[For Seniors] Enjoyment at Day Care: A Roundup of Games and Recreational Activities
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] Simple Recreational Activities You Can Enjoy While Seated
- For Seniors: Effective Recreation for Preventing Care Needs—Have Fun While Staying Healthy
- [For Seniors] Simple Tabletop Games: Fun and Engaging Recreational Activities
- [For Seniors] Easy and fun seated activities you can do in your room
- [For Seniors] Today’s Recommended Activity: Fun and Engaging
- [Elderly Day Service] Let’s all have fun! Games and recreational activities
- [For Seniors] Fun! Games and Ideas to Boost Memory
- [For Seniors] Have Fun! A Collection of Group Game Recreation Ideas
- Hand games that liven things up for seniors—also great brain training
- [For Seniors] Easy to try. Fun, crowd-pleasing recreation
- [For Seniors] Fun Small-Group Recreation
- [For Seniors] Recreational Activities Enjoyable in Large Groups
- [For Seniors] Enjoyable Indoor Activities! Recreations and Games That Engage the Mind and Body
[For Seniors] Enjoy Daycare: A Collection of Games and Recreational Activities (251–260)
Ring Relay
In March there are some days when you can feel the warmth, but there are also days with sharp temperature swings.
At times like that, let’s liven things up indoors with a “ring relay.” To prepare, use paper or toilet paper rolls to make rings in large, medium, and small sizes, and pass them to the next person by threading them onto chopsticks.
It works well as a small-group game, and it’s also fun as a team competition for larger groups.
Through the relay, you’ll naturally interact with those around you and help promote communication.
Since you can do it while seated, it should be easy for older adults to join in too.
Enjoy your time!
A stroll activity to the nearby park
When the weather turns warm and mild, I highly recommend a stroll activity.
In fact, going for a walk is packed with benefits! Exposure to sunlight helps your body produce vitamin D, which strengthens bones.
Planning a date and destination for an outing engages orientation skills—the ability to understand your situation—while getting ready to go out and following a route use executive functions, the abilities needed to achieve goals.
If you’re walking, you can also expect various effects such as maintaining muscle strength and improving circulation.
Even in a wheelchair, spending the day differently than usual can refresh both body and mind, so please give it a try.
Association card game
It’s a game that tests your imagination and creativity by thinking of things associated with keywords written on cards.
You prepare three types of cards that represent “color,” “characteristic,” and “thing,” and place one card from each category on the table.
Then you think of something that fits all the conditions shown on the cards and share your answer.
Even a prompt like “a white, soft creature” could lead to multiple answers such as “rabbit” or “sheep,” so it could also be fun to compete on how many ideas you can come up with.
Association Quiz ~Food Edition~
Let me introduce a game called “Association Quiz,” where you guess the food in question using three hints.
As the hints are revealed, the identity of the food gradually becomes clearer, but those with sharp intuition might reach the answer before the final hint.
You can write the questions on a whiteboard or read them aloud so anyone can join, and it works well for both small and large groups.
It’s also great fun to play while chatting with the person next to you—saying things like, “What could it be?”—so I highly recommend it.
Bell cracking
The real thrill of a sports day is everyone on the team doing their best and getting lively over wins and losses, right? This time, we’d like to introduce “Suzu-wari,” a team event that really gets the crowd going.
You’ll need two large colanders, red and white tissue paper flowers, and some balls.
Attach the red and white tissue paper to the large colanders, then face the openings of the colanders together and stick them to create a big kusudama (paper ball).
If you put small pieces of paper in various colors inside, it’ll look beautiful when it opens, like a shower of confetti.
Once you hang the kusudama, all that’s left is for the players to throw balls at it! It’s fun and also serves as training from the shoulder to the fingertips, so even those who aren’t fond of rehabilitation will be happy to participate with this activity.
Spot the Difference Game
It’s a game where you look at side-by-side illustrations or photos and find the differences.
It helps train concentration to carefully observe the details of the prompt, as well as memory skills to compare and remember the mistakes you found.
It’s best to start with obvious, large differences and gradually move on to more subtle ones.
If you just can’t find a difference, it may help to use hints that indicate which area contains one.
Encourage players to focus and find the differences on their own to help stimulate brain activity.
Shoe-wearing motion training
Even the casual act of slipping your foot into a shoe involves surprisingly complex movements—like unconsciously adding angles as you move.
This game focuses on those motions when you insert your foot, training your feet through a scooping action.
You attach a cardboard part with an open space in the center to your foot and use it to pick up balls placed at your feet.
Instead of just moving straight in, you collect the balls with a scooping motion, so by concentrating on the balls, you naturally get your ankles moving well as you play.