[For Seniors] Handmade Game Ideas You Can Enjoy
Games and recreational activities are essential in senior facilities like day-care centers.
In this article, we introduce handmade games you can enjoy.
Some are made using recycled materials like milk cartons and newspapers, while others use items you can get at 100-yen shops, such as paper cups and disposable chopsticks.
All of them involve thinking, competing, and playing, so they serve as brain training—and best of all, they foster communication.
In team competitions, everyone might get fired up, focus on the game, and end up in a frenzy!
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[For Seniors] Handmade Game Ideas You Can Enjoy (101–110)
Hexagonal Seven-Piece Origami Puzzle
It’s a puzzle game where hexagons are decorated with six colored triangles and arranged so that adjacent sides end up being the same color.
First, prepare seven hexagons folded from black origami and seven sets of triangles in six colors.
Then, carefully attach the triangles to the hexagons without repeating a color on the same hexagon, and the puzzle pieces are ready.
By figuring out how to arrange them so neighboring sides match in color and moving the pieces accordingly, it offers a solid brain workout.
Finger Dexterity and Coordination Training Goods
Isn’t the precise, delicate movement of chopsticks an important action in everyday life? This is a rehabilitation tool that trains fine finger movements through such chopstick motions.
First, prepare a wooden board and mark a border 1 centimeter inside the outer edge.
Insert pins with handles along the markings.
Once you’ve inserted a total of 16 pins, you’re ready to go.
Use disposable chopsticks to hook rubber bands onto the pins.
Freely loop colorful rubber bands around the pins to create various designs.
It also seems fun to use a sample as a reference and think about how to hook the bands to recreate it.
Number puzzle
It’s a puzzle game where you use slits and folds on a sheet with numbers to line up four of the same number.
There are numbers on both sides of 12 squares—24 numbered faces in total—and there are three slits in the middle.
By cleverly folding and making good use of these slits, you complete square sets of four matching numbers in order, starting from the smallest number.
If you place the numbers incorrectly, the puzzle may become unsolvable, so be very careful to arrange them precisely when you create it.
Text Color Card Game
This is a karuta-style card game where players focus on the reading of the characters and the colors on the cards to find the one that matches what is read aloud.
It tests your ability to decide whether the cue refers to the character or the color, and your judgment in locating it among the cards in front of you—so your thinking speed is key.
Clear phrasing by the reader is also important; be mindful to use concise expressions like “the character is red and the color is green.” The more cards with the same character in different colors are mixed in, the harder it becomes to judge the correct answer, so it’s recommended to gradually increase the number of cards as players get used to the game.
Target shooting game
Some seniors may have played shooting gallery or target games at festivals, don’t you think? This time, we’ll introduce a simple “target game” you can make with paper cups.
Cut out the bottom of a paper cup, tie off a balloon, cut off its tip, and stretch it over the cup.
With that, you’ve created an easy tool to launch small balls at targets.
Line up paper cups to create the targets.
Drawing illustrations on the target cups or decorating them with stickers will enhance the atmosphere.
It’s also great to have seniors participate from the crafting stage.
You can expect benefits for finger dexterity and brain training.
It’s a game that may help them recall fond memories of playing target games.
Use Empty Boxes! Illustration Matching Puzzle
It’s a simple puzzle where you combine randomly arranged cards to reconstruct the original illustration.
It’s easy to make: draw an illustration on a base and cut it with scissors.
Then create pieces from another illustration and simply arrange them randomly to complete the puzzle.
Using empty boxes is recommended because they make it easier to draw on, are sturdy, and the pieces are easy to handle as puzzle parts.
You can also adjust the difficulty by varying the types of illustrations and the shapes of the pieces, so try customizing it to suit the participants.
[For Seniors] DIY Game Ideas You Can Enjoy (111–120)
Easy! Prefecture Bingo Card with a Milk Carton
A simple bingo game played by arranging nine cards with the names of prefectures dealt from a deck.
Write the names of prefectures on cards made by cutting up milk cartons and create two identical sets.
Since the dealt cards are random, you repeat the process of checking once each time whether the called prefecture is on your hand, while hoping to complete a line.
Keeping your eyes on your cards, it might also be fun to recall images or memories of the prefectures as they’re called.