Senior Inclusion Program Carroll County Government

It's time to play catch up since we've been so busy the past 10 days that we haven't had a chance to get on Facebook! June has been filled with a whirlwind of activities. Check out our new Wednesday Weather Watchers club! Everybody loves talking about the weather, checking out the weather, and waiting for the weather to change, so we decided to start a weather club.

With the changing of the seasons, we needed to change the bulletin board. So, of course, everyone voted on a beach theme. Here you can see Bruce painting the sand castle with glue, which was then covered with sand, of course! Next, everyone made their own personalized beach ball. Be sure to stop in and check out the SIP bulletin board when you are in the senior center.

We decided to pass on lunch in the senior center one day and learn to make our own healthy pizzas. We discovered that you can put just about anything on pizza! We experimented with quite a variety of vegetables and absolutely every style and version got a thumbs up! And in the process we learned a lot about working together in teams.

Check out the rest of the photos to see all of the other fun activities we've been up to! Hopefully we won't be off Facebook for another 10 days!

Our Wednesday was filled with a wide variety of activities from ouds to hermit crabs. What's an oud you ask? We learned about ouds and a host of other instruments this morning in another wonderful program by Laura Gibson. You can see her holding an oud in the first picture. Laura took us around the world with an interactive concert with exotic instruments. There were even opportunities to learn ethnic dances. It was a great morning filled with beautiful music and lots of fun.

Our afternoon felt a little creepy crawly to some of us as Program Aide Christina Green showed off her hermit crabs. We all learned a lot as we got up close and personal with Fluffy, Felicia, and Frisky (or was it Fedora, Fluffy, and Fiona?). They were a far cry from Christina's therapy dog, Sammi, that she has shared with us. Hmmm, I wonder what she will bring in next?

With all of this rainy weather we haven't been able to get back to working in our raised planting beds or doing any other outside activities. But as we like to say in the Senior Inclusion Program, sometimes we have to make our own sunshine. We like to think outside the box and experiment with different media (remember the ink we made out of soaking black walnuts?). Our latest experiment was painting and stamping on styrofoam. What a great way to turn packaging material that might have ended up in a landfill into something creative!

Besides just having fun, as everyone wants to do in retirement, everyday activities can also serve a purpose. Here you will see that Vic tried his hand at being the bingo caller. We play many types of bingo, and it often serves a purpose: number recognition, object recognition in themed bingos, encouraging verbalization and leadership, following directions, and reinforcing what we learn in educational classes like sign language bingo.

We have also been ramping up our patriotic crafts in preparation for Memorial Day and the 4th of July. Our fabric wreaths have been flying out of our showcase!