An In Home Caregiver’s 3 Fun Senior Spring Activities
April 15, 2018
Singing birds and new buds on the trees lure everyone outside, seniors included. Seniors treasure moments enjoying spring’s new growth and sunshine with a family member or an in home caregiver. Please read our previous post, “#1 In Home Caregiver Secret for Planning Meaningful Senior Activities,” which can help remove the activity-planning stress and allow you to re-focuses on your elderly client or loved one. Here are a few senior spring activities to help you brainstorm the week’s outings and break from the routine.
Enjoying Spring with the Senior Sports lover
Spring is baseball season! Growing up without television and heaven forbid, the Internet, baseball served as a social highlight for many of today’s senior citizens. In addition to getting out to the mood-enhancing outdoors, returning to the stands will prompt warm memories and fun conversations.
If getting to the local stadium proves too difficult, local Little League games and even adult sports’ leagues playing in a nearby park still provide a good share of pop-flies, home runs and pitching mound arguments that get pulses pounding. If staying home is most convenient, enrich watching a favorite baseball team on television by inviting family members, grandchildren, neighbors and even church friends. Some food and little friendly betting just makes watching the game more fun.
Enjoying Spring with the Senior Music Lover
With spring comes outdoor concerts of all types of music. You’ll find swing, jazz, blues, rock, folk and more music in parks all over your area, mostly for free. Which of these does your senior loved one or client like? Again, please read our “#1 In Home Caregiver Secret for Planning Senior Activities” post so that you make sure you’re following your loved one or client’s direction. Then, go to your local paper’s “activities” or “events” or “concerts” section to see what you can find. Entice the senior you care for by bringing up their favorite type of music and the prospect of “people-watching.” Your local chamber of commerce is another great source of information regarding special events occurring throughout the year.
Watching a concert isn’t the only way to reconnect a senior with music. Because there’s just something about a solo instrument playing outside, ask your senior whether he or she played an instrument and where it may be stored in the home. Entice them to play one short piece outside and gradually work them up to inviting others to come and play if possible.
Enjoying Spring with the Senior Nature Lover
Once a nature nut, always a nature nut. Even if the senior you care for hasn’t been to a local nature center, a natural history museum or local park for a while, they will enjoy the countless exhibits and educational opportunities these facilities provide. Some even have special programs for seniors that emphasize bees, raptors or exploration of habitats. As many are financed by taxpayer dollars, all of these facilities will have ramps, elevators, wheelchairs and more to accommodate seniors if need be.
Those up for working together on an outdoor project with their senior client or loved one can embark on several bird-watching programs conducted by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Project FeederWatch Cornell conscripts citizens in North America to help it conduct a winter-long survey of birds at backyard feeders and even community areas. They charge FeederWatchers with counting the birds they see at their feeders from November through early April. FeederWatchers send counts to Project FeederWatch. No skill required and the counts are not constant but periodic.
The Great Backyard Bird Count is a short term project taking place in February of every year. The next one is February 12 – 15 2016. In 2014, 140,000 birdwatchers in 135 countries counted 4,000 species. Like Project FeederWatch, easy participation involves counting the birds you see.
When leaving home is hard, local zoos and wildlife societies have provided a countless number of live video feeds available via the Internet. The countless “animal cams” include the San Diego Zoo’s Panda Cam, the Ventana Wildlife Society’s Condor Cam and the Monterey Bay Aquariums multiple cams including the Jelly Cam, Open Sea Cam and Sea Otter Cam.
The Best In Home Caregiver Encourages Spring Fever!
Particularly after a harsh winter, everyone yearns to get outside. It’s only natural and a very easy way to enhance anyone’s mood. The thoughtful in home caregiver recognizes these instincts and works to accommodate them. Energetic, creative caregivers enrich the lives of their elderly clients with activities they express interest in. After searching by background, interests and personality, you find that special help on My Care Match,. Caregivers even contact those who fill out a profile explaining their needs. Click this link to get started or contact us with questions.
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