[October Health Topic] Introducing Recreational Activities for Seniors!
In October, when the mild weather continues, many older adults may feel like getting more active.
So this time, we’re introducing recreational activities perfect for seniors in October.
We’ve gathered a wide range of ideas, from exercises you can do seated indoors to crafts that evoke the spirit of October.
In addition to helping prevent falls, exercise is said to stimulate the brain, promote activation, and may also help prevent dementia.
We hope these October health ideas bring smiles to older adults.
Move your body without overexertion, and use fine motor activities to support brain training.
- [For Senior Care Facilities] Fun! Recommended Events for October
- [November Health Topic] Indoor Recreation Ideas for Older Adults
- [May Health Topic] Introducing recreational activities for seniors!
- September Health Topic: Introducing Recreational Activities That Capture the Feeling of Autumn’s Arrival
- For Seniors: Simple and Fun! November Recreation Ideas
- [March Health Topic] Introducing Recreational Activities for Seniors!
- [For Seniors] Recreation Games Related to October Events
- [For Seniors] Fun Autumn Activities: Recreation Games
- For Seniors: Easy Crafts Recommended for October
- [For Seniors] Let’s have fun with October trivia and fun facts quizzes!
- [For Seniors] Introducing Recreational Activities Anyone Can Enjoy at Geriatric Health Facilities!
- [For Seniors] Leg and lower-back training: Fall prevention
- [For Seniors] Simple Tabletop Games: Fun and Engaging Recreational Activities
[October Health Topic] Introducing Recreational Activities for Older Adults! (11–20)
Making an autumn calendar
Let’s try making a handmade calendar for each season that you see every day! Autumn brings many images to mind—an appetite for delicious food, sports, and reading—and it’s full of iconic flowers and foods like cosmos, maple leaves, chestnuts, and sweet potatoes.
Let’s create and decorate an October calendar inspired by autumn! You can make cosmos and autumn leaves out of origami and paste them on, or draw directly on the calendar.
Collage, paper cutting—feel free to express your own vision of autumn.
Ring toss activity with Halloween hats
@usery5o1nffxli It's Halloween today. We did a ring-toss activity with an improvised Halloween hat 🤩FunHalloween#ElderlyRecreation#CareRecSatchan
♬ Bitten By You – MONKEY MAJIK
The rule remains the same—toss a ring and score if it lands on the target—but to create a Halloween vibe, the targets are witch hats.
You can easily make them by combining a circular piece of construction paper with another piece rolled into a cone.
How about adding a touch of Halloween to your usual game with this idea? You could make the hats in several colors and vary the points by color.
If you plan to use them multiple times, be sure to reinforce the hats for durability.
Halloween Strikeout
It’s a target-throwing game where you toss balls at a board illustrated with various Halloween motifs.
By focusing on the targets and throwing the balls, players also get to learn what kinds of motifs appear at Halloween.
Encouraging them to be mindful of ball control makes it a perfect physical activity as well.
Decorate not only the targets but also the surrounding area with Halloween-themed elements so participants can fully experience the event’s atmosphere.
Easy Homemade Halloween Ring Toss
How about enjoying a ring toss as a Halloween game? The rules are the same as usual, but you decorate the targets with a Halloween theme.
In this idea, toilet paper rolls are turned into ghost targets, and two pipe cleaners are twisted together to make the rings.
Make several targets and glue them onto a base.
Just cut slits along the edge of each roll, fold them outward, and attach them to construction paper.
Using purple and orange pipe cleaners can make it feel even more Halloween-like.
Paper Cup Fishing Game – Halloween
This is a game where you use an essential Halloween ghost mascot to fish up another Halloween essential: monster mascots.
The ghost mascot, which serves as the fishing rod, is covered all over with fluttering fabric, but its base is a paper cup with a magnet hidden inside.
You use this to fish up the other mascots.
The target mascots are made by attaching items like colored twist ties that stick to the magnet.
How easily they get caught depends on how strongly they’re attracted to the magnet, so fine-tuning that is the key to balancing the gameplay.
Autumn Flavors Guessing Game
There are lots of ways to enjoy autumn—sports, reading, and more—but the best part is definitely the season’s delicious foods.
With that in mind, here are some game ideas featuring autumn flavors like sweet potatoes, grapes, matsutake mushrooms, and chestnuts.
Try a “Guess the Flavor” contest where you eat candy and identify the taste, a “Guess the Ingredient” quiz where you sample a dish and name what’s in it, make autumn food cards for a memory game, or collect cards of the seasonal foods you’ve eaten—the ideas are endless! All of these are recreational activities that seem fun for wheelchair users too, so they’re perfect for facilities with many people who use wheelchairs.
[October Health Topic] Introducing Recreational Activities for Seniors! (21–30)
Restricted Shiritori: Autumn Foods
@thinkbodyjapan Whiteboard lecture!CaregivingCaregiverNursing care facilitytranslationRecreation
♫ Original song – TBJ / Care • Rehabilitation • Nursing – TBJ / Care • Rehabilitation • Nursing
This is a word chain game that becomes brain training by intentionally setting constraints.
On a whiteboard, write “Starts with 〇 and ends with 〇,” then play shiritori using autumn foods that meet those conditions.
For example, with a word that starts with “sa” and ends with “n,” you could use “sanma” (Pacific saury).
The quiz master sets the conditions, and everyone thinks of words that fit.
By writing answers in sequence in a grid, it’s visually easy to follow, and the overall flow is clear, which helps build excitement.
Making the theme autumn foods lets you enjoy a seasonal feel while playing, and it also encourages broader conversation.
As autumn-specific foods keep coming up, participants can share memories and stories as well.
