Destination: Costa Rica Activity Sidekick

We have curated some fun additions for your Costa Rican Fun!

Decorating ideas

  • Print out a large Jamaican flag – let residents color it together. If you are still doing in-room only, there’s a Jamaican flag to color in the Activity Booklet
  • Use tropical plants to help decorate the table or cart.

Food & Beverage Ideas

  • Make a trail mix with banana chips, coconut, and dried fruits. 
  • (Use donut holes) and call them Jamaican Johnnycake Dumplings
  • Make a cake with red, yellow and green layers
  • Smoothies layered with watermelon, mango and kiwi will make a perfect Jamaican colored snack
  • Fruit Ka Bob (Marley)  – strawberries, kiwi, pineapple, dark grapes (black if you can find them)
  • Make 3 colors of jello (red, yellow and green)
  • Don’t forget the Jerk Chicken!

Activities

Here’s a link to our printable Activity Booklet that can be done solo!

Have residents relax in a lounge chair, with a rum drink, or a smoothie. (fruit is the key here)

Sensory

Use a kiddie pool and put some water in it. Let residents sit around it and put their feet in while ocean music is playing (or Reggae)


Extra Fun We Have Found

Crafts

Tye Dye shirts are always a big win with residents.

Make traditional tissue paper flowers in Green, Black and yellow for the ladies hair

Be sure to check out our Craft-in-a-Bag ideas too. Here you’ll find bracelets and sea turtles they can make in their room with very little prep on your part.

YouTube Video Tours


Top Movies to Watch

  • Pirates of the Caribbean (total of 5 movies)
  • Yardie (2018)
  • Sprinter (2018)
  • Holding on to Jah (2011)
  • Dr. No (007) (1962)
  • Wide Sargasso Sea (1993)
  • Cocktail (1988)
  • One Love (2003)
  • Cool Runnings (1993)
  • The Harder They Come (1967)
  • Jamaica Inn (1939)

Jamaican Music for Your Playlist

  • Satisfy My Soul, Bob Marley & The Wailers
  • No Woman No Cry, Bob Marley & The Wailers
  • Say Hey (I Love You), Michael Franti & Spearhead, Cherine Tanya Anderson
  • Piece of My Heart, Shaggy Marsha
  • Red Red Wine, UB40
  • You Can Get It If You Really Want, Jimmy Cliff
  • So Much Things to Say, Bab Marley & The Wailers
  • Stir It Up – Bob Marley & The Wailers
  • I Shot the Seriff, The Wailers
  • Declaration of Rights, Johnny Clarke
  • One Love / People Get Ready, Bob Marley & the The Wailers
  • Don’t Worry Be Happy, Bobby McFerrin
  • Kingston Town, UB40
  • Could You Be Loved, Bob Marley & The Wailers

Books

“Bone” by Yrsa Daley-Ward – An anthology of poems

“A Brief History of Seven Killings” – Marlon James – Fiction, The book uses the backdrop of Jamaica during the ’70s and ’80s to tell the story of the attempted assassination of Bob Marley.

“Augustown”, by Kei Miller – Historical fiction, Literary fiction – a novel set in a pre-independent Jamaica revolving around the country’s Revivalist movement.

“The Book of Night Women” (Hardback) by Marlon James – Historical Fiction – It is the story of Lilith, born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they and she will come to both revere and fear.

“Small Island” by Andrea Levy – (Paperback) Fiction, Historical – Hortense Joseph arrives in London from Jamaica in 1948 with her life in her suitcase, her heart broken, her resolve intact. Her husband, Gilbert Joseph, returns from the war expecting to be received as a hero, but finds his status as a black man in Britain to be second class. His white landlady, Queenie, raised as a farmer’s daughter, befriends Gilbert, and later Hortense, with innocence and courage, until the unexpected arrival of her husband, Bernard, who returns from combat with issues of his own to resolve.