[For Seniors] Play Long and Have Fun! A Whiteboard Activity with Brain-Training Elements
Whiteboard recreation activities are popular in senior facilities.
Because everyone can get excited together, they help improve communication among seniors.
They don’t require physical exertion, so it’s easy to participate, which is a nice plus.
Among whiteboard activities, we’ve carefully selected popular brain-training games that you can enjoy without getting bored.
Even fun activities can become repetitive if they’re always the same, right? The whiteboard activities we’re introducing this time are designed to prevent boredom by changing and customizing the prompts.
They help stimulate seniors’ brains, so be sure to give them a try!
- [For Seniors] Fun Brain Training! Lively Whiteboard Activities
- [For Seniors] Brain-Training Recreation Using a Whiteboard
- [For Seniors] Test Your Memory!? Ideas for Whiteboard Games
- [For Seniors] Brain Training with a Whiteboard! Fill-in-the-Blank Exercises & Quizzes
- [For Seniors] Easy and fun seated activities you can do in your room
- [For Seniors] Brain Training Recommended for Dementia Prevention
- [For Seniors] Fun Recreational Activities Without Equipment
- [For Seniors] A Brain-Training, Crowd-Pleasing Word Search Game
- For seniors: Fun shiritori—enjoyable and easy to play
- Hand games that liven things up for seniors—also great brain training
- [For Seniors] Today’s Recommended Activity: Fun and Engaging
- [For Seniors] Recreational Activities Enjoyable in Large Groups
- [For Seniors] Enjoy the Cold Winter! Seated Activities You Can Do
[For Seniors] Long-Lasting, Fun Activities! Whiteboard Recreation with Brain-Training Elements (1–10)
Let’s play the Same Answer game
It’s not about song lyrics, but since everyone grows up in different environments, the words “yellow food” will make different people think of different things—lemon, banana, grapefruit, and so on.
This game is all about enjoying those differences: “Let’s Write the Same Answer.” For each prompt, everyone tries to come up with matching answers.
Examples include “What’s a movie set in space?” or “What sport do Japanese people like?” The key to making it exciting is to choose prompts that feel like they should match but might not quite—right on the borderline.
Collect words and make sentences
A recreation activity where you collect various words to build a sentence is great brain training because it requires memory and imagination.
First, choose one character from the Japanese syllabary, then write on a whiteboard as many words as you can that include that character, regardless of category—food, place names, anything.
Once you’ve filled the whiteboard with words, combine them to create a single sentence.
It’s fun to craft a sentence that paints a vivid picture, of course, but it’s also enjoyable to try to use as many of the collected words as possible.
This is a game we recommend not only for older adults but for people of all ages.
Song guessing quiz
Many people and facilities use karaoke as a recreational activity.
Belting out songs can help relieve stress and is said to be good for your health.
However, you sometimes need audio equipment, and in some places you can’t make loud noises.
In such cases, this “Guess the Song” quiz comes in handy.
You list words that appear in the lyrics—like sleeping, octopus, spinning top, play, New Year—and have people guess the song’s title.
By the way, the song in this example is called “Oshogatsu” (New Year).
It’s a recommended activity when music lovers get together.
[For Seniors] Long-Lasting, Fun Activities! Whiteboard Recreation with Brain-Training Elements (11–20)
Collecting Words
Introducing a word-gathering activity called “Kotoba Atsume Rec.” It’s most fun with about 4 to 6 people.
First is onomatopoeia—everyone names lots of sound-symbolic words like “gaku-gaku,” “peta-peta,” “waku-waku,” and so on.
It gets livelier if you go around in order and say them to a rhythm, like in the Yamanote Line Game.
Next is the “three-letter word with a circle (a specified character) in the middle” game.
For example, words with “na” in the middle—kanai, shinai, tonai—there seem to be infinite possibilities, but in practice you won’t think of that many.
In word-related games, the facilitator is key, so please use a whiteboard to keep things running smoothly!
Darts with magnets
Have you ever played darts? Basically, you just throw darts at a target, but it’s said there are more than 100 different game types.
Alongside karting and e-sports, it’s even being talked about as a potential new Olympic event.
Why not enjoy a casual version of darts using a whiteboard and magnets? All you need is a magnet-friendly whiteboard, a target that will serve for scoring, and darts with magnets attached to their tips.
Adjust the difficulty by changing the size of the target and the distance to it.
This might even inspire you to try real darts in earnest!
A quiz to find the odd-one-out kanji
It’s a game where you look for the odd-one-out kanji whose shape is slightly different from the others that look the same on the board.
Tracing the lined-up characters with your eyes and spotting what feels off helps stimulate the brain.
The more characters there are, the longer it takes to find the odd one out, so it’s recommended to gradually increase the number to really get your brain working.
It could also be fun to aim for missed odd ones by using patterns like kanji with many strokes or subtle differences that are easy to overlook.
Picture shiritori
This is a classic game everyone knows—Shiritori—with a drawing twist.
Players guess what’s drawn on the whiteboard and then connect it to the next drawing that starts with the last sound of the previous word.
After the game has progressed to some extent, pause and check whether the shiritori chain was valid.
The process of thinking of words, moving your hands, and drawing them helps stimulate the brain.
If someone lacks confidence in their drawing, offering hints is recommended—by getting creative with how hints are given, you can help develop their thinking skills.