Celebrate this year’s National Assisted Living Week starting September 7th through the 13th and this year’s theme – Ageless Adeventures – by scheduling a week of fun activities for your residents that allow them to take in a variety of adventures.
Adventures in Grandparenting – Sunday, September 7 – National Grandparents’ Day
Plan a variety of fun adventures for your residents and their grandchildren on National Grandparents’ Day, where participants can work together to assemble crafts and create art. For example, invite residents and their grandchildren to assemble and paint wooden antique cars. During the activity, encourage residents to reminisce and educate the young ones about what cars were like when they were young.
Additionally, set up several fun art projects, where residents and children can each work on a project before exchanging the finished item with the other. For instance, have residents and their grandchildren decorate their own keepsake boxes that they can gift to the other once done, or similarly paint terra cotta pots in a fun design that they give to the other to plant flowers in.
Adventures in Travel – Monday, September 8
Take residents on an adventure to fun and exotic places. Tune your Activity Room television to YouTube to show travel videos of fun places. For instance, in the morning serve residents a cup of tea to enjoy as you show a video of the English countryside, and then in the afternoon, serve tapas (appetizers) as you show a YouTube travel video of Barcelona or Madrid, Spain.
For those residents who prefer a more soothing travel, show DVDs that feature nature and music or even underwater adventures, as with dolphins and the sea.
Adventures in the Neighborhood – Tuesday, September 9
Invite residents to take an adventure closer to home by leading them on a walk or roll through the neighborhood. Make a game of it, by passing out spotting sheets of neighborhood animals (e.g., rabbits, dogs, squirrels) that residents can mark off their cards as they spot them. Alternatively, provide residents with auditory sheets, featuring different sounds that are heard outdoors (e.g., car honking, birds chirping, dog barking, etc.) for residents to mark when they hear the sounds on their sheet.
If your residents are not as mobile, then schedule a local adventure by planning a bus trip to your town’s historical district so that residents can see and learn about the town’s history.
Adventures in the Kitchen – Wednesday, September 10
Have fun in the kitchen with residents as you invite them to help you bake and decorate cupcakes. Once the cupcakes have cooled, pick a fun theme, and supply residents with icing and sprinkles to see which resident can decorate the best cupcake for the theme.
To get residents excited about the cooking activity, host a craft earlier in the day so that residents can decorate their own aprons for the activity, using paint or fabric markers.
Adventures in the Garden – Thursday, September 11
While the ground is still warm, recruit residents to help you plan an autumn garden for your facility. In fact, schedule a trip to the local plant nursery for residents to help you pick out the flowers or mums that you want to add to your garden or even just the front porch.
Be sure to keep your residents maintaining their green thumb as you invite them to plant flower seeds to grow zinnia flowers in their rooms in a sunny area this autumn.
In addition, while at the nursery, get a bunch of white flowers, like daisies or carnations, that you and your residents can dye blue or red in tribute to this Patriot Day. To dye the flowers, simply cut the stems of the flower at an angle and place the flowers in a glass of water that is either dyed with blue or red food coloring. As the flowers soak up the coloring, the petals will turn color.
Adventures in Bingo and Other Games – Friday, September 12
Shake up your bingo games a bit by playing fun variations of the popular game, like Familiar Face Bingo, in which residents try to identify the celebrity face on their card, or Retro TV Bingo, in which residents identify the name of the show or character on their bingo card.
When the evening comes around, take your Friday Game Nights to the next level by inviting family members to join residents in the fun. Set out your classic table games, like Monopoly and Scrabble, for rounds of fun intergenerational competition. In addition, add in an actual adventure game by showing residents and their grandchildren how to play the train adventure game.
In addition, alter a few of your existing games to add in an adventurous element, like showing residents how to play Blind Jigsaw, in which residents try to put together jigsaw puzzles without seeing the picture.
Adventures in the Movies – Saturday, September 13
Stream classic comedies from the 1950s and 1960s, like Some Like It Hot, featuring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon, that residents can enjoy watching in your Activity Room. Set up a concession stand in the back of the room, where you pop popcorn to serve, along with drinks and candy. Come up with a list of two or three movies to show in your Activity Room, making sure to display the movie and the movie time, so that interested residents can stop in for the viewings.
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!
