Hi!
My wife is holding craft classes for the old folks at our local OAP Sheltered Accomadation.
Do any of you guys have have any ideas for crafts that might suit the visually impaired - that is - people who's sight has deteriorated, but who are not yet completely blind?

Thanks for reading this!

How about something that's a little more tactile than usual? Sculpting, carving, that sort of thing...

April: Thanks! Good ideas, but we need things that can be done in a short - 2 hours- session.....

Pottery. Two hours is plenty of time to make a mess, I mean, make some pottery.

Thank you, D@M !  Think Old People, visually impaired, hard to clean up afterwards and then do the math..........;-?

Finger paints? Only slightly less messy. Or have them make leis with dull needles and whatever's blooming. Flower arrangements? Basket weaving?

Oh, wait. Basket weaving would take too long. Have them weave placemats instead -- they don't have to look at it, just feel their way doing it.

make leis with dull needles 

???

Lei = string or necklace of flowers, like you get when you step off a plane in Hawaii. I know a woman who has a lei party every year, when her trees are all abloom with Hawaiian flowers (forgot the name of the specific flowers). She has all her guests pick the flowers, and then she has them sit down and string them to make a bunch of leis.

That reminds me of Fantasy Island. Every time I visit Hawaii, I never get one of those flower things. It's quite popular seeing ppl get them on TV, though.....  Probably good I don't get them.. probably would make me sneeze.

Bryster, I don't know what to say... the last idea I have is how about knitting. There's a knitting group that comes to the coffee shops every Thursday, lots of old folks, but don't know their quality of vision. The leader of the group is on Renderosity too... I'll ask that... but other than knitting or pottery, I'm stumped.

It seems most of the arts rely a lot on vision of some degree. I don't wear glasses or contacts (Death has no ears and contacts don't hold up well in the empty sockets) and really can't relate to poor vision. Sorry.

Quote - That reminds me of Fantasy Island. Every time I visit Hawaii, I never get one of those flower things. It's quite popular seeing ppl get them on TV, though.....  Probably good I don't get them.. probably would make me sneeze.

You probably have to be part of a tour group to get that. Back in high school, when I went to Oahu with a bunch of fellow students, we all got leis as we disembarked the plane.

Making Leis sounds good, but there is already a knitting group.
Any way you got my wife thinking and that's not a bad thing.

Just to put you more in the picture,  there are about a dozen senior citizens at this residency and no-one, but no-one visits them unless they are related and sometimes not even then.
My wife helps out with the thursday coffee mornings and realized that for most of the rest of the week they do nothing. So now she puts on Karaoke afternoons, singalongs and runs a craft afternoon. The old folks love it! 
At the end of the month she's putting on a Karaoke hour. I'll take my laptop down there and plug it into their big tv. Then I'll run the music through a stage amp as the words come up on the tv. They get to singalong with the words cos they're too shy to get themselves up to sing. I'll so the singing for them and hopefully get them to join in with me on the microphone. It's a lot of fun for people in the autumn of their years who would just fade away in their apartments otherwise.

The craft thing involves things like knitting or cross-stitch and such, but my wife Maggie wants to find more things for those who have cateracts or substandard vision.

So there you have it. In the summer we'll be putting on a bbq and at Christmas we want to get everyone dressed up in costumes for an old fashioned music hall singalong.

You have to hear and see their gratutude to believe it. It's just so sad to think that these wonderful old people have all but been abandoned by their relations and just stuck in a place for their last few years. 

Thanks for the suggestions though and for reading all this!

The Bryster
BTW: Maggie, my wife, is an epileptic who has had at least one siezure every day for the last 30 years! 

How very sweet of your wife to do all this for the seniors! I remember my piano teacher would have me and her other students perform for the seniors at the rest home, playing the hit parade songs they all grew up with when they were younger. It always made them so happy. Not 'til I was much older did I realize just how important that was to them.

I just thought of another thing ... what if you had them make game pieces out of clay or wood? They could end up making a set of checkers and a checkerboard, for instance, that they could use later on to play with each other.

Or maybe you could get them into gardening, from the seed phase to the pruning phase, etc.

Or they could do a group project, like a quilt.

I very much admire the effort you and your wife are doing. Is there a particular deadline? Or can we mull this over for some time and toss and possible idea here and there? Or do you need responses like... tomorrow? Because I really would like to help. I truly admire what you two are doing.

I couldn't help remembering the old BBC comedy show "Waiting for God" (I assume it's the same title over there as it was over here.)

Oh, and scrapbooking! It's very popular with people of all ages. They could use bits of felt and buttons and other scraps, and they could decorate the photos their family gives them of their grandkids or whatnot.

