How to Celebrate Groundhog Day at Your Senior Facility

groundhog day seniors

For Groundhog Day on February 2nd, treat your residents to fun and games in your Activity Room to celebrate six more weeks of winter!

1. Host a Punxsutawney Phil Breakfast

Arrange to have a special breakfast for residents, featuring all their favorites (items that they may not normally receive) like sunny-side-up eggs, blueberry waffles, and country ham. Encourage residents to dress-up for this special breakfast.

2. Make Sock Puppets With the Grandkids

Schedule an intergenerational activity for residents to make and decorate animal hand puppets with the grandkids. They can even work together to design a puppet theater and put on a show.

3. Organize a Peanut Party

Encourage residents to snack on one of the groundhog’s favorite treats: peanuts. Simply cover the tables in your Activity Room with paper and place buckets of roasted peanuts on them for residents to enjoy as an afternoon snack.

4. Snow Toss

If you’re in a warmer climate, treat your residents to a day of snow with snow balls to toss into a hoop or bucket.

5. Teach a Shadow Puppet Exercise

Teach residents how to exercise their fingers while making shadow puppets. Use a flashlight to reflect the puppets onto a wall for residents to see the puppets clearly.

6. Host a Groundhog Day Movie Marathon

Show the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, featuring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, throughout the day in your Activity Room for residents. Encourage residents to stop in and watch the movie while snacking on popcorn.

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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3 thoughts on “How to Celebrate Groundhog Day at Your Senior Facility

  1. Pingback: Activity Ideas for February - the Shortest Month of the Year - S&S Blog

  2. activity idea:
    Shadow Contest
    I take side views of 10 residents of their shoulders and head, and email them to my friend who’s an artist. He traces their outline onto white paper, then brings those to me.
    I number the shadows, place them on bulletin board for everyone to guess who they are.( There’s a ballot numbered accordingly, these are filled out and placed in appropriate folder.)
    The person with the most correct answers is the winner!!!

    It is a great activity!!!

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