[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! Whiteboard Activities with Brain Training Elements (21–30)
Evolutionary word-association game
This evolved word-association game, where you combine adjectives and nouns to come up with answers, is perfect as brain training for older adults because you have to visualize the answers in your head.
If you’re doing it on a whiteboard, write the adjectives and nouns separately, and then come up with answers based on combinations chosen from each word group.
Of course, depending on the combinations, some words can be hard to picture, but forcing yourself to think of something helps stimulate the brain.
There isn’t just one correct answer, so it’s a recreation activity you can enjoy over and over—hearing others’ answers can lead to new discoveries.
Give it a try!
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.
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.
Witty Letter Quiz
It’s a game where you look at letters arranged in unusual shapes or patterns and think about what they represent.
You search for what feels off about the displayed word and unravel it, which leads you to the answer.
If you can’t come up with the answer from the puzzle alone, you can gradually reveal hints and enjoy the feeling of getting closer.
Asking players to find alternative expressions in their heads or expand images from the letters helps stimulate the 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!
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.
Calculation Brain Training
There are many types of arithmetic brain-training exercises.
One I recommend is where you leave a blank between numbers like “1 ○ 1,” and the quizmaster says one of “add,” “subtract,” “multiply,” or “divide,” and you answer accordingly.
For example, if the quizmaster says “add,” then 1 + 1 = 2 is correct.
Prepare several patterns by changing the numbers and writing them out, and the quizmaster points to one with a pen and says what goes in the circle.
If they point to 25 ○ 5 and say “multiply,” the answer is 125.
It’s a fun, slightly nerve-racking exercise—you might be misled by how it looks and blurt out 20 by mistake—so I recommend it!