Memories Tree

  • 60
Time

Benefits
  • Bring Joy
  • Embrace Identity

Participants
  • One to One

What you need

  1. Personal photos (use photocopies if you can’t use the originals)
  2. A3 piece of card with a basic outline of a tree, with 6-8 branches, drawn on it
  3. Coloured pencils

Intro

Encourage the person or group to gather photos of their friends and family from the past and present, and create a lovely visual display of their memories. They’ll stick the photos to the branches of hand-drawn tree and write little notes to bring it to life. Everyone can then share their lives with the group and hang their memory tree for all to see.

This activity is best done as a one-on-one , but it also works well in a group. You might find this an activity to run over a few sessions as can take a while.

Top tip

If doing the activity as a group in a care home, you could create a separate group reminiscence session, allowing each person to talk about their tree and all the lovely memories that go with it.

The Activity

  1. Family and friends can help collate a mix of 15 to 20 photos of various loved ones
  2. For the first session, give the person plenty of time to look through all the photos and share their memories as they go (family and friends may need to help with some of the memories)
  3. Take notes of their memories, as this will help them to write the descriptions later on
  4. Ask the person to pick 6 to 8 photos only to use on their tree and set them aside for the next session
  5. For the second session, get the card with the tree outline ready
  6. Encourage the person to jazz it up with coloured pencils, if they wish
  7. Help the person to glue the photos onto the branches
  8. Encourage them to write a few words underneath each photo about what’s going on
  9. Help them if they’re struggling, by using the notes you took in the last session
  10. Once they’ve finished and they’re happy, put the tree on display
  11. Spend time with each person admiring their tree and reminiscing, before leaving them alone with it
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