical condition and get 1:1 beside visits. The re-hab ones are in therapy most of the morning and are just plumb worn out. We ask them to join in on the activity but usually get told... Im too tired. Then when they go home their family member returns their survey and says that they never attended anything. Does anyone know of a way to let families know that their loved one is recieving 1:1 visits in their room. We have tried calendars on the wall, no one would look at them, I have stopped in the room when I notice family members there. A lot of times it is not a Low Score but a Non/Applicable because they dont realize what we do for the ones who are unable to attend activities. One of my goals for the next three months is to better inform the families about what their family member is participating in. I am now sending out letters to the families when they get their invite to the care confrences but I dont know if this will have any affect it or not.

We used to a group like that and called it "Way Back Wednesday" can you tell what day of the week we held them?

We bowl about once a month here. We normally have between 15 and 20 people bowling at a time. I even started a bowling league last year and we had 5 teams of 4. They bowled every other week for about 4 months. We took the winning team to a local bowling alley that has the handicapped ramp as the treat for the winners.

I have an Aide that happens to be a CNA.