Do you have several independent residents at your senior facility? If you have a group of residents who enjoy doing independent activities on their own, then introduce them to a few types of puzzle games and activities that can allow them to entertain themselves in their rooms.
Word Find Puzzles
Provide your facility’s independent residents with their own word search puzzle books that they can complete on their own. If you find that you have several residents who enjoy word search puzzles, then consider adding a fun Word Search Puzzle Club to your Activity Program, in which residents meet once a month (or week) to gather and work on their own word search puzzles in your Activity Room. Serve hot cocoa and donuts to entice more puzzle enthusiasts to stop in, sit, chat, and work on a word search puzzle on their own.
If more residents are interested, consider hosting a Word Search Puzzle Contest each week, where you pass out a copy of the same word search puzzle to your residents and award a prize to the first person who finishes their puzzle.
Sudoku Puzzles
Teach residents how to play the fun game of Sudoku, as you encourage them to stimulate their mind as they try to complete the Sudoku blocks. As an activity, set out copies of a different Sudoku puzzle each morning near the Dining Room, for residents to grab one after breakfast. Encourage residents to work on their puzzles throughout the day and to turn them into you for a fun bingo buck. (A bingo buck is play money that residents can collect and use at a fun bingo auction activity, where residents use the bingo bucks to bid on the bingo prizes that they want.)
Crossword Puzzles
Supply residents with copies of crossword puzzles to try to complete on their own. If you find that you have multiple residents who enjoy crossword puzzles, then encourage them to meet others who enjoy the same hobby by hosting a fun crossword puzzle activity each week or month in your Activity Room. At the activity, encourage these puzzle-lovers to team up with another resident to see which team of two can complete their crossword puzzle the fastest.
Adult Coloring Pictures
Kids are not the only ones who enjoy coloring! Pass out adult coloring books to your residents who enjoy coloring in their rooms. Supply them with crayons and colored pencils to fill in the pictures. Then encourage each resident to pick one of their favorite colored pictures to donate to your facility’s “Art Gallery” so that you can frame them and hang them on the wall.
In fact, each week create a different theme for the Art Gallery, like Bird Week, where you provide residents with bird-themed coloring pages that they can color and add to the gallery’s walls for Bird Week.
Paint-by-Sticker Pictures
One alternative to coloring is painting, but lucky for you there is a mess-free option for residents who want to paint on their own in their rooms – painting-by-sticker! Provide your independent residents with paint-by-sticker pictures to fill in with the enclosed stickers that they easily adhere to the space that corresponds to the number of the sticker.
Spot the Difference Puzzles
See how well your residents enjoy finding the differences between two pictures by working Spot the Difference puzzles. Provide residents with the puzzle sheets that they can easily work on in the comfort of their own rooms. Encourage them to come back to check your answer sheet to make sure that they have found all the differences.
Find more ideas from Notjustbingo on the S&S blog here.
About Not Just Bingo:
Not Just Bingo is an online resource of fun, senior activity ideas for activity professionals of 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 senior 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!
