The Hat Game
Submitted by Carl Homan of Lake Heights Resthome -New Zealand on April 18, 2004

Size: 6-12

Equipment: A box or bag of different types and shapes of hats

Objective: To allow residents to create characters using their imagination and to maintain mental cognitive status stimulation

Description: The first person closes their eyes and picks a hat from the box and has to begin a story and a character for them self. The next person picks a hat and must add onto the story as a character as well. Each resident does this in turn. The Activity director facilitates by helping the story along and providing comments when appropriate to add a humor. Pictures can be taken and shown to the residents at a later time to assist with recall.

Let's Act Out!
Submitted by Kelly W. Shivel of The Inn at Wyngate on May 16, 2004

Size: 6-20

Equipment: Chairs, short skits. Props if desired.

Objective: To challenge participant's to use creativity, thinking skills, and to promote socialization.

Description: Begin by consulting short skit books or use your imagination by coming up with some yourself. Ideally, you should have between 6-12 different skits available. Each skit should have at least 2 people needed to perform it and no more than 3.

Read the skits out loud for the residents who will be taking part in the particular skit you have chosen for them. Take into consideration the cognitive and motor skills of the residents when choosing which skit they will perform. One example of a skit would be as follows:

""You are a doctor. The nurse brings in a patient who has a large mixing spoon stuck in their nose. You need to remove this spoon. Act it Out!""

This skit would need three participants: Doctor, nurse, and the unfortunate patient.
This activity is a real hoot and our residents are great at developing unique and hilarious lines. Use your imagination to come up with other great story lines. Works best with medium to high functioning residents.

Transformation

Size of Group: 4 to 12

Equipment: a large piece of cloth, a toilet bowl cleaner, a piece of theraband, and other items that might provoke creative use of the item

Focus Area: creative thinking and coping

Quick Description: Participants are given an item such as a large piece of cloth and prompted to transform the object into an everyday object.

Complete Description:

1) Begin discussion on the relationship of creative thinking, problem-solving and coping (e.g., creative thinkers may find healthier means to cope with their problems rather than being overwhelmed by a problem).

2) After discussion, bring out one item and show it to the group. Announce the game of Transformation... "take this object and transform it into an everyday object... be creative and think of different ways you might transform this object."

3) Give the group an example if needed. For example, you might transform the toilet bowl brush into a fly swatter, a microscope, or a golf club.

4) Instruct the group that the person transforming the object must SHOW us the transformation (by acting it out) and not tell us. The rest of the group then must guess what the transformed object is. Be sure to tell the group that wait till the person is completely done before shouting out their guesses.

5) Continue around the circle giving each person several chances at transforming the object. After 2 or 3 passes, encourage the group to add more movement and action to their transformation. For example, instead of just showing a flyswatter, run around the room trying to chase an imaginary fly with the flyswatter.

Process: How can you relate the creative thinking you did here to creative thinking you might have to do with difficult problems?