Are you finding the men in your senior facility avoiding your activities? If so, then consider starting a new club that will get the men out of their rooms and back into your Activity Room once again…
A Puzzle Club.
Since a lot of men enjoy fixing things and putting things together, why not schedule a Puzzle Club that allows the men to gather and socialize with one another while assembling puzzles. By planning the activity the same time each week, the men will begin looking forward to it and start coming out of their rooms and returning to your Activity Room.
The trick to getting the men to attend your Puzzle Club activities is to incorporate some of the things that men enjoy, including the 3 Cs: competition, chess, and coffee.
Competition
Create fun puzzle competitions that the men can appreciate. For instance, set up a Speed Puzzle activity to see who can solve their jigsaw puzzle the quickest. To play, give each of the men a puzzle with the same number of pieces. Then have each of the men shake the puzzle box for 5 seconds to mix up the pieces before opening and assembling. Award a fun prize to the first person who completes their puzzle.
When working with puzzles, remember that the size of the puzzle should depend on the ability of the participants. For higher-cognitive players or for teams, use larger puzzles with 300 pieces, like a lakeside puzzle or a camping puzzle.
For participants who may take longer to solve a jigsaw puzzle, use puzzles with fewer pieces like 100 pieces or even 35 pieces. (When purchasing puzzles, consider getting multiple puzzle packs that have a variety of puzzles with different numbers of pieces.)
Chess
Take advantage of the popularity of chess among men by introducing your male residents to the game of Puzzle Chess, where players alternate adding a piece to the puzzle while being timed. To play the interesting game, first use a chess clock app to create a two-sided timer on your phone or tablet. (Set the timer for each player to 10 minutes.) Next, put together the edges of the puzzle and place the remaining puzzle pieces in a pile and cover them with the puzzle box. Then when it’s time to play, remove the box to reveal the pieces and have the two players take turns starting their timer and picking a piece from the pile to add to an existing piece in the puzzle. Players can only touch one loose piece at a time. If a player picks up a piece and decides not to use it, then they must place that piece back in the pile. Once a player has added their piece, they are to click their timer so that their time stops and their opponent’s time begins.
Puzzle Chess can also be played with partners; however, the partners are not allowed to help each other. Once the puzzle is complete, the player or the team with the most time left on their timer is the winner.
Coffee
Organize a fun Chat & Puzzle activity for the men in the morning, where the men can gather, grab a cup of coffee, and work on a jigsaw puzzle. Since this is an activity that will probably happen before you arrive at work, be sure to set out the jigsaw puzzles before leaving the night before. Then arrange to have Dining Services set up a large thermos of coffee for the men each morning where they can stop in and fix their own coffee before sitting down to work a puzzle.
For this Chat & Puzzle activity, use smaller-piece puzzles that the men can assemble in a shorter amount of time, like a national parks puzzle or an animal’s puzzle.
For the men with memory impairment in your facility, start them off with easier puzzles to assemble, like thera-puzzles – puzzles with large pieces that are simple to assemble while improving hand and eye coordination.
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!
