[For Seniors] Recommended in December! Safe and Fun Indoor Recreation
December is a busy month at the end of the year.
It’s also a season when the cold is more noticeable and people tend to have fewer opportunities to go outside.
With that in mind, here are some physical activities and crafts for older adults that can be enjoyed indoors where it’s warm.
These are December-themed recreations, so they allow participants to see, feel, and enjoy the season while experiencing a sense of seasonal atmosphere.
They also provide various mental and physical stimulation—moving the body, using the fingers, thinking, and creating opportunities to interact with friends.
Please make good use of these recreations.
- [Elderly Care Facility] Fun-filled recreational activities for a Christmas party: crafts, rhythmic exercises, games, and even a snack-time activity
- [For Seniors] Fun Winter Activities: Recreation and Games
- [For Seniors] Fun Quiz Questions That Will Liven Up December
- [For Seniors] Fun Recreational Activities Without Equipment
- [For Seniors] Recreational activities and games that let you have fun while strengthening your legs
- [For Seniors] Simple Tabletop Games: Fun and Engaging Recreational Activities
- For seniors: Decorate the December wall with a tree. Easy ideas using origami and yarn.
- For Seniors: Fun for Everyone! Christmas Party Activity Ideas
- For Seniors: December Health Topics — Winter Recreational Activities to Warm the Body and the Heart
- For seniors: Introducing handmade decoration ideas to welcome a wonderful Christmas
- [For Seniors] Fun Crafts Recommended for December
- [For Seniors] Exciting Team-Based Recreational Activities
- [For Seniors] Introducing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts About December
[For Seniors] Recommended in December! Safe and Fun Indoor Recreational Activities (71–80)
Discost Santa
It’s a game where you throw discs aiming for Santa Claus’s mouth drawn on a board.
When drawing Santa on the board, cut a hole where his mouth is.
Players throw circular, disc-shaped pieces of cardboard into the mouth hole.
It’s an easy recreational activity that even older adults, who may have less strength, can enjoy while seated!
Movie screening
Simple as it may be, movie watching is a popular activity.
How it’s received varies depending on the film chosen, so some thought is needed there.
Works that tend to be rated highly include period dramas with clear good-versus-evil themes and nostalgic Showa-era films like the Tora-san series “It’s Tough Being a Man.” Films that were shown when today’s older adults were young are also likely to evoke fond memories.
It might be a good idea to take requests in advance from a shortlist of candidates.
It’s also said that older documentaries can help stimulate the brain by prompting people to recall the times in which they were made.
Song Exercise ‘Snow’
A song exercise that uses the whole upper body and involves bigger movements than simple finger-play songs.
You express the lyrics of the song with upper-body movements.
Let’s have fun moving the upper body while singing with gestures to the song “Snow.” Because you can enjoy it with songs that match the season, it’s great for invigorating the minds and bodies of older adults.
Passing items with a towel
This is a towel-based recreation activity called “object passing,” which is easy to prepare and can be done in any facility or home.
Two older adults face each other and hold the ends of a towel.
Using the towel, they pass an object resting on it to the next pair.
Large balls are easier to pass, but you can make it more challenging by using smaller balls or objects that aren’t round.
Because passing the object requires fine adjustments of the hands and arms, it can also be useful for rehabilitation.
Snowball fight
When it comes to winter, it’s all about snowball fights! But for older adults, enjoying the snow can be chilly and risky.
So let’s have a snowball fight in a warm room instead.
Crumple up newspaper to make snowballs, set up some targets, and throw the snowballs at them.
You can compete to see how many you can knock down, or write point values and compete for the highest score.
In conclusion
We introduced some recommended recreational games for December that let you experience winter.
They were all perfect for the season, weren’t they? Everything we introduced can be enjoyed indoors, so older adults who find it difficult to go out can join in easily.
Take this opportunity to try a variety of them!