[For Seniors] Fun Small-Group Recreation
Introducing small-group recreational activities for seniors!
These are recommended for nursing homes and day service centers, where friends and peers can enjoy them together.
Large-group activities are lively and fun, but small groups have their own advantages.
With fewer participants, everyone has more chances to shine, and one-on-one communication becomes deeper.
This might even be a good opportunity to become friendly with people you don’t usually talk to.
There are many games to choose from, so feel free to use these ideas as a reference for planning activities at your facility!
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[For Seniors] Fun Small-Group Recreational Activities (71–80)
Gum-Gum Kick Bowling
It’s a game where a newspaper ball is connected to your foot with a rubber band, and you try to kick it to knock down milk-carton pins in front of you.
It tests fine control of your foot—like whether you can bring the ball into a good kicking position and transfer your kicking power effectively.
You can also see individual styles: will you focus on a single, concentrated kick to topple as many pins as possible, or prioritize speed by kicking repeatedly? You can adjust the difficulty by changing the length of the rubber band or the size of the ball, so let’s have people try it in various configurations.
Get it with dice
Here’s a dice game you can enjoy using items from a 100-yen shop.
All you need are a die, some balls, and three baskets.
Put the balls into one of the baskets, then place one basket for yourself and one for your opponent—now you’re ready! Take turns rolling the die and move the number of balls shown into your own basket.
Continue until there are no balls left.
The player with the most balls at the end wins.
Because luck plays a big role, differences in ability are minimized, so anyone can enjoy it.
Rolling the die and picking up the balls also serve as upper-limb functional training, and counting the numbers can provide cognitive training benefits.
Give it a try!
Sheet Valley
Let’s play Seat Volleyball using sunshades sold at 100-yen stores.
It’s a game that many older adults can enjoy.
Connect two sunshades to make a volleyball court.
Have seated older adults hold the two connected sunshades.
Roll a beach volleyball on top of the sunshades.
Before starting, use tape or similar to mark territories on the sunshades.
When the time limit is up, the side where the ball is located loses.
With gameplay similar to real volleyball, older adults are likely to enjoy it.
Since it can be played while seated, many older participants should be able to join.
[For Seniors] Fun Small-Group Recreational Activities (81–90)
Stick Catch
We all want to stay healthy and live long, don’t we? Try using a newspaper-stick catch game as a way to help prevent the need for care.
Divide older adults into pairs and have them sit facing each other in chairs.
One person throws a stick made from rolled-up newspaper with one hand to their partner, who catches it with one hand as well.
In the actions of throwing and catching, it’s important to see how well the pair can synchronize with each other! Why not try this recreation activity, which lets you enjoy communication while addressing lack of exercise and working on care prevention?
Ball Grabbing Game
Let’s play a game where you grab balls using newspaper.
All the tools used in the game are made from newspaper.
Make the balls by crumpling newspaper into a sphere, and make the grabbing sticks out of newspaper as well.
You can create everything you need for the game using everyday materials.
Place several balls inside a circle, grab them with the stick, and put them into a basket.
If you set a time limit, the game gets more exciting.
Forming teams and competing for the best time will make it even more fun.
Foot Beanbag Bingo
One activity option for events and parties is a bingo game.
Many older adults are already familiar with bingo, aren’t they? While bingo is usually played on paper, this time we’ll introduce a version that uses the feet and beanbags.
Prepare nine paper plates or cups, and have the older adults use their feet to toss beanbags into them.
Use colored tape to group the plates or cups by color, and change the score based on where the beanbag lands.
For example, award 20 points if the beanbag lands in a plate or cup of the same color, and 10 points if it’s a different color.
Because they lift their legs to toss the beanbags, older adults can enjoy the game while also training their legs.
Lightly lifting the ball with the foot
Let me introduce “Foot-Toss Flick,” a game that doubles as lower-limb functional training.
Prepare a small inflatable pool or a box, and place an overturned trash bin inside it.
Add raised areas around it and assign each area a point value.
The harder the spot, the higher the points.
Once you have some beanbags ready, the game begins.
Place a beanbag on the top of your foot and flick it toward a scoring zone.
Do this 10 times and compete on total points.
Unlike simple stepping in place, doing it with a clear goal can be more effective for maintaining leg function.
Give it a try!