Chinese New Year is on February 10th this year, as it is based on the Chinese lunar calendar. Help get your senior residents involved in the traditional festivities by adding a few of these ideas to your activity program:

Host a Chinese Tea Party

If you have lots of tea drinkers in your facility, consider hosting a special Chinese New Year tea party, featuring popular Chinese teas like oolong or lavender. Encourage residents to dress up for this special afternoon tea.

Teach a Fan Dance

Play music and pass out paper fans for residents to use to work their arm muscles as you lead them in a fan-waving exercise. Ahead of time, organize a craft activity for residents to decorate the fans.

Organize a Lantern Festival

Invite residents to use red construction paper make Chinese lanterns to hang in your Dining Room for a special lantern festival lunch. Beforehand, coordinate with Dining Services to provide a “lucky” lunch featuring some of the traditional lucky foods for the Chinese New Year, including dumplings, chicken, and noodles.

Play Chance or Luck Games

Encourage residents to play games that try their luck, such as rolling a slot machine ball, or even host a Casino Night, featuring a fun game of Roulette, for residents to see how lucky they are on this Chinese New Year.

Plan a Dim Sum Happy Hour

Arrange to provide a variety of Chinese appetizers, like spring rolls or dumplings, for residents to sample to celebrate the Chinese New Year. During the happy hour, invite residents to paint their Dragon nature scene that they can hang in their window to honor this “Year of the Dragon.”

Take Residents to China

Organize a “trip” to take residents to China through an Armchair Travel activity. Show residents a travel DVD so they can see Asia up close.

Organize a Mahjong Game

Teach residents how to play the popular Chinese tile game, Mahjong, where residents learn how to make matching suits and pairs using the colorful tiles.

Host a Chinese Checkers Tournament

Gather residents and teach them how to play Chinese Checkers. If enough residents want to play, set up several tables of the game and encourage the winners from each of the tables to play one another.

Demonstrate How to Use Chinese Yo-Yos

Show residents how to properly use Chinese yo-yos to extend them about four feet before recoiling them.

This article is published by S&S Blog