Model Answer, Unit 3, Activity 7 C, Application and Reflection
This is a model answer. Your reflective account might be very different.
We had our second lesson last week which was based around numbers. Our residents have great memories of Spain and it is lovely to hear this and feel the camaraderie between residents as they share experiences. Memories are precious, especially to those with dementia who are losing some of theirs.
We had chosen to do numbers 1-6 as we thought 1-10 may be too much for our group. The class started with a refresher of the greetings we had learned last week, followed by asking if any of the group knew any Spanish numbers, we wrote these on the white board as a visual aid as they were spoken. We then taught the residents the rest of the numbers and one of us deliberately got the pronunciation wrong so that residents could feel at ease knowing that we were learning too!
Our residents love Bingo so we incorporated this into the lesson and used a dice to generate the numbers and get everyone active. We had planned for just one game but the group enjoyed this so much that we ended up playing 5 times! The Bingo cards were small groups of three numbers so the game did not go on too long and we made these laminated so they could be reused.
Next came our sums! We wanted residents to associate our classes with fun learning and not stuffy learning of days gone by - although on reflection some of our residents spoke fondly of this type of learning. We encouraged residents to tell us about their school days and asked them to complete sums at their stage of learning - some managed to answer a sum using English others using Spanish. One resident commented that she was' happy to be using her brain again'!
Our props this time were the white board, bingo cards and a big dice. Residents were active in body and mind. Many memories were brought forth and staff passing by commented on their favourite sayings commonly involving numbers and beers!
To end our session, we had a rousing sing song to 'We're all off to sunny Spain' which everyone enjoyed. It is our group anthem and one lady expressed that after all this learning she hopes she will be getting a prize of a trip to Spain!
We had planned to use a matching pairs type game where residents matched the number to the Spanish translation but our group did not want to move from their area and there was no table big enough to accommodate the game. The group not wanting to move from their area restricts space and does mean that we can have occasional visits from staff and other residents but these have largely been positive additions. On this occasion, one group member was feeling very low and was withdrawn at the start of the session, by the end of the session she was singing loudly - if we had moved to another area she would have missed out as she would have refused to attend.
We certainly benefit from undertaking the class in pairs as many residents need more attention due to their own difficulties in cognition, hearing or physical movement. One person can present whilst another assists. We take turns in this.
We look forward to our next class!
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