[For Seniors] A Brain-Training, Crowd-Pleasing Word Search Game
Games and quizzes conducted in senior care facilities can not only serve as brain training, but also help promote communication with others.
The “Word Search Game” doesn’t require any specialized knowledge, since the answers are everyday object names and the like.
It’s easy to jump into and is recommended even for those who don’t usually participate in recreational activities.
This time, we’ll introduce a word search game designed for older adults that everyone can enjoy together!
There are plenty of variations.
For example, you can think of and answer words that start with a specific syllable, or figure out object names from jumbled letters.
Let’s have everyone think together and come up with lots of different answers!
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[For Seniors] Brain-Training and Exciting! Word Search Game (21–30)
Proverb fill-in-the-blank quiz
It’s a quiz where part of a famous proverb is left blank and you guess what word belongs there.
Older adults might know most famous proverbs.
However, proverbs aren’t used much in everyday conversation, so fill-in-the-blank questions can be surprisingly tricky.
If it’s too easy, it won’t be exciting, so it’s a good idea to divide by level and finish with some very difficult questions.
Near the end, it’s also nice to give hints after a certain amount of time has passed.
Enjoy this brain-teasing word game together with lots of lively fun.
Word Brain Training
If you don’t have chances to use words in daily life, it becomes harder to recall them, and using a variety of words regularly leads to smoother conversations.
This game focuses on recalling and producing words; it tests your memory of vocabulary and your ability to retrieve it.
On a whiteboard, you write a prompt like “kan,” then think of letters that can connect to it to complete as many words as possible.
Figuring out which kanji the hiragana keyword can be converted into can also serve as a hint.
Setting a time limit helps players focus and come up with words more effectively, so that kind of rule is recommended.
Character Count Word Brain Training
Do Japanese people handle Japanese freely and effortlessly? It might seem that way, but this “word-count brain training” makes you think, “Maybe not…” The rules are simple: you have to answer with words constrained by the number of characters—1 character, 2 characters, 3 characters, and so on.
For example, you count 1, 2, 3, 4 characters with words like: 火 (hi), カメ (kame), すすき (susuki), ホンコン (Honkon/Hong Kong).
Add a plus-alpha category like foods or living creatures, and it becomes an advanced-level activity.
It’s also great that each person can answer freely using a small whiteboard.
Collecting Words
Introducing a word-gathering activity called “Kotoba Atsume Rec.” It’s most fun with about 4 to 6 people.
First is onomatopoeia—everyone names lots of sound-symbolic words like “gaku-gaku,” “peta-peta,” “waku-waku,” and so on.
It gets livelier if you go around in order and say them to a rhythm, like in the Yamanote Line Game.
Next is the “three-letter word with a circle (a specified character) in the middle” game.
For example, words with “na” in the middle—kanai, shinai, tonai—there seem to be infinite possibilities, but in practice you won’t think of that many.
In word-related games, the facilitator is key, so please use a whiteboard to keep things running smoothly!
Character Count Brain Training
A brain-training game where you pick one character from the Japanese syllabary and search for the longest possible word starting with that character can be expected to stimulate cognitive function.
At first, participants can call out words of two or three characters, and when no one can think of any more, the person who produced the longest word wins—so everyone will be racking their brains.
In addition to easy ideas like vegetables and fruits, making it genre-free with things like people’s names and country names may lead to unexpected answers.
It’s a sure-fire, lively recreation activity that’s highly recommended for older adults.
palindrome
Do you know what a palindrome is? A palindrome is a sentence that reads the same forward and backward.
For example, “たいやきやいた” reads the same backward.
Let’s all try coming up with palindromes like this.
You can also prepare a set of characters in advance and rearrange them.
In that case, it may be easier to reveal the central part and then fit the characters around it.
There are YouTube videos that pose such challenges, so check them out for reference.
Communication Card
If you’re looking for a card game that energizes the brain and the heart, this is a must-see! Here’s how to play a communication card game.
The rules are very simple: prepare several cards with prompts such as flowers, animals, colors, or foods.
The person who draws a card names three things related to the word on the card.
For example, if someone draws a card that says “Flowers,” it’s OK if they can name three flower names like tulip, cherry blossom, and dandelion.
It seems great for improving vocabulary and memory! If you add twists to the prompts, like “Something great about the person next to you” or “Something that made you happy recently,” the conversation will definitely take off.
Give it a try!