[For Seniors] January Trivia Quiz & Fun Facts. Brain training with quizzes about New Year and winter.
January, the beginning of a new year.
How about a quiz packed with seasonal trivia and fun facts—from New Year’s customs and osechi cuisine to New Year celebrations around the world? You might discover that even the habits you took for granted carry deep meanings and wishes.
Through a variety of questions—kanji readings, letter jumbles, riddles, and more—you can enjoy a mental workout that leads to new discoveries and naturally livelier conversations with your group.
Wishing you all a time filled with smiles.
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[For Seniors] January Trivia Quiz & Fun Facts: Brain Training with New Year and Winter-Themed Quizzes (1–10)
New Year’s Around the World Quiz
Many people probably aren’t familiar with New Year’s celebrations in other countries.
For those curious about how other countries ring in the New Year, here’s a recommended quiz! It features questions about New Year’s in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Denmark, and China.
It’s perfectly fine not to know the answers, so it’s also great to discuss ideas together as you think them through.
Explanations are provided after the answers, so you can learn as well.
It’s sure to liven up gatherings with both adults and children, so try incorporating it into your recreational activities!
Spot the Difference Quiz: New Year Edition
This quiz lets you enjoy spot-the-difference puzzles brimming with New Year’s spirit, featuring classic motifs like the zodiac animals, kagami mochi, and the Seven Lucky Gods.
It’s a simple game where you carefully observe photos or illustrations to find differences, yet it naturally helps build concentration and attention.
Try it with family or friends and you’ll find conversation flows—“This part’s different!” “Ah, I found one!”—making it perfect for New Year gatherings.
Combining visual fun with a seasonal atmosphere, this quiz is a heartwarming activity that captivates both children and adults.
Curry Quiz
In connection with Curry Day on January 22, this is a quiz where you can enjoy a variety of fun facts about curry.
If you play with family or friends, it’s sure to spark conversations like “How are Indian and Japanese curries different?” or “Do you know this spice?” and be a hit across all generations.
Not only curry lovers, but even people who eat it often will be surprised by unexpected trivia.
It’s a fun quiz that lets you savor exciting, spice-like knowledge while deepening your interest in curry even further.
[For Seniors] January Trivia Quiz & Fun Facts: Brain Training with New Year and Winter-Themed Questions (11–20)
Hard-to-Read Kanji Quiz for Winter Seasonal Foods
There are so many delicious foods in winter, like ingredients you put in hot pots.
This time, we’re introducing a kanji quiz themed around foods that are in season during winter! It helps to make it easier to answer by starting with simpler questions—like one about mikan (mandarin oranges).
Also, showing pictures or illustrations of the foods when reviewing the answers makes things easier to understand.
It’s also a good idea to ask older adults about their favorite winter foods and include those in the quiz.
To boost motivation, consider preparing a small prize for anyone who gets all the answers correct.
Wafū Month Names Quiz
In addition to numbering the months like January and February, Japan also has alternative names for each month known as the traditional Japanese month names (Wafū getsumei).
Many calendars include these names alongside the standard ones, so they may look familiar to many people.
So how about doing a quiz on traditional month names in January, the start of the year? Even if the names look familiar, you might find yourself unable to answer when asked, “What’s another name for January?” You can have participants answer orally, and if that’s too easy, make it more challenging by having them write the answers in kanji.
Letter-Filling Quiz: New Year’s Edition
Fill-in-the-blank word puzzles are a staple of quizzes! Many seniors have probably tried them at least once.
Here we have a fill-in-the-blank quiz featuring words related to New Year’s.
With items like “◯◯ shidama” and “hatsu◯ no ◯,” the difficulty isn’t very high, so please give it a try.
That said, even familiar words can be hard to recall once they’re turned into blanks.
If you look closely at the symbols, you can tell whether the same character or different characters go in the blanks—use that as a hint when you think it through.
Hyakunin Isshu Quiz! 6 Selected Winter Poems
Let’s pick out poems related to winter from the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu and turn them into a quiz! For example, place two poems that include the word “asaborake,” which means dawn, side by side and blank out the asaborake part, or line up poems that contain the two words “white” and “mist” and make fill-in-the-blank questions.
Grouping poems that share common words makes it easier for the answers to come to mind.
The Hyakunin Isshu is something almost everyone memorized at least once in childhood.
After recalling them through a quiz, why not actually play together and bask in the nostalgia?
