Sawing Sticks at 7 AM

My finger is bleeding.

In my quest to engage the men with dementia with more in this, my 2nd week as an activities ass't, I got up at 7 AM and trimmed the sharp ends off these sticks using a coping saw whose blade kept twisting around––finally nicking my finger.

I'm bringing in sand paper so we can smooth the rough edges, and eventually we'll make mobiles by hanging pine cones and wood beads  and something shiny (what?) from the sticks.

I'm hoping the women will like this project too...
The active ones seem to like most anything I offer: the stretch exercises, the water coloring, the baking, but mostly the men are unmoved––literally, I can't even get them to walk over and join us. Or if they do, they don't seem to enjoy themselves at all.

So I'm going to plunk sand paper and a stick in front of them and see if that interests them... or if they hit me with it.
Only one man has gotten angry--when I tried to stop him going into someone's room, he yelled at me.

Turns out, he goes from room to room every afternoon, harmlessly. (It sure would help if I'd known this--say, if gotten more than one day of orientation before being tossed into this world on my own.)

"What are you looking for?" I asked him.
"Everybody!" he roared.

The other project I'm bringing in later is a kid's bike: as luck would have it, this weekend the apt. building where I'm house siting was clearing abandoned bikes out of the basement, and I asked if I could have this one for my work.

Isn't it cool?
I coveted these stingray bikes with banana seats when I was little. 

I imagine lots of the people I work with assembled  bikes for their kids' birthdays... and I'm hoping they get into washing this dirty bike and taking its wheels off and on and cleaning the chain.
Then we could donate it to a kids bike charity and get another one and do it again.
Or they won't be interested at all... 
I have no idea. This is all an experiment.