For this year’s National Assisted Living Week starting on September 10th, be sure to incorporate activities that relate to the 2017 theme “Family is Forever.” Simply add activities that involve the family members of your residents – both their blood relatives as well as their extended family (your facility’s staff). Here are a few ideas from notjustbingo.com to think about.

Family Games

Set up fun family games featuring your residents, their family members, and the staff.

Family Game Night – Place a different table game on each of your Activity Room tables for residents, staff, and family to play, like Reminiscing, Monopoly, and Sorry!. Pass out drinks and appetizers for residents to enjoy with the games.

Checkers Tournament – Invite your best checkers player among the staff to defend his title against any resident. Just set up a checkers set in the common area and invite passersby to try to outwit your staff member during a quick game.

Chess Strategies Class – Depending on which level your residents are when it comes to playing chess, set up a class to teach them certain chess skills. For instance, if your facility is full of newbies, then host a Chess Basics Class to show residents the fundamentals of the game. However, if your facility includes several serious chess players, consider organizing a Best Strategies Workshop for those residents.

Team Games – Try to add a little competition to the games, like Residents vs. Staff or pair up family members with the residents to take on other residents and their family members. For example, when working with a large group, play a Family Feud game or a Trivial Pursuit game.

Family Memories

Assist residents with preserving and documenting their family memories.

Photo Shoot – Organize a photo shoot and invite family members to stop by to take family photos with the residents. Provide a variety of photo backdrops for them to choose from, like a starry night backdrop, a skyline backdrop, or a seasonal backdrop.

Photo Organizing – Invite residents to collect and organize their loose family photos and place them into mini photo albums. Encourage residents to add funny captions to each of the photos by inserting nonstick labels next to each of the pictures.

Scrapbooking Saturday – Encourage family members to stop by to assist residents with displaying their mementos and photos using scrapbook kits that residents and family members can work on together.

Shadow Box Tutorial – Pass out shadow box frames and show residents and their family members how to fill up the frames with artwork and a photo. They can then be hung near their room doors so that passersby can learn more about them.

Family Crafts

Encourage residents to make crafts that they can pass along to family members for safe keeping.

Ornament Party – Pass out ornaments that residents can color and that family members can use and hang to display your residents’ artwork.

Pendant Making – Assist residents with making personalized pendant necklaces to give to each of their grandkids as mementos that can be cherished.

Sun Catcher Class – Invite family members to assist residents with making pretty sun catchers that can be used as decoration in the residents’ rooms.

For even more ideas, visit our blog Staff & Resident Activities for National Assisted Living Week.

About notjustbingo.com

notjustbingo.com is an online resource of fun, senior activity ideas for activity professionals of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. They have been providing fun activity ideas online since 2009, and we continue to assist activity professionals across the country by creating meaningful and engaging activity ideas for their residents that go “beyond bingo.” Don’t get them wrong – bingo is fun, but we want to spread the word that there is more to life than just bingo. Overall, notjustbingo.com feels privilege 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 nursing facility.

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