Help your residents celebrate Wellderly Day on March 17th by showing them that they can enjoy life at any age. In fact, make Wellderly Day a special day each year where you introduce residents to new hobbies and activities, showing that they should continue to do those things in life that make them happy. Consider setting up a fun Wellderly Day for your residents by creating fun activities around a few of the following hobbies:
Gardening
While the ground may still be too hard for planting in your area, invite residents to do a little indoor gardening by planting an indoor herb garden. For the activity, first have residents water the kit’s soil pellets. While waiting for the soil to expand, encourage residents to decorate their planters using the kit’s self-adhesive mosaic squares. Once their designs are finished, help residents fill their pots with the expanded soil before planting their herb seeds. Encourage residents to keep their pots on partially sunny windowsills for the herbs to grow.
Bird Watching
Introduce your residents to the hobby of bird watching by gathering several binoculars for residents to watch the neighborhood birds. As an activity, simply find one of the largest picture windows in your facility, and arrange the furniture so that residents can easily sit and watch the birds in the trees. Be sure to recruit your facility’s kitchen staff to bake a few batches of cookies to entice passersby to stop, take a sit, and watch for the birds while enjoying their cookie.
If watching birds from a large picture window is not an option in your facility, then have residents create their own birds by painting bird suncatchers that can be decorated and placed in their own windows for spring. For the craft, use the included glass stain to decorate the bird suncatchers. Once the glass has been painted, help residents place the suncatchers in their window so that they can do their own “bird watching” in their window.
Music
Consider starting a fun Senior Band in your facility, in which residents pick a musical instrument to shake or play during your musical entertainment. Simply set out a variety of musical instruments, and encourage residents to take one and play while listening to live or streamed music.
Baking
Invest in an electric cupcake maker so that you and your residents who enjoy baking can make a variety of tasty cupcakes. Consider making the activity weekly, in which your residents test out a different cupcake batter each week to make for one of your afternoon socials. Then during the social, pass out icing bags for residents to try decorating their cupcakes before sampling them.
Reading
If you have a library in your facility, invite your residents to stop by to take a look at the books that they can check out and read whenever they wish. While residents come into the library, be sure to set up a few of the tables with blank bookmarks that residents can decorate with markers to use for reading.
Puzzle
Show your residents how much fun working jigsaw puzzles can be by setting out several smaller jigsaw puzzles on the tables in your Activity Room for residents to stop by and try to solve. For your more experienced jigsaw puzzle solvers, set out a table in a common area for a larger puzzle, and encourage passersby to stop and try to add in several pieces.
In addition, encourage residents to take up the hobby of crossword puzzles by passing out large-print crossword puzzle books for residents to carry around with them in their walker bags so that they can work them whenever they have free time.
Yoga
Encourage residents to stop by your Activity Room to join in a fun chair yoga exercise that can help them stretch and relax their muscles. If your residents enjoy this new type of exercise, consider leading a chair yoga class each week on the same day, like Yoga Tuesdays.
Knitting
Recruit a staff member who enjoys knitting to help residents knit scarves and hats that can be donated to a local homeless shelter. Stock up on knitting needles and colorful yarn for the activity.
If you find, however, that your residents need more guidance with the activity, consider getting latch-hook kits that allow residents to easily weave the colorful yarn with pre-printed designs.
Golf
Finally, if you have residents who rarely made it out onto the golf links to see how well they can hit a golf ball, then bring the golf to them by setting up an indoor putting green for residents to practice their putting skills.
Then when the weather gets warmer outdoors, borrow a few golf clubs from staff members for residents to use as they practice their tee shots by teeing off jumbo marshmallows from golf tees in the backyard
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!
