If your activity participants or even your staff are getting tired of the same bingo games, add a bit more variety to your Activity Program with these fun new bingo-inspired games! Plus, it’s just in time for Bingo’s Birthday Month in December.

Exercise Bingo Games

Switch! Bingo: Add some exercise to your regular bingo games by teaching your residents how to play Switch! Bingo. To play, seat residents at the tables to play a regular bingo game. Then in the middle of each game, yell “Switch!” Play fun music in the background as residents get up and switch seats with someone else. Once residents get to their new seats, have them play the bingo card that is now in front of them. Have fun with the game by changing the switch each time. For instance, have only those with five or more grandchildren switch seats or have only those wearing red switch seats.

Toss Bingo: Use masking tape to create a large 5×5 grid on the floor. Seat participants in a circle around the grid and divide them into two or three teams. Then ask trivia questions of each participant. When a person answers their question correctly, have them toss a beanbag in their team’s color onto the grid. The object of the game is for each team to be the first to get their colored bean bags in a row on the grid. Note that multiple teams can occupy the same box in the grid. The challenge, however, comes from participants trying to get their bean bags to land into the right boxes that they need to achieve bingo.

Icebreaker Bingo Game

People Bingo: Use fun facts about your participants to create bingo cards on your computer. Fill in a different fun fact about each of your participants into the bingo card’s squares. To play this icebreaker game, pass out the homemade cards and invite participants to mingle with one another to discover who the fun facts on the cards belong to before adding that person’s name to the bingo square that contains their fun fact. Award a prize to the first person who gets five in a row on their card.

Reminiscing Bingo Games

Music Bingo: Reminisce with residents by playing Music Bingo. Use the enclosed CD to play music from yesteryear as you have residents try to recall the song’s title before finding it on their bingo card.

Familiar Faces Bingo: Encourage residents to reminisce as you play a fun game of Familiar Face Bingo, where you read the name of a famous Old Hollywood celebrity for residents to try to recall and find their picture on their bingo cards. If name recall is too difficult for your residents, simply pass around the picture card for them to see if the card matches one of the pictures on their own bingo card. As you pass around the card, ask residents if they can recall what the celebrity is famous for.

Retro TV Bingo: Have fun with residents as they play a Retro TV Show bingo game. To play, simply call out the name of a retro TV show that is listed on the calling cards, and then have residents try to recall the actors in the show before finding them on their bingo card.

TV Games

Football Bingo: Get your residents hyped up for the big game by playing a fun game of football bingo while watching a football game on television in your Activity Room. Simply pass out the bingo cards, and have residents mark their bingo cards whenever something that is on their card happens during the game, like a quarterback sack or an endzone dance celebration.

Kitchen Utensil Bingo: Do your residents enjoy watching cooking shows? Then why not have them play Kitchen Utensil Bingo while watching. To play, pass out the bingo cards, and have residents mark the kitchen utensils on their bingo cards whenever they see the item appear in the cooking show. In keeping with the theme, award a refrigerator magnet as a prize to the winner.

Intergenerational Bingo Game

Zingo: Host a fun intergenerational bingo game for your residents and their grandkids by playing a game of Zingo. To play this fast-paced game, simply have the kids help by pulling the Zinger forward to reveal the mystery tiles that the participants must quickly find and match on their cards. The first person to cover their whole card wins Zingo!

For even more bingo ideas, check out our 7 Quick Tips to Make Your Bingo Games More Fun blog!

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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!

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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