[Elderly Day Service] Let’s all have fun! Games and recreational activities

Beanbag Bingo

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

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Beanbag Block

Senior recreation: Seria—Foot exercise with 100-yen shop goods, beanbag blocks #RecreationForSeniors #Seria #Fun #Interesting

Let’s train our legs while having fun with a beanbag game.

Pair up and sit facing each other.

One person throws a beanbag so that it reaches the other person’s feet.

The other person blocks the incoming beanbag with their feet.

Each chair has a designated territory around it, and the person who gets more beanbags into the opponent’s territory wins.

Because you use your feet to block the beanbags, you can train your legs while seated.

Successfully blocking will make older adults feel happy, too.

It also creates opportunities to chat with those around you, which can lead to more social interaction.

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Nakajima Junko

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Otedama Hoi

Senior Recreation: Seria 100-Yen Shop Goods – Guaranteed Laughs! Sit-Down Friendly “Beanbag Toss” | #RecreationForSeniors #Seria #Towel

Here’s a simple recreation activity using a large bath towel and beanbags.

Two people sit facing each other on chairs and each holds an end of the bath towel.

Place several beanbags in the center of the towel.

Working together, the two people shake the towel to build momentum and toss the beanbags toward a target.

It gets exciting when many beanbags land in the target.

Another key point of this activity is cooperation between the two participants.

Older adults can naturally create opportunities for interaction by calling out to each other and working together.

Through this recreation, it’s likely to bring more smiles to older adults.

Casual Ball Curling

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

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Recipe card

Cooking Card Game

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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kappamaki

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karuta (traditional Japanese playing cards)

[Senior Recreation] Rec Craftsman Series Part 195: 'Song Karuta' [Songs/Lyrics/Intros/Quiz/Karaoke/Brain Training]

Karuta is a game where you listen to the reading cards and compete to grab the picture cards.

It’s recommended for people with dementia because it stimulates hearing and sight.

When playing with a large group, commercially available karuta sets may be a bit small, so it could be fun to make your own sets together, such as a “Popular Songs Karuta” or a “National Travel Karuta.” Karuta used to be a classic New Year’s pastime, and many older adults likely have one or two memories connected to it.

It would be wonderful to enjoy karuta along with those memories and the conversations they bring.

Shiritori

Shiritori Anywhere

Shiritori, a word game many of us have played since childhood, is also a recommended recreation for people with dementia.

One of its strengths is how easy it is—no materials or preparation required.

It’s handy for filling small pockets of time, like on the bus when going out to the suburbs.

Another plus is that you can adjust the difficulty to match the person’s cognitive level.

You can customize freely with rules like “three-letter words only” or “food items only.” You could also set a goal, such as “finish after connecting 50 words.”