Help your senior residents pay tribute to the popular Star Wars film franchise by hosting a fun day of activities on May the Fourth (“May the Fourth Be With You”). Here are a few fun ideas to consider:
Play Space Bingo
Simply cover over the B-I-N-G-O at the top of your bingo cards with S-P-A-C-E. Pass out star beads for residents to use as the bingo markers. Just be sure to have your bingo caller remember to use the new letters when calling bingo (e.g., S-9 instead of B-9).
Host a Scavenger Hunt
Encourage residents to try to find hidden lightsabers (glow sticks) that have been scattered throughout your facility. Award a fun prize to the person who collects the most.
Schedule a Star Wars Movie Marathon
Turn your Activity Room into a movie theater and play a marathon of Star War Movies throughout the day. Set up a self-serve concession stand in the back of the room with bags of popcorn and candy for residents to help themselves.
Create Galactic Space Art
Encourage residents to participate in a collaborative art project to create galactic space art to hang in your Activity Room. Have different residents work on the three panels to add paint, stars, and glitter to create a unique piece of space art.
Eat Astronaut Ice Cream
Since astronauts typically eat freeze-dried foods, have your facility’s Baking Club bake a batch of food that closely resembles astronaut ice cream due to its light and crunchy texture – meringues.
Make Celestial Sensory Jars
As a craft, invite residents to assemble celestial sensory jars filled with star beads, glitter, and water. Use the finished sensory jars for sensory activities with your memory care residents.
Serve a Galactic Space Dinner
Coordinate with Dining Services to host a Galactic Space Dinner for residents. Encourage residents to dress in their spaciest outfits to enjoy a tasty dinner featuring fun space-themed entrees, like Galaxy Pasta (spaghetti with a marinara sauce that has been darkened with blue food coloring) or UFO Burgers (hamburgers with all the fixings’) with Saturn Rings (onion rings). Be sure to serve tasty moon pies for dessert.
In decorating for the dinner, hang starry décor from the ceiling, and use wooden stars that have been painted by residents as décor for the tables. When residents arrive to the dinner, take pictures of them before they enter the Dining Room in front of a starry backdrop.
Plan a Constellation Nightcap
After dinner, set up a telescope near a large picture window for residents to view the spring constellations in the night sky. Be sure to set out freshly baked cookies and hot cocoa to entice residents to stop by to check out the view.
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!
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