Lovely senior life

[For Seniors] Enjoyment at Day Care: A Roundup of Games and Recreational Activities

Social worker / Care workermoko
My name is Moko, a mother of three who admired my mother and worked in the care industry as a care worker and as a medical social worker (MSW) in a hospital. I will be drawing on my previous experience to write mainly about caregiving. Thank you in advance.
Deputy Editor of RAG MUSICsasashina
Deputy Editor of RAG MUSIC. JFC-certified fact-checker. I’m Sasashina, a mom currently raising an elementary schooler and a preschooler. During my student years at Kyoto College of Science and Technology, I studied a wide range of fields including sound, lighting, and video technology, building a foundation in comprehensive stage production and creative expression. After graduation, I joined a music production company, where I still work, consistently building experience in production and engaging in a variety of music-centered tasks. Currently, I mainly handle articles for children, drawing on what I’ve learned about parenting and what I feel and discover through daily interactions with my kids. I hope my work can be of help to you, even in a small way!

We’ve put together a collection of games and recreational activities that can be enjoyed at day care.

We introduce plenty of options, including simple games you can play while seated, brain-training games, and activities that help with hand and finger rehabilitation—so please use them as a reference.

Some activities require props, but they’re simple to make using recycled materials or items from 100-yen shops, making them easy for older adults to recreate.

Give them a try with everyone during recreation time or in small breaks.

[For Seniors] Enjoying Daycare: A Collection of Games and Recreational Activities (171–180)

Beanbag Bingo

Recreation for seniors: simple brain training, exciting, can be done one-handed! Beanbag Bingo

Beanbag Bingo

This is a game where players alternately place beanbags on a grid, and the first to make a line of four wins.

It’s important to aim to complete a line with your own color, but you should also be mindful of blocking your opponent’s line.

Using beanbags is another key feature—the action of carrying and placing them on the grid helps develop grip strength and provides arm exercise.

The game strongly emphasizes strategic thinking, as play style varies by player, so you’ll need to adapt your strategy depending on your opponent.

By playing repeatedly, you may even discover your own surefire winning methods.

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Casual Ball Curling

[Easy-to-prepare and exciting recreation] [Day service activity] Simple circle-style ball curling

Casual Ball Curling

Curling became well-known through the Winter Olympics, so many of you may already be familiar with it.

It’s a team game where you compete to see which team can get their balls closer to the center ball.

Preparing this recreation is as simple as getting a few balls ready.

That’s all it takes to create a fun activity that helps participants interact more with each other.

Since it can be played while seated, it’s also appealing because it can be enjoyed in a way that suits the physical and mental conditions of older adults.

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Recipe card

Cooking Card Game

Recipe card

This is a card game where you pick two words from the lined-up cards and combine them to complete the name of a dish.

The key is how many dish names you can recall from memory based on the letters in front of you.

It’s also recommended to shuffle in a dummy card that forms a complete dish name on its own—it can mislead players, spark ideas, or serve as a hint for a similar dish.

It should be fun not only to come up with correct dish names, but also to invent plausible-sounding ones that don’t actually exist.

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Goldfish Game

Goldfish game #nursingCare #nursingHome #careFacility #recreation #rec #elderly #game #KitasunaHome #dayService

Goldfish Game

At festival stalls, there’s usually a goldfish scooping game, right? Besides scooping, here’s a fun game that uses goldfish as the theme.

Two people hold the ends of a face towel, and place a goldfish plushie or a crafted goldfish on the towel.

While shaking the towel, they toss the goldfish into a basket that’s been set up in advance.

Assign points based on the size of the basket and the distance to the basket.

This innovative goldfish game should be enjoyable for older adults as well.

It also seems like it would be exciting to play as teams.

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Kendama

The familiar “What’s in the box?”

Kendama

The kendama’s unique shape, with the ball and handle connected by a string, seems like a promising hint.

Whether someone has handled one before, and how familiar they are with the toy, would likely affect the accuracy rate.

Since it’s hard to identify it from the feel of the wood alone, it might be better to touch and check the shape as you go.

If the shape and feel still don’t give it away, hints like “New Year,” “toy,” or playing with a ball might help some people figure it out.

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