[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!
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- [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! Whiteboard Activities with Brain Training Elements (21–30)
Song Title Quiz
A song title quiz where you write the lyrics of any song on a whiteboard and have people guess the song is sure to liven up any recreation activity.
Since most people remember lyrics together with the melody, it can be surprisingly hard to identify a song when only the lyrics are written.
You can start by writing the lyrics in order from the opening lines, and once everyone gets used to it, writing random excerpts can make it more game-like and fun.
Relying on lyrics alone to recall the song title is also great brain training, so be sure to try it in facilities for older adults as well.
Common Hiragana Fill-in-the-Blank Quiz
Let me introduce a common-hiragana fill-in-the-blank quiz that’s also effective as brain training.
In these puzzles, there are multiple blanks within a word or phrase, and you fill all the blanks with the same hiragana character.
For example, in “か○○○き,” all the blanks would be filled with “た.” One of the big attractions is that some problems can have multiple correct answers, and you can adjust the difficulty by increasing the number of letters.
Start with around four characters and gradually increase the number of blanks! It also sounds fun to line up multiple words and fill them all with the same hiragana character.
Let’s change one character with a spring-themed prompt.
It’s a game where you change just one character in a word written in hiragana to make a different word, and see how far you can keep the chain going.
If you limit the category of words you can use, the difficulty becomes too high, so starting with words that evoke spring is recommended.
Since the flow involves searching your memory for words that fit, it really tests how many words you know and how well you can retrieve them.
The difficulty also changes depending on the starting word’s length, so try various patterns to train your brain.
Dice word prompt
How about trying a “Dice Word Challenge,” where you draw lines on a whiteboard to divide it into six sections, put a prompt in each, and have people answer based on the roll? For example, prepare it like: 1.
Drinks 2.
Sports 3.
Place names 4.
Animals 5.
Sweets 6.
Plants.
Then have the participant roll a die and name three items in the category that comes up.
For instance, if they roll a 5, they could answer cake, chocolate, and candy.
If you mix in some light chit-chat about the words they give, the conversation will flow and everyone will have a lively, fun time!
Color Game
How about a color game as a whiteboard activity? For this game, prepare papers with color words written on them.
The key is to make the kanji different from the actual color of the text.
Instead of reading the words on the papers attached to the whiteboard, ask the participating seniors to say the color of the letters.
It may seem easy, but it actually trips people up and often leads to lots of laughs.
Because you see with your eyes and think with your head, it’s effective for reflexes and brain training.
Start by letting them answer slowly and thoughtfully, then gradually pick up the pace.
Animal Memory Rec
People aged 75 and over are now required to take a Cognitive Function Test to renew their driver’s license.
Even those who don’t have much trouble remembering things can feel a bit nervous when they know they’re going to be tested.
How about livening things up with a memory-training game similar to that test? Here’s a simple way to run it: first, show 8–10 animal illustrations—or just the words if you don’t have pictures—have the participant memorize them, then ask them to write them on a whiteboard.
Adjust the difficulty by changing the number of animals or the memorization time.
If you have a whiteboard, it should be fun even outdoors.
Combined Kanji Quiz
The phrase “kanji notebook” probably sounds very nostalgic to many seniors.
Even kanji like “right” and “up,” which we don’t think twice about now, once felt difficult, and we practiced writing them diligently.
With that in mind, here’s a brain-training activity about kanji: the “Combined Kanji Quiz.” For example, what kanji is made from the three parts: the grass radical, ヒ, and イ? The answer is 花 (flower).
Even simple kanji can become unrecognizable when their parts are separated like this.
It’s a fun brain-teasing quiz that’s great for your free time.