[For Seniors] Easy to try. Fun, crowd-pleasing recreation
For those who use senior care facilities or day services, lively recreational activities are important, aren’t they?
In this article, we introduce activities that everyone can try together as well as ones individuals can enjoy on their own.
All of them are exciting and easy to try once you learn the simple rules.
Even games that might look difficult at first—like rock-paper-scissors relays or ball bowling—can be done while seated, so no worries.
We hope you’ll all give them a try so that recreation can help invigorate the minds and bodies of older adults.
- [For Seniors] Easy and fun seated activities you can do in your room
- [For Seniors] Simple Tabletop Games: Fun and Engaging Recreational Activities
- [For Seniors] Simple Recreational Activities You Can Enjoy While Seated
- [For Seniors] Exciting! Ball-Based Recreation
- [For Seniors] Fun Recreational Activities Without Equipment
- [For Seniors] Enjoy safely even during the COVID-19 pandemic: Seated activities
- [For Seniors] Enjoyment at Day Care: A Roundup of Games and Recreational Activities
- [For Seniors] Today’s Recommended Activity: Fun and Engaging
- [For Seniors] Guaranteed to Be a Hit! Popular Day Service Recreational Activities
- [For Seniors] Enjoyable Day Service: A Collection of Fun Event Ideas
- [For Seniors] Introducing Recreational Activities Anyone Can Enjoy at Geriatric Health Facilities!
- [For Seniors] Enjoyable Indoor Activities! Recreations and Games That Engage the Mind and Body
- [For Seniors] Exciting Team-Based Recreational Activities
[For Seniors] Easy to Try. Fun, Crowd-Pleasing Recreations (71–80)
A quick newspaper tug-of-war with feet
Foot tug-of-war might feel refreshingly new for older adults, too.
Many of us tried tug-of-war as children—this time, let’s do it with our feet! It’s an indoor activity, so the setting is ideal.
Place a sheet of newspaper on the floor and have two people pull on it with their feet.
There’s an illustration in the center; compete to see who can pull more of the newspaper to their side.
The key is to use your leg strength effectively and move quickly.
Enjoy experimenting together and have fun!
Clap along together
In many senior and welfare facilities, recreational activities are commonly held.
When older adults take part in recreation, it not only gives them purpose and enjoyment, but also leads to feelings of achievement and fulfillment.
Here is a simple clapping game that also sparks laughter.
The rules are very easy: have the seniors sit in chairs.
They clap along with the staff member’s rhythm.
Sometimes they might accidentally keep clapping even after the staff member stops.
But those little mistakes turn into laughs—making it a fun and engaging game.
Finger exercises with rock, scissors, paper
When deciding something, people sometimes use rock-paper-scissors, right? Older adults, too, have probably made decisions that way at some point.
In rock-paper-scissors, you make rock, scissors, and paper with your hands.
These rock, scissors, and paper shapes are actually effective for hand and finger training.
What’s more, moving your fingers can also provide brain-training benefits.
Many senior and welfare facilities likely include finger exercises in their daily routines.
Once you get used to it, try gradually increasing the speed or doing rock-paper-scissors to the tune of a nursery rhyme.
[For Seniors] Easy to Try: Crowd-Pleasing Recreational Activities (81–90)
Ping-Pong Ball Cup-In Game
Here’s an easy, fun table game.
Place paper or plastic cups on a table.
Then have the older adults who are seated try to get a ping-pong ball into the cups.
They can throw the ball or bounce it—either is fine.
It’s also nice to think about different ways to get the ball into the cup and approach it like a game.
Grasping the ping-pong ball may help train finger strength as well.
It’s a simple game, but it’s delightful when the ball lands in a cup, and it can be refreshing, too.
Please give it a try!
Bomb Game
It’s a game where players take turns answering with words that fit the given theme, while passing a ball that contains a timer to the next person.
It tests both your creativity to quickly come up with words from the theme and your reflexes to swiftly pass the ball.
Although the time limit is announced, the timer is inside the ball and can’t be seen, so you don’t know exactly when it will go off, which adds a sense of tension to the game.
The act of retrieving words from memory while moving your body also helps stimulate the brain.
3 Fun Rubber Band Games
Rubber is characterized by its springy motion, and controlling your strength is necessary to make it move the way you want.
Let’s take on games that use rubber’s movement to help improve strength control and concentration.
In Rubber Rubber Shooter, you’ll feel the force used to launch; in Rubber Rubber Kick Bowling, the force of the rebound; and in Rubber Rubber Curling, the nuances of delicate movement.
By paying attention to how the way you apply force affects how it springs back and by adjusting that force, you’ll likely find your movements become smoother in everyday life as well.
ball catcher
This is a game where you use a stick with a paper cup attached to the tip to collect balls lined up on a table.
There are also walls on the left and right sides of the table, so make good use of them to smoothly collect the balls.
A face-to-face match across the table is recommended, and trying to collect more balls than your opponent within a time limit tends to increase the speed of movement.
The longer the stick, the harder it is to handle, so once players get used to it, it’s also recommended to add variations such as changing the distance.