Help your residents have fun celebrating World Music Day on Friday, June 21st. Use the day as a great way for your residents to enjoy their favorite music. Here are a few activities to try out:
Battle of the Bands
Host a fun Battle of the Bands competition among your residents — first floor vs. second floor or men vs. women. Before the activity, place the two groups in separate rooms to decide on a song that they are going to play musical instruments to. Then play the song and have residents play their musical instruments along with the song. Be sure to appoint a band leader to help organize the group to make sure that the sound from the instruments is complimenting the song. In addition, have the leaders understand that the battle is not just about sound, but also about performance. So, encourage the leaders to have a few members “entertain” the audience as they are playing. Once the two groups have practiced, have them come together in your Activity Room for a fun Battle of the Bands, in which the spectators judge the best band.
Outdoor Concert
Schedule a mobile entertainer to put on a fun outdoor concert for your residents in the evening. Plan to have the concert right after dinner, and pass out tasty cupcakes for dessert.
Musical Posters
Provide residents with a scratch guitar craft kit that they can use as decoration for World Music Day. Simply have residents use the scratch tools to etch messages in the guitars that can be hung as decoration for the day. For instance, create a guitar for each musical activity, and write the name, location, and time of the activity in the guitar. Then post all the guitars throughout your facility as a reminder of your musical events.
Rock Star Karaoke
Encourage residents to tap into their inner rock star as they compete in a fun Karaoke competition. Invite residents and staff members to judge the best Karaoke singer in your facility. Award them with a fun trophy.
Music Week
As a lead up to World Music Day on Friday, use the other days of the week to honor different musical genres. For instance, host Caribbean Day on Monday, in which residents participate in a fun limbo contest; Oldies But Goodies Day on Tuesday, in which residents play musical bingo; Latin Day on Wednesday, in which you lead residents in a chair Salsa workout; and Country Day on Thursday, in which residents participate in a country music sing along.
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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