[Nursing Home] Recommended for Sports Day! Lively Recreational Activities

Newspaper-pulling-with-your-feet game

Three pull-out games using your feet that seniors can play while seated #recreation_for_seniors #seated_activities #newspaper

Here’s a game that gets you moving your feet while having fun and training at the same time.

Have older adults sit in a chair and pull a sheet of newspaper with their feet.

They can pull it with one foot or with both feet together.

You can also have two older adults sit facing each other at a distance and compete—it should be fun.

Besides providing leg exercise, it’s likely to increase interaction among older adults and bring more smiles.

It can also help with a change of pace and stress relief.

Please give it a try.

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Nakajima Junko

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Sports day activity

[Senior Recreation] Four Effective Activities for a Facility Sports Day [Preventive Care]

With autumn being the season for sports, many facilities may be planning to hold sports days.

Even if you don’t go as far as a full sports day, how about incorporating common athletic-meet-style games as recreational activities to get people moving? For example, a baton relay where each team lines up in a single file, passes the baton backward down the line, and once it reaches the last person, passes it forward using the opposite hand; or tamaire, where participants sit in a circle with a box in the center and toss balls into it.

Let’s capture the spirit of a sports day with these lively activities and get everyone excited!

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utatane

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obstacle course

Sports Day at the day-care service: obstacle race

We adapted the highlight event of school sports days, the obstacle race, for seniors.

Instead of the seniors competing themselves, cardboard daruma dolls race! Attach casters to the cardboard daruma so they glide easily across the floor, and add a string so seniors can control them with ease.

For obstacles blocking the daruma’s path, slightly raised pieces of cardboard work well.

Avoid making the steps too high, or the daruma won’t be able to get over them.

Keeping the daruma balanced is tricky, and figuring out how to do it is also effective for helping prevent cognitive decline in older adults.

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miyabi

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Balloon basket

Senior Recreation: Build responsiveness to unexpected movements! Balloon-based activities for day services and elder care

This activity has participants gently hit a balloon and try to land it in the basket in front of them.

Encourage them to pay close attention to the direction they hit the balloon and how much force they use.

In addition to aiming to get it into the basket in a single hit, it’s also recommended to add a variation where they bounce it upward a few times before aiming for the basket to develop their sense of balance.

By thinking about the direction to bounce the balloon and moving to retrieve it, they can train not only their bodies but also their reflexes and decision-making skills.

It would also be exciting to turn it into a cooperative game where everyone stands in a large circle and targets a basket placed in the center.

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kappamaki

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Balloon Ring Relay

[Top 5 Balloon Activities 🏀] The ultimate new collection of balloon games! Guaranteed fun—want to try them all!

Balloons that move a lot with just a small amount of force can behave unpredictably even when you’re just carrying them sideways.

This game uses that awkwardness in a relay-style challenge where balloons are passed along in order.

Prepare ring-shaped balloons, and give each person a stick made from newspaper or a sponge.

At the starting signal, players use the sticks to pass the balloon to the next person, aiming to get all the balloons to the goal.

You can increase the difficulty—and the excitement once everyone gets used to it—by making the balloon rings smaller and the sticks longer.

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kappamaki

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