With National Pumpkin Day approaching on October 26th, be sure to have a few fun pumpkin-related activities for the senior residents of your nursing facility. Here are 5 pumpkin-themed crafts or games to have on hand.

Pumpkin Toss

Do your residents love tossing games? Then set up a large inflatable pumpkin for a fun competition for your residents. For the activity, seat residents in a large circle in your Activity Room, and place an inflatable pumpkin in the middle of the floor. Then provide residents with the game’s spoons to see how many “seeds” they can flick into the pumpkin. If the spoons are too difficult for your residents to handle, then have residents try to toss small pumpkin squeeze balls into the pumpkin instead.

Pumpkin Punch Balls

If you have residents who don’t enjoy your daily Exercise Class, then try passing out pumpkin punch balls for residents to hit back and forth as they get a good hand and arm workout. During the exercise, create a complete workout by encouraging residents to alternate hands and to try punching the balls while their hands are over their heads.

Pumpkin Paints

While your residents may feel that their carving days are over, help them still have fun during this pumpkin season by painting pumpkins using acrylic paint to create pumpkin faces on your facility’s pumpkins. In fact, make a contest out of it. For the activity, provide each resident with a pumpkin, paint, and fifteen minutes to try to create the “Scariest Pumpkin,” the “Funniest Pumpkin,” or a “Self-Portrait Pumpkin” for the contest. Encourage your facility’s administrators to be the judges, and then award Halloween candy or Halloween pencils as prizes to the participants.

Orange Yarn

Show residents how to use orange yarn to make their very own pumpkin pom-poms. Simply download a quick tutorial online that shows how to wrap the yarn around your fingers to create the pom-poms that can be used as yarn pumpkins. Then encourage residents to decorate their rooms with the finished pumpkins.

Chipboard Pumpkins

Pass out chipboard pumpkins  for residents to decorate with orange markers to use as Halloween decorations throughout your facility. Simply color the pumpkins before assembling.

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About Not Just Bingo:

Not Just Bingo 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 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 nursing facility!

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