Making the transition to a nursing home can be difficult, for both the senior and family members. One way to ease this transition is knowing that your nursing home is able to provide fulfilling activities and socializing opportunities to keep seniors happy and having things to look forward to every day. While there are many traditional favorite social activities, like Bingo and ice cream socials, there are a lot of creative and exciting social hour themes. Take a look at our list below to find new social hour ideas to energize your senior residents.

 

Music Socials

• Have a Jazz Night or Big Band Night. Combine your music night with dessert or appetizers for a fun experience.
• Sing Along Night. Play some oldies but goodies from the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s, and get everyone singing along.
• Elvis Social. Play all of “The King’s” biggest hits and serve peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

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Foodie Socials

• Freshly-popped popcorn and mocktails.
• “Happy-tizers” with juice or punch bar (an alternative to alcoholic happy hours)
• Wine and cheese hour (if approved)
• Men in the Kitchen. Have your male residents put together a dessert one night.
• Tea Party
• Pie Party
• S’mores Social

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More Cool Ideas

• Pet visits. Connect with a local animal shelter and have them bring over some four-footed friends for a social hour.
• Celebrity makeovers. Have a makeup artist and hairstylist come to turn residents in to silver screen stars.
• Geography bee. Test your residents’ geographical knowledge with this popular trivia contest.
• Charades are great for residents that are more mobile.
• Mystery Night. Have resident work in teams to detect whodunnit.
• Pageant Night. Treat your residents to a royal evening with tiaras, crowns, sashes, and trophies.

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Mix and match these ideas to create a schedule of unique activities to get your seniors socializing and energized.

Got other ideas? Let us know. We’d love to hear your feedback; we welcome other ideas, too!