The Holidays Are Here!
Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and what better way to bring a festive touch to your Nurse Aide (CNA) training program than with themed activities that make learning fun?
Here are three Thanksgiving activities you can use to kick off the season and help your students retain critical CNA knowledge. Let’s dive in!
1. "Turkey Talk” Rapid Fire Review
Objective: Get students to quickly review and recall important CNA terminology, anatomy, or procedural concepts in a fun and fast-paced setting.
How to Play:
- Call out a Thanksgiving-related word (e.g., “pumpkin,” “cranberry,” “feast”) and have students respond with a relevant CNA term or concept starting with each letter of the word.
- For example, with the word “feast”:
- F – Foley catheter
- E – Edema
- A – Aspiration
- S – Standard precautions
- T – Transfer technique
Scoring: If you’re playing with teams, award 1 point for each correct answer that fits the prompt. The team with the highest score after a set number of rounds wins. This rapid review session can also be done as a whole class activity with points awarded individually, sparking some friendly competition!
2. Pass the Potatoes
Objective: Facilitate a fast-paced, fun Q&A session covering key Nurse Aide Training topics like Communication, Infection Control, or Vital Signs.
Setup:
- Divide the class into teams and have each team sit in a circle.
- Prepare a set of questions relevant to your curriculum, focusing on topics like Communication skills, Infection Control, or Resident Rights.
- Place at least 2 potatoes (or more for additional teams) in the hands of students in different teams.
How to Play:
- Instruct each team to pass the potato around their circle as you start playing some Thanksgiving-themed music. Favorites like A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving theme or Carrie Underwood’s Stretchy Pants make for a festive, fun atmosphere.
- Randomly stop the music. The student holding the potato must answer the current question correctly for their team to earn a point.
- Allow all teams to answer the question before revealing the correct answer and awarding points.
- Continue until all questions have been answered, tallying the points to determine the winning team.
This game adds excitement and lets your students apply what they’ve learned under a bit of friendly pressure!
3. "Dress the Turkey" Game for Nurse Aides
Add a bit of Thanksgiving flair to your Nurse Aide program with “Dress the Turkey” Game for Nurse Aides!
This printable and purchasable activity is perfect for reviewing crucial Nurse Aide concepts/terms in a fun, festive way.
Here’s how it works:
- Objective: Reinforce Nurse Aide Training concepts such as Infection Control and Vital Signs
- How It Works: Students answer questions correctly to earn feathers for their turkey. Each correct answer adds a feather to a featherless turkey until the turkey is “dressed” and complete!
- Add Color Coded Teams: I like to be able to display the turkeys once the game is finished AND see which team answered the most questions correctly by assigning each team a color (have them color their feathers).
This game is a fantastic way to engage students with Nurse Aide Training topics while embracing the Thanksgiving spirit. They’ll get a kick out of “dressing” the turkey while solidifying Nurse Aide knowledge.
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