12 Activities to Add to Your Senior Program

seniors When providing activities for your nursing facility’s residents, it is a good idea to include a variety of activity types that will appeal to different interests. Our friends at notjustbingo have shared several activities to consider for your senior program:

Social

  • Play fun conversational games and ice breakers like Table Topics and Word Teasers
  • Organize Story Telling Activities in which each participant uses their imagination to create fun and interesting stories
  • Add daily, afternoon socials for residents to socialize with one another

Spiritual

  • Contact local religious leaders to perform religious services at your facility for your residents
  • Provide spiritual singing activities, like hymn sing-alongs
  • Organize a Meditation Club, in which you practice meditation with residents, or a Bible Study Club, in which residents regularly read passages of the Bible together

Physicalsenior program ideas

  • Get your residents moving with fun exercises that uses props like Parachutes or even Resistance Bands
  • Add dance breaks to encourage residents to move, or supplement your regular Exercise Class with a Chair Fitness session
  • Schedule weekly walks through your facility. Include outdoor nature walks or even an indoor walking tour to show-off the parts of your facility that your residents do not normally see (e.g., kitchen tour)

Reminiscing

  • Reminisce with residents using photos of well-known people, like downloaded photos of Old Hollywood actresses
  • Use Reminiscing Books that contain common sayings or even nursery rhymes that can spark your residents’ recollection
  • Invite residents to bring their family photos and mementos for a fun reminiscing activity for them to share information about their lives with others

Tactilesenior program activities

  • Plan fun arts and crafts projects that are seasonal like this Snowman Box Craft or that can be made and given as gifts like this Wooden Photo Frame Craft-Kit
  • Recruit residents to assist with administrative projects, like stuffing envelopes
  • Create a Dining Room Club to have residents assist with folding napkins. Consider giving a napkin-folding class to teach residents how to make different napkin animals

Educational

  • Invite speakers to lecture to residents about interesting topics by hosting a monthly Speaker Series
  • Host a special how-to class in which you teach residents something new
  • Schedule interesting documentaries that appeal to your residents’ interests like an art history video or an animal documentary

Cognitive

  • Host activities with fun competitions using Trivia or even senior programs
  • Plan daily current events activities using your local newspaper
  • During this presidential debate season, schedule political discussions about hot-button social issues

Community

  • Look within your community to help your residents fill a need, like collecting donated school supplies for a local elementary school class
  • Set up several drives (like a food drive or a clothing drive) during the holidays
  • Recruit residents to become involved in your facility’s Resident Council meetings

Sensory

  • Appeal to your residents’ senses with visual games like
  • Incorporate games that involve different textures, like making bean bags for a bean bag toss
  • Make homemade musical instruments, using plastic bottles and dried beans or rice, for residents to use during musical performances

Outing

  • Take residents on fun scenic drivesactivties for seniors
  • Plan trips to local museums
  • Coordinate visits to other nearby nursing facilities (possibly a sister facility) where your residents visit to play bingo with their residents

Musical

  • Teach residents how to play musical instruments (like piano lessons on your facility’s piano)
  • Schedule musical activities and games like Music Bingo
  • Use online videos to share music with your residents during one-on-one visits

Family

  • Host special events and invite family members
  • Recruit family members to volunteer with some of your activities
  • Use your arts and crafts activities for residents to make gifts (like Hanukkah or Christmas gifts) for their family members

Do you recommend another type of activity that you use for your senior program?

Find more ideas from Notjustbingo on the S&S blog here.


About Not Just Bingo:

senior activity ideas

Not Just Bingo is an online resource of fun, senior activity ideas for activity professionals of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. They have been providing fun activity ideas online since 2009, and continue to assist activity professionals across the country by creating meaningful and engaging activity ideas for their residents that go “beyond bingo.” Not Just Bingo feels privileged to help activity directors better the living experiences of their residents while demonstrating that a senior’s quality of life can actually improve when they move to a nursing facility!

Want even more ideas each month? Visit www.notjustbingo.com for how-to activity ideas, monthly newsletters, and daily holiday ideas. You can also sign up for the Notjustbingo Membership to receive specialized activity ideas to keep your residents and staff engaged, active, and having fun!

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42 thoughts on “12 Activities to Add to Your Senior Program

  1. We are members of a senior group (30 to 50 members) that meets once per month.
    We have an hour long program each meeting but we are running out of ideas and could
    use lots of ideas. We also want to know how to find a person that could come to give
    us a program for $100 to $150. We sure could use the help. We do do Bingo from time to
    time. Thanks.

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  3. Thank you for this wonderful list of ideas that family caregivers can try too. I remember having fun with parachutes as a child–it was such a simple joy that could be easy to try with older adults. Fun activities like these are a great way to spend time with a loved one. It’s important to make sure seniors feel engaged and connected with others regularly and is especially true during the holidays, as I learned in this article: https://answercare.org/make-holidays-for-seniors-enjoyable/.

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  7. Hi there –
    I would love to be added to your email list.
    I’m the Engage Life Director at Atria Senior Living .
    I am also trying to get into your website.

    Thanks for your assistance

  8. Pingback: Top 10 Senior Activity Blog Posts in 2017 - S&S Blog

    • Hi there, you are now signed up for the newsletter! We send a weekly newsletter with new activity ideas, plus a monthly newsletter with featured articles and products, holidays and observances for the following month so you can plan ahead, and a discount offer code to our website. Welcome!

  9. Pingback: 12 Activities to Add to Your Senior Program | Digital Calendar Services

    • Hi Catherine, you are now signed you up for the newsletter! We send a weekly newsletter with new activity ideas, plus a monthly newsletter with featured articles and products, holidays and observances for the following month so you can plan ahead, and a discount offer code to our website. Welcome!

    • Hi Theresa, you are officially signed you up for the newsletter. We send a weekly newsletter with new activity ideas, plus a monthly newsletter with featured articles and products, holidays and observances for the following month so you can plan ahead, and a discount offer code. Welcome!

  10. Hello! Can I please receive your newsletter. I just started my position as Director of Recreation for an brand new assisted living facility. Thank you!

    • Hi Amanda, congratulations on your new position! You are now signed you up for the newsletter, great to hear you are interested in our blog. We send a weekly newsletter with new activity ideas, plus a monthly newsletter with featured articles and products, holidays and observances for the following month so you can plan ahead, and a discount offer code. Welcome!

    • Hi Lesley, you are now signed up for our newsletter! I added both emails you listed. Congrats on your position as an Assisted Living Activities Coordinator, we are happy to help. We post a new senior activities blog each week, and if you click the Senior Activities category in our blog, you will find all of our past blog posts with activity ideas for holidays, observances, seasonal ideas, and more!

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