[For Seniors] Introducing Whiteboard Activities That Liven Up Spring!

Spring Flavors Kanji Quiz

[Spring Flavors Kanji Quiz 1] 10 Questions ☆ Brain Training for Seniors: Please provide the readings for the following ✏️

In spring, foods like bamboo shoots, strawberries, and clams are in season.

These days, you can get all kinds of foods at supermarkets year-round, regardless of the season.

For older adults, though, the seasons for foods were likely much clearer than they are now.

So why not try a spring seasonal kanji quiz on a whiteboard? For example, write characters like “鰆” or “甘藍” on the board and have the seniors guess them.

It can help stimulate the brain by encouraging thinking, and it also lets them feel the current season.

By the way, “鰆” is sawara (Spanish mackerel) and “甘藍” is cabbage.

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Nakajima Junko

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A word-collecting game about entrance ceremonies

Get excited by speaking together! Voice Brain Training [Recreation for Older Adults]

Speaking of spring, it’s also a season for celebrating new beginnings.

Among these, the entrance ceremony is likely an event that even older adults have experienced within their families.

Here is a “word-gathering game” that invites everyone to look back on their wonderful celebration memories.

Ask participants to write words related to “entrance ceremonies” on a whiteboard.

It’s said that recalling past memories and putting them into words helps activate the brain.

Reflecting on the past also makes it easier to review one’s life and accept oneself positively.

If you’re playing with a large group, have everyone call out words related to “entrance ceremonies” all at once.

Competing to see if the answers match could make it even more fun.

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Nakajima Junko

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A word-link game with spring words

More challenging than Shiritori! Nakatori: A quick downtime recreation game

Here’s an introduction to “Naka-tori,” a word game you can enjoy during conversations with older adults.

In the usual game “Shiritori,” you connect words by taking the last character of one word as the first character of the next.

In Naka-tori, you connect words by taking the middle character of a word as the first character of the next.

In Shiritori, you lose if a word ends with the character “n,” but in Naka-tori, you lose if the middle character is “n.” What’s more, you can only use words with an odd number of characters—like 1, 3, or 5—so the difficulty is higher.

However, because there’s more to think about, it gives your brain a good workout and can be even more effective as brain training.

Using a whiteboard makes it easier to think, since you can write down the words that have been given.

Beyond spring-themed words, you can look for words that fit each season, so you can enjoy this game all year round.

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Nakajima Junko

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Picture shiritori

Recreation for the elderly – A hit! Lively and exciting! Whiteboard activities roundup: 22 selections

There’s a word shiritori activity using a whiteboard, but let’s try turning the words into drawings instead.

Ask the older adults to provide words that form a shiritori chain.

Convert each word into a picture and draw it on the whiteboard.

When the shiritori ends, you can play an even more fun game.

Cover the drawings on the whiteboard with paper and have the older adults recall them.

Show only the first drawing, and then have everyone think about what word comes next.

Please guide the activity by giving hints and incorporating episodes from the shiritori session as you go.

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Nakajima Junko

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Animal Memory Rec

[Senior Brain Training × Care Recreation] Memory Training 18 – Dementia Prevention and Care Prevention Video for the Elderly [Fukukuru]

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.

Kanji Quiz: Flowers

Surprisingly Unknown? 20 Tricky Flower Kanji Quiz Questions [Elderly Care • Senior Brain Training • Whiteboard Recreation • Preventive Care]

Every time I see flowers blooming with the changing seasons, I think, “I’m so glad I was born in Japan, a country with four seasons.” How about you? Thanks to advances in cultivation techniques, you can now buy popular flowers at florists year-round.

But when those flower names are written in kanji, they can be surprisingly hard to read.

A “Flower Kanji Quiz” is great for a quick activity and works well as the main entertainment at a party.

Strangely enough, it gets lively even if no one gets the right answers.

It’s a brain-training game that makes everyone smile—I highly recommend it!

A quiz where you guess what the initials stand for

[One-Character Quiz Brain Training] What do these initials stand for? Let's have fun with a whiteboard!

It might have been the most popular variety show of the 1990s.

Even if you don’t know the show itself, you’ve probably heard the phrase “Magical Banana.” Yes, this brain-training game was a big hit on “Magical Zunō Power!” It uses only hiragana to depict illustrations—a quiz where intuition and flashes of insight are key.

You express faces or animals using only initial letters, targeting that sweet spot of “almost obvious but not quite,” making it a truly addictive brain workout.

No drawing skills required, so even people who aren’t good at drawing are totally fine!