Bring the beach to your residents this season by hosting a variety of fun games that your residents can play using beach balls. Simply swap out the rubber balls of your favorite games and replace them with beach balls.
Beach balls are great for doing exercise with seniors, as they are lightweight and easy to use. Use regular-sized beach balls for ball-throwing exercises in your Exercise Class. Consider using giant beach balls to help residents build up their arm strength as they push the ball back and forth to one another in a large circle.The giant beach ball is also great for leg exercises to help seated residents build up their leg muscles as they lift both legs to push the ball with their feet.
Here are a few specific games to try with your residents:
Beach Ball Bowling – Set up your regular bowling pin set for residents to try to knock down with beach balls.
Beach Ball Bounce – Seat residents in a large circle and have them bounce a beach ball back and forth to one another.
Beach Ball Dodge Ball – Seat residents in a large circle and invite your facility’s volunteers and staff members to stand in the middle of the circle to try to dodge a patriotic beach ball that is thrown by your residents.
Beach Ball Questions – Write questions on a beach ball to help your residents get to know one another in a fun tossing game. To play, have residents sit in a large circle and catch the ball when it’s tossed to them and then read the question that is closest to their left thumb before answering out loud. Then have them toss the ball to someone else in the circle. Before the activity, write fun questions on the ball, including “In what city were you born?”, “How many siblings do you have?”, and “What’s your favorite dessert?”
Beach Ball Volleyball – Set up a your volleyball net in your Activity Room for a fun volleyball game, in which residents hit a jumbo beach ball back and forth over the volleyball net.
Beach Ball Tennis – Create a divider or set up a net in your Activity Room and have residents sit on either side of the divider or net to hit small beach balls back and forth using plastic tennis rackets.
Beach Ball Hockey – Seat two rows of residents across from one another to play a fun game of pool noodle hockey in which residents use the noodles to hit small beach balls into the targets (e.g., boxes) that are set at each end of the rows.
Beach Ball Parachutes – Play a fun parachute game, in which residents use the parachute to toss beach balls into the air.
Beach Ball Decorating Contest – Pass out permanent markers to residents to see who can decorate the best summer beach ball.
Additional Beach Themed Ideas:
Beach Pails
Use plastic beach pails as weights for your residents to lift. Simply fill the pails with small rocks, change, or even sand, and encourage residents to build up their bicep muscles.
Beach Towels
Use beach towels to help residents stretch their arms. Show residents how to grab the ends of the towel as they extend their arms out and over their head. Encourage residents to keep holding onto the towel as they stretch their core by bending to the left and to the right.
About Not Just Bingo:
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!
