Cognitive Activities

COGNITIVE ACTIVITIES

Family Feud: use the board game to get your questions, or make up your own. We use a white board and erasable markers, or you could use a blackboard. We seat the residents in tow teams, opposite each other and where they can see the board. We play like they do on television by asking one from each team to answer the first question. Whoever answers first with the highest point scoring answer, their team plays that round. You have to keep reminding the members of the other team not to answer until their turn or someone will steal their answer. If the team doesn’t get all the answers before they get three strikes, we allow the other team to try and steal the points.

Jeopardy: We make up categories, such as unusual things, animals, going places, that’s show-biz, umm,umm good, back in time, fictional characters, games people play, etc. We’ve used books and the internet to come up with the questions. They choose the category and we give them a question. If they get it right, they get the points.

Spelling Bee – Give them words according to their abilities, we don’t usually make it a competition, just go around the room and have each one spell. Even some of the most cognitively impaired can spell words.

Hangman: I use a white board and erasable markers. I choose a theme (flowers, summer, Christmas, foods, etc.) and make a list of words. I put the blank spaces up on the board to coincide with a word. I have residents call out letters. If it’s in the word, I fill in the blank, if it’s not, I write it beneath the word and start drawing a stick figure of a man. We continue until they either get enough letters and guess the word or the man is complete, at which time, he is hung. The object is for them to guess the word before I hang the man. We then do another word and so forth. We play for about an hour. I give my man a head, stick body, two legs (one at the time), two arms (0ne at a time), eyes, ears, nose and if I get to the mouth, he is hung.

Trivia/Reminiscing/Discussion We get lots of information off the internet by choosing themes, such as the fifties, the twenties, famous people, etc. and talk about those things. Superstitions are good to do in October. Home remedies are another good one and you can get info off the internet. To do a search, go to www.yahoo.com or www.google.com and type in whatever you’re looking for. You will have lots of sites pop up with information. Click on each one to see what’s there and print pages of what you can use. You can also do famous sayings where you say the first half and have them complete the saying. Bibles trivia books and games can be purchased, or get info off the internet.