Tap into their memories of the Bicentennial in 1976. Where were they? What did they do? Any special parades for that year? You might need some pictures of that occasion to help them with recall.

Ask them about parades. What can they tell you about them? Firetrucks? Bands? Music?

Ask them some trivia questions. What is our national bird? How many stars on the flag?

Play some John Philip Sousa marches and give them little flags to march and wave (or sit and wave)

Patriotic Sing-Along. Songs like America the Beautiful, You’re a Grand Old Flag and This Land is Your Land     product push here

Show the movie “Yankee Doodle Dandy”

Try doing some scent jars. You can do this with cotton balls with the scent on them and put inside small jar – like a baby food jar. Scents like apple pie, hot dogs, fresh-cut grass, pine, saltwater, a leather baseball glove

Sorting things that are red, white and blue – buttons, pom poms, beads, foam stars or circles, etc.

If you have a bunch of foam shapes that you can pass around – see if the residents can copy a pattern that you give them. Ie, you show them a blue square, red square, blue square. Can they create the same pattern?

Let them fold red, white and blue towels or different colored bandanas

Have a bunch of silk red, white and blue flowers. Have residents create patriotic bouquets of flowers

Gather some pieces of fabric – rough denim, soft cotton, red silk, embroidered star. Pass around the texture pieces and start a conversation.

Landmarks – Gather pictures of well-known landmarks across the U.S. like the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore. Ask the residents. “Have you ever seen this in person?” and “Can you tell us what this is?” See if you can get a conversation going and let them reminisce.

Make a simple outline of a star and a flag. Have residents tear up red, white and blue construction paper. Then have them glue the paper onto the object.

Decoupage Coasters – Using plain wooden or ceramic tiles and pre-cut patriotic paper napkins or tissue paper, have residents apply them using Mod Podge and let dry.

Do some salt painting – Draw simple “burst” patterns with liquid glue on dark blue or black cardstock. Sprinkle salt over the glue, then let the resident dab on red and blue watercolors with a brush. The color “travels” through the salt, creating a vibrant firework effect that looks sophisticated but is very easy to do.

Paint ceramic (or cardboard) stars

Put some red and blue paint on a white page. Let residents blow the paint around through a straw to create a design.

Create pictures with different color or red, white and blue star stickers

Make homemade ice cream

Let residents help mix up some sugar cookie dough. Using a star cut-out, stamp out and bake cookies. Then let residents frost them and decorate with colored sprinkles.

Have the residents help make vanilla pudding & create parfaits with the pudding and layer with strawberries and blueberries. Could also use yogurt.

No-bake patriotic tarts – either use pre-made graham cracker tart crusts or let the residents break up the graham crackers and help make the tart crusts. Then take canned cherry pie filling and let them spoon that into the crusts. Top with whip cream and a couple blueberries.

Let the residents go outside and blow bubbles or patriotic pin-wheels