If you're allowed to bring animals, you might also try bringing a friendly dog or a calm cat from the pound so they can have a pet day where all they do is pet the animal(s). It's been known to have a positive effect on hospital patients or other people kind of stuck in a similar situation, like seniors at a rest home. Lowers blood pressure and is good for the health and general happiness.

I like that idea with a quilt. There was a friend of mine some years ago who did that with seniors. She had them each make a small patch of material representing where they were from or so, then put everything together. So the quilt has this patchwork of different colors and stuff. Each color had a meaning, like yellow wheat color for the midwest, white for the snowy country, tan and browns for the desert and grasslands, etc. They also put pre-made clothing shapes like houses and barns and other symbolic things, so it wasn't just all material either. So everything had this story of the person who made that particular patchwork.

A little more information please. How flexable, capable, are these people otherwise? How supervised are they? Is it in the city or country and do they have the ability to go outside.

We have a local lumber retailer called home depot. They have a line of classes to teach adults how to tile, drywall, and basically use their products. They also have craft classes for kids and sell kits for bird houses, bird feeders, etc. Lots of these are glue together instead of nail together and the joints are already cut.

We also have craft centers called AC Moore Where you can get similar unfinished boxes, Laptop writing desks, sewing kits, and more that can be assembled, painted, decorated whatever. There are usually 1 and 2 dollar bins at the front of the store where you can find inexpensive things.

Most retailers in the US can be talked into donating crafts or even sending people to teach especially if they can get good P.R. in the news. A quarter page ad in the local paper is $100 but a human interest story is free.

Chis...I have sent an email to The National Association For The Blind, to try and get some suggestions.
I'll post when they reply.

My mom is very crafty and she also helps out at the local senior housing center. When she gets back from her visit with relatives out of town, I'll ask her for ideas.

Woah! Now you're cooking!
OK, these are folks well past 60 who are residents because they can't deal with living alone in big houses. They are mostly in good health and only a few are visually inpaired. Some have arthritis or other ailments but on the whole can tackle most sit-you-down tasks without too much trouble.

There is no deadline here - only the one the Man Upstairs gives them - so if you have ideas on the back-burner that's ok.

JohnnyF: Great idea! Look forward to hearing from you.
Ang: Same again, and many thanks!
Aprilgem: That pet idea is genius - a great idea for an outing!

Many Many thanks to everyone for their input! That's why I love this forum! 

Teach them Bryce!!!!  :)  I seem to do ok being legally blind.  :)   

Definately stay away from baskets and more knitting.  The ideas for maming wood things are great.  About the pets...call your local animal shelter and ask if they can bring some over for 'Pet Night'.  We used to have those in my university dormitory.  They always made a good time. 

Do these people have access to computers?  There may be classes for seniors in your area that could come and teach about email and some simple things.  They can show them the accessibility features.  

Tell her to keep up the good work.      

We did a patio outside once. The idea was to make paving stones with designs to commemorate events, people, or places.

There are several types of paving stones you can make.

The first type is a negative stone. You get some wet play sand in plastic boxes. Make designs in the sand and pour an inch or two of mortar into the boxes. When the concrete dries pop the blocks out and use them to pave an area in the garden. You have to remember with these that anything you push into the sand sticks out on the final block. If you are going to write words they have to be backwards so when the block is flipped over they can be read. Those little magnetic fridge letters work great.

Another type of stone is made by pouring concrete into a plastic box and pressing things into the surface. If you want to remove the things you press in make sure they are smooth and don't have any under hanging edges that will get trapped when the mortar sets. You can also do the Grauman's Chinese Theater type blocks with hand and foot prints. A little lotion on your hands will help because concrete is alkali and can dry them out.

A third type of stone you press things into the surface and leave them there. Put keys or other metal knickknacks, seashells, colored pebbles. One woman made a mosaic using her grandma's Wedgwood plate that had broken years earlier. Some people use colored glass from bottles.

You could turn this project into two or three sessions. Have one where you set up the things to put into the paving stones. Have another session where you make the stones, have another where you set up the patio in the garden.

:thumbupboth:
Well I just gotta say a huge THANKYOU to everyone here!
We're going to try to get our local animal farm/petting zoo to bring creatures over to the residence so that the old folks can have an afternoon with them and we're looking into getting a bird sanctury to do the same thing.
The concrete suggestions might be something we can do too!
Plans are already in place for a Variety Show with the old folk each taking a turn on the stage with yours truly as kinda compair/MC later in the year.
While we can't use every idea you guys posted, your suggestions have fired up our imaginations and seeded other ideas! And for that we're very grateful.
Thank you so much!
:thumbupboth:

Ooh, the variety show is a great idea! They still remember vaudeville, I think. That also gets them active when you're NOT there ... because they'll be practicing their acts! :)

Chris, sorry but no reply from The National Association For The Blind, it may have got spammed perhaps!

JohnyF: Many thanks for trying! ;-(