[For Seniors] Fun Winter Activities: Recreation and Games
We’d like to introduce recreational activities and games that older adults can enjoy during the still-chilly winter season.
Winter is full of occasions like New Year’s and Valentine’s Day.
Many senior and care facilities may be planning events that match these occasions.
With our “Recreation and Games for Older Adults to Enjoy in Winter,” your events might become even more enjoyable.
We also have ideas for activities that are usually played outdoors but can be done in a warm indoor setting.
From activities you can focus on and enjoy alone to ones that a small group can tackle together and get excited about, we’ve prepared a wide variety.
We hope everyone can fully enjoy winter indoors while still feeling the season.
- [For Seniors] Recommended in December! Safe and Fun Indoor Recreation
- [For Seniors] Enjoy the Cold Winter! Seated Activities You Can Do
- [For Seniors] January Activities and Recreation Games
- [For Seniors] Simple Tabletop Games: Fun and Engaging Recreational Activities
- [For Seniors] Simple Recreational Activities You Can Enjoy While Seated
- [For Seniors] Fun Recreational Activities Without Equipment
- [For Seniors] Easy and fun seated activities you can do in your room
- [For Seniors] Recreational Activities Enjoyable in Large Groups
- [For Seniors] Enjoyable Indoor Activities! Recreations and Games That Engage the Mind and Body
- [For Seniors] Enjoyable Day Service: A Collection of Fun Event Ideas
- [For Seniors] Enjoy safely even during the COVID-19 pandemic: Seated activities
- [For Seniors] Winter Haiku: Introducing Beautiful Masterpieces by Famous Haiku Poets
- For Seniors: Fun Activities in February — Celebrate Setsubun, Valentine’s Day, and Snow
[For Seniors] Fun Winter Activities: Recreations and Games (51–60)
ball toss (traditional Japanese beanbag/ball-throwing game)
Tamaire, the ball-toss game often seen at school sports festivals.
Some older adults may have taken part in sports days and played tamaire in the past.
Here’s a perfect tamaire activity for a warm April day to get the body moving.
Because it’s a familiar game, it can help older adults refresh their mood and relieve stress.
Have participants sit in chairs and place a basket in the center.
Prepare red, white, and other colored balls, and have the participants throw them into the basket.
The person who gets the most balls in the basket wins.
Throwing with the arms and shoulders also provides upper-body exercise.
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.
Hand-wrapping newspaper
Here’s a fun recreation activity using newspaper! The rules are simple: compete to see how fast you can roll up the newspaper using your hands.
You can make it more fun by setting different rules, like using both hands or only one hand.
Another exciting variation is to face each other and roll up the same sheet of newspaper from opposite ends to see who can roll up more.
The heated competition will get older adults watching to enjoy it together as well! This activity can be done while seated, so people who have difficulty standing or who use a wheelchair can also take part.
Ball game: “The tagger is outside.”
A perfect ball game for Setsubun: “The ogres are outside.” Attach printed ogre pictures to water-filled plastic bottles and line them up in a row in front of a towel fixed to the floor.
Tape a folded tissue to the floor a little away from the towel and bottles, place a ball there, and kick it with your foot.
You score points if the ball lands on the towel.
If it hits an ogre picture, it will bounce off, so aim to pass between them.
If kicking is difficult, it’s fine to throw the ball by hand instead.
You can also divide the towel into sections so the points vary by location.
[For Seniors] Fun Winter Activities: Recreation and Games (61–70)
Rhythmic exercise with a New Year’s song
We’d like to introduce a fun way to enjoy the season: “New Year’s Song Rhythm Exercise”! You’ll fold your fingers to the music of the children’s song “Oshogatsu.” Because this finger-folding rhythm exercise can be done seated in time with the music, anyone can do it easily.
Start by folding the same fingers on both hands, and once you get used to it, try folding different fingers with each hand—it also works as brain training.
In the cold season, fingertips tend to get chilly.
Many older adults report difficulty moving their fingers in winter, so this exercise is perfect for chilly January!
New Year’s Letter Rearrangement Quiz
We’d like to introduce the “New Year Word Unscramble Quiz,” which features words related to the New Year! Rearrange the given characters to form the specified word or sentence.
Because it requires memorizing the characters and putting them in the correct order, it’s used as a brain-training activity in day service centers and senior care facilities.
Simply incorporating New Year elements into the word scramble adds a seasonal touch.
You can adjust the difficulty by changing the number of characters.
Start with 3- or 4-character words and gradually increase the difficulty!
Kick Darts
This is a game where you sit in a chair and kick a beanbag into the air, aiming to land it on a high-scoring area of the dartboard in front of you.
It helps develop the leg strength needed to send the beanbag to a distant dartboard and the ability to control force to reach the target spot.
The farther the dartboard is, the more power is required, so have participants try at distances suited to their stamina and muscle strength.
If you run it as a face-to-face match, players will likely focus even more as they try to beat their opponent.
