On Thursday 12th July 2014 residents celebrated an early Bastille Day held at Macquarie Lodge. Bastille Day is the French National Day, which celebrates the beginning of the French Revolution in the storming of the Bastille in 1789. The official Bastille Day is on July 14.
The afternoon was full of fun and culture, starting with a quiz on France from www.goldencarers.com which is a great website for quizzes and other resources. Residents were served both hot croissants with jam and chocolate croissants, which were delicious.
Residents learnt about the history of the day, given by Recreational Activity Officers trying with an audio version of the history. Unfortunately this was too fast for the residents; however it may be useful at other facilities. Instead RAOs talked to residents about the history and significance of the day. This resource is on www.youtube.com by the Age of Empires (video game), which has many video resources on different history events.
Residents also sang along to Frère Jacques which most residents knew, and the French National Anthem, which a few residents knew.
Residents were then were entertained by RAOs dancing their version of the can-can which was highly energetic and involved many legs in the air!
This was followed by RAOs dancing to a French children’s song called Clap your hands, which was fun involving clapping, stamping feet, turning around and jumping in the air! Residents joined in with this song.
The songs of Frère Jacques, Clap your hands, can-can and the history of Bastille Day were retrieved from youtube.com and were converted to audio version for the day so they could be used on a CD player.
Jessica Horton
Recreational Activities Officer
Macquarie Lodge,
Salvation Army Aged Care Plus,
Arncliffe, NSW