Help your residents celebrate the arrival of a new President with a day of fun Inaugural-themed activities. Here’s a day’s worth of activities to add to your January calendar on Inauguration Day on Monday, January 20th:
8 am – Inaugural Decorations
Invite your facility’s mobile residents to help you turn your common areas (where the televisions are located) into swearing-in viewing areas by adding and draping patriotic streamers throughout the rooms.
Be sure to also add the streamers to your facility’s Dining Room so that you can host special meals throughout the day for your residents. In fact, cover the tables with white tablecloths and add festive centerpieces to each table, or consider making your own centerpieces by tying red, white, or blue balloons to balloon weights for each of the tables.
9 am – Inaugural Breakfast
Coordinate with Dining Services to serve a tasty patriotic breakfast for your residents featuring waffles and pancakes along with red and blue fruit, including blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries.
10 am – Patriotic Trivia
Quiz your residents’ knowledge of American history with fun patriotic trivia. Either play the enclosed DVD, if residents can gather around a television, or play the enclosed CD to see how many questions your residents can correctly answer. Award fun favors to the winners, like patriotic fidget toys that residents can gift to their grandkids or American flag keychains that residents can use for their room keys.
11am – Bald Eagle Paintings
Help residents tap into their creative side as you show them how to complete a bald eagle painting by filling in the pictures with colorful watercolor paints that are included in the kit. Hang the finished paintings throughout your facility for the day.
12pm – Swearing-In at the Capitol
Tune your television to the Inaugural festivities on a local channel so that residents can watch the swearing-in ceremony. Encourage residents to dress for the event by passing out red, white, and blue beads to wear and American flags to wave.
1pm – Inaugural Lunch
Host a special inaugural lunch for residents to enjoy. Beforehand, coordinate with Dining Services to serve a variety of foods that are associated with past presidents and First Ladies, like a LBJ chicken-fried steak, a Bill Clinton cheeseburger, or a Gerald Fold pot roast, followed by Laura Bush’s cowboy cookies or Martha Washington’s gingerbread cake for dessert.
2pm – Patriotic Cornhole
Keep your residents engaged (and awake) after filling their bellies with a fun game of patriotic cornhole toss that keeps them up and moving.
3pm – Patriotic Photo Frames
Show residents how to decorate and assemble patriotic photo frames by using the kit’s foam stars and flags. Throughout the day, be sure to capture residents on camera so that you can print out the pictures and provide residents with the photos to add to their frames.
4pm – Inaugural Jewelry
Help your residents get ready for the big Inaugural Ball this evening in your facility by assisting them with making necklaces and bracelets using jewelry cording and patriotic sparkle beads. Encourage residents to wear their jewelry for the fun event.
5pm – Inaugural Dinner
Pay tribute to the 47th president with a variety of foods that the newly elected official enjoys. Ahead of time, coordinate with Dining Services to provide an appetizer, main entrée, and dessert that relates to the new Head of State or the state that they are from.
6pm – Inaugural Ball
Encourage residents to dress up for an enjoyable evening of music and dance in your Activity Room by scheduling one of your residents’ favorite entertainers to stop by and entertain for the evening. Be sure to set up a photo area outside the event to take pictures of residents as they enter the ball. Afterwards, print out those photos so that residents can post them in the patriotic photo frames that were made earlier.
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!
