As the weather cools down, find other ways to engage your residents who enjoy gardening by providing indoor activities that mimic the fun they had gardening outdoors during the summer.

Garden Pots

Supply residents with garden pots and seeds to grow their own plants and flowers indoors, like zinnias, marigolds, morning glories, and even pine trees. Before planting the seeds in the pots, use the supplies that come with the kits to decorate the planters. Then plant the seeds and set the planters on a sunny windowsill.

Garden Decor

As the outdoor gardens fade, Invite residents to help keep them looking great by adding in a few garden decorations. For instance, provide residents with garden gnomes to decorate with acrylic paint or markers. In fact, have fun with the placement of the gnomes by placing them in different areas throughout the yard, and encourage the visiting grandchildren to try to find all the “hidden” gnomes.

In addition, supply residents with garden mosaic kits that feature colorful tiles, grout, and garden bug bases that can be placed throughout the garden to add color during the upcoming barren seasons.

Garden Crafts

For your residents who may not like to get their hands dirty, provide fun indoor gardening activities that don’t require a green thumb. For instance, encourage residents to help set up an indoor butterfly garden to witness the metamorphosis of caterpillars to butterflies.

Additionally, provide residents with fun garden-themed crafts, like garden sand art or even garden aqua paintings that only require paintbrushes and water.

Other fun garden-themed crafts include garden bookmarks, garden suncatchers, and garden puzzles.

Find more ideas from Notjustbingo on the S&S blog here.

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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!