Honor the veterans of your senior facility on Veterans Day on Tuesday, November 11^th by hosting several fun activities that pay tribute to their service in our country’s military branches. Also, these are great ideas activities to consider if you are honoring Veterans at your school or center that day.

Here are a few ideas to add to your November activity calendars:

1) Plan a Flag-Raising Ceremony.

If your facility has a flagpole in the yard, schedule a flag-raising ceremony outdoors to raise the American flag. If possible, record and play the bugle call melody To the Colors as the flag is being raised.

2) Play an Army-Navy Game (or even an Air Force-Marines Game).

Pick a favorite floor game, like shuffleboard or bowling, and invite the different military branch veterans to compete against one another. Be sure to award bragging rights to the winning branch of service.

3) Form a Veterans Story Circle

Organize a reminiscing activity for your veterans to share their military stories. Seat residents in a large circle and encourage each one to talk about their time in the military. If you have a large amount of participants, limit the discussion by focusing the story circle on just one topic, like when the veterans were drafted or the day they returned to U.S. soil. You can even create a Veteran themed Toss and Talk About Ball with this Create Your Own Ball.

4) Schedule a Veterans Day Parade. Host a parade in your facility featuring your veterans. Beforehand, decorate the parade route with lots of red white and blue balloons or these patriotic star shaped balloons. During the parade, stop each veteran along their march to quickly introduce themselves and share a little about their time in service. Provide the spectators along the parade route with small flags to wave as they cheer on their veterans.

5) Assemble Poppy Boutonnieres & Corsages

Make these paper poppies to use as boutonnieres for the men and as corsages for the ladies. 

6) Make Thank You Cards

Use paper and markers (link to: to create thank you cards to give to all the veterans (including staff members) in your facility.

7) Arrange for a Fly Over

Invite your residents to participate in a fun airplane contest to see which patriotic glider flies the farthest. For the activity, provide each participant with a plane and seat two residents at a time on one side of the room to see which of the two gliders goes farthest to the other side of the room. Have the winners of each match-up play one another until there is only one winner left.

8) Host a Medal Ceremony

Ahead of time, supply residents with safety pins to string on a combination of metallic mini pony beads and flag beads to create fun “medals” to pin onto your facility’s veterans. During the ceremony, recognize each veteran and ask them to share a brief story about their time in the military. Then pin a medal onto their lapel before taking a picture with them. Encourage your veterans to wear their medals throughout the day so that passersby can honor and thank them for their service.

9) Strike Up the Military Band

Pass out musical instruments for residents to play as they sing patriotic songs during a fun gathering.

10) Decorate the Officers’ Club

Turn your Activity Room into a military Officers’ Club, in which your facility’s veterans can come in and socialize with one another. Beforehand, decorate the space with patriotic hanging fans, crepe streamers, and balloons. During the activity, pass out (root beer) and bags of popcorn residents to enjoy. Then go around the room, and encourage residents to share stories of their time in boot camp or overseas.

11) Set Up the Tattoo Parlor

Turn a common area in your facility into a fun tattoo parlor, in which you encourage passersby to stop in to get their patriotic tattoos. For the activity, invite residents to roll up their sleeves and pick out which “military” tattoo they want to get.

12) Organize a Care-Package Party

Recruit veterans to assist with assembling care packages for troops overseas. Ahead of time, take a trip to your local dollar store to pick up supplies to be assembled and packed up during the care-package party. 

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

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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!

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