Activities are the Heart of Beehive Homes of Provo
We work hard to provide moments of joy for our seniors throughout the day. We provide eleven structured activities from 9 to 5. Some are small group, some large. Our activities are varied to try to reach all of our seniors throughout the day. All are appropriate for seniors with dementia or other disabilities. You can drop off your loved one with confidence:
They are being well-cared for and engaged throughout the day.
Arts and Crafts
Our day begins with a craft. We tailor our crafts so that everyone can participate in some way. There is always coloring or painting available. Some love to glue and to cut, and we always try to include those elements in our crafts. We love creativity and we display our weekly crafts on our bulletin board by the fireplace each week.
Tasks
Each day, we do a task that allows our seniors to exercise skills they don't get to use on a regular basis, such as filling orders, ordering at a restaurant, putting together a sandwich, and organizing a safety kit. These are short activities that go a long way toward helping our seniors keep up their daily living skills.
Special Snack and
Meditation
Our third activity of the day begins with a meditation exercise. Then we relax and spend time eating a special snack and discussing a song, a picture, a video clip, a storybook—anything to get us discussing happy memories and events from our pasts. This is a particularly special part of our day!
Physical Actvities
Physical activities are popular with everyone. We play noodle volleyball, corn hole, bowling, yard pong, darts, football, horseshoes, bocce ball, basketball, miniature golf, bean bag hockey, relay races, target practice, boxing balloons, rocket launching, croquet, target toss, sponge tennis, frocker, ferrule, beach ball bounce, hacky sack triangles, parachute games, flyswatter hockey, balloon badminton and more!
Morning Activities
Afternoon Activities
Occupational Therapy Board Games
In smaller groups, residents begin the afternoon with board games. We have Candyland, Sorry, Don't Break the Ice, Banana Grams, Yahtzee, Dominoes, Spot It!, Wig Out!, Blank Slate, Sequence, Quirkle, Cubitz, and many, many more. Those residents who can't or don't want to participate are happy to watch or do a puzzle or memory game nearby. These games are tailored to the needs of those wanting to play—and everyone has a good time!
Brain Teasers
We rotate Monday through Friday with various brain teasers to help our residents with different kinds of cognition. Monday is memory games, Tuesday are printables including word searches, dot-to-dots, and crossword puzzles, Wednesday, we play pattern games, Thursday we go shopping virtually, and Friday we get out the sensory bins.
Occupational Therapy Activities
Occupational Therapy Activities are short activities (depending on the interests of the group) that focus in on particular skills, such as hand-eye coordination, sensory stimulation, sorting, and working memory. On Mondays, we participate in different activities involving play dough. Tuesdays, we build towers together, as tall as we can make them. Wednesday is our tactile day when we play with things like sand, Wikki Stix, slime, finger-painting and more. Thursday is our Working Memory Activities, and Friday, we practice sorting, a particular favorite of all!
Group Games
Group Games are designed to encourage social interaction and team playing. This is when we play Family Feud, Jeopardy, Charades, HeadBanz, Hot/Cold, Group Connect Four, Pinatas!, Who Am I, Fact or Fiction, and more! Group games are the times when we laugh the hardest and work together to beat the activities specialist. We even play Are You Smarter Than Your Activities Specialist—and we frequently are :) .
Storytelling
By this time in the afternoon, everyone is ready for a break. Many of our residents enjoy looking at the TV as a book is read aloud to them with pictures appearing on the screen. These stories are generally nonfiction accounts of amazing events and people that motivate and inspire. Storytime is definitely the favorite part of the day for many of our residents. Those who have a difficult time playing group activities particularly love this period of time to rest and be mentally and emotionally inspired!
Music Therapy
Music Therapy is essential at Beehive, and it is the time when our most reluctant participants find themselves out in the activity room, moving to the beat. But we don't just watch music videos or sing along. We play musical hangman, musical pictionary, musical bingo, musical emotions, music trivia, musical scattergories, musical instruments, name-that-tune, karaoke, and more!
Physical Exercise
Sometimes this simply involves another physical game, similar to the kind we play in the morning, but this is also the time when we do our exercising. Mostly done seating, we stretch, flex, move, tap, sway, and stomp to the beat, doing all we can to get our muscles moving. Anything we can do to keep up our strength and have a good time as a group. Those who don't want to participate often enjoy watching and singing along!
Snacks and Water
The afternoon activities always include a snack and drinks. Residents are assisted in going to the bathroom or changing their brief throughout the day. And if residents need a break, they are welcome to go in the quiet family room and rest or read a book from our library.
