The residents of Primrose Croft Care Home have recently enjoyed celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Mr Men books.
These books are popular children’s books that are each centered around a different Mr Men character that has their own unique characteristics, for example, Mr Strong, who as you guessed it, is stronger than the rest. As well as entertaining younger readers, they also educate children about different emotions, feelings and physical attributes.
Mr Calm and Little Miss Brave are the two newest additions to the Mr Men family, so the residents at Primrose Croft decided they wanted to have a go at inventing their own Mr Men character.
This activity coincided with Dementia Action Week, so the residents decided they would base their character around raising awareness of this annual event. After sharing ideas together, they decided to name their character, Mr Forget-me-not.
They then sat down and discussed what they wanted the character to look like as well as the story that would surround him. Ursula, who lives at Primrose Croft, said their character had to resemble the Forget-me-not flower, which everyone agreed with.
Next was the task of discussing the story for the character, which got the group speaking about the ways people can recall memories from their past. This involves using objects that can stimulate their minds and take them back to a moment, so they started to use this idea to come up with a story.
The story was soon complete, and everyone then started to focus on the visuals. They drew a forget-me-not flower for the body, then added his arms, legs and facial expressions.
Residents then began drawing, painting and colouring the pictures for their book. A resident of the home, Mary, used to illustrate children’s books, so she really enjoyed taking part in this project. It helped her connect with a skill from her past and you could see how much she enjoyed getting creative.
Lifestyle and Wellbeing Lead, Pearl, then helped to bring everything together, by typing up the story, adding the illustrations, and printing it in a book form.
Residents thoroughly enjoyed taking part in this project and were very proud of what they created. Because this was so popular, they may start creating a Little Miss book in the near future!