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Balloon Tennis
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We use punch balls; they are less likely to bust.
This sounds a great idea, our super-size balloons don't last very long! and... hard work to inflate- what are punch balls?
My people LOVE balloon "volleyball". I have even created a travel team to connect with other facilities. I encourage everyone to talk with the facilities in your area. They enjoy the connection and it gives them a sense of pride working so hard to perfect their strategies. My advanced people just love being a part of the fun.
My residents love this game... we use pool noodles cut in half. they use the noodle to hit the "VOLLEYBALL" (balloon) So fun
Our residents really loved to play and participate. They really engage with the activity and with each other.
Staff gather 6 or 8 residents and arrange them into a round group or front to front. If you have a net to place between them that is really fun and residents feel that they can still do a sport (indoor).
Residents must be seated while playing this sport or activity and staff must supervise and assist them.
What you need:
6 or 8 Rackets - $10 From KMart
1 or 2 Party Balloons
Good morning Carla, we can call the game that you talked about another name on the weekly activity program as net balloon.
Dori
We like doing another form of balloon tennis. With Balloon Ball the group sit in a circle and need to work together to hit the balloon in a basket ( it's a fold up organizer). It take teamwork and is fun and we laugh so much.
This sounds like fun, we’ll have to give it a try.
Thanks for your feedback Karen, we'd love to hear how it goes!
Balloon Tennis is very popular. We use fly swats as our bats and have a volley ball net. I love seeing the determination on the residents faces trying to hit the balloon over the net.
Hi there everyone,
We have started to do this exercise but we use fly swats and balloons. It is a great form of exercise and everyone in our day rooms enjoy it immensely. Actually some of our residents have gotten quite competitive. Works really well and very inexpensive to set up.
I love this game residents enjoy using the Noodle , the colors . They laugh and socialize together , thank you .
This activity sounds great we shall have to try it out in our group. Thank you!!
We have played this game in our memory care unit for several years. We love it. It is amazing how competitive memory care folks can get.
The end of summer pool noodles can be found for a dollar each. We use the slender noodles as they are easier to hold on to. 10.00$'s invested in 10 noodles and you end up with 20 noodles (each noodle cut in half). It's a 10.00$ investment that will last you for years!
Because we have a resident that is afraid of balloons and breaking balloons, we use a beach ball with the noodles and call it "Whack a ball." We sit along two 8 foot rectangular tables and some residents' family members come and help because the beach ball always goes off the table at the end I'm not at. It's a wonderful moving, shaking and exercising game.
Good Morning Trish,
We use Mylar balloons for this activity. These type of balloons can be found at the Dollar Store, and are blown up with a straw. The can re-refilled as the air leaks out, but a straw will re-fill.
We switched to Mylar because staff are allergic to latex in our facilities.
Have Fun!
We also do this at our facility, we call it seated hockey, the residents sit each team on one side facing each other, with one team aiming to score on the opposite end, the residents love it, they just become so energetic.
We do this at our facility and they LOVE it!!
We do noodle Tennis sitting around a table and Day children join in the activity loved by all.
We play this quite often, definitely a favourite in our facility. We use table tennis bats and usually yellow balloons as our sight impaired see them easier.
Hi Susan, I am glad it worked for you. This game is very popular, even when residents cannot participate for some reason, you notice how they follow the balloons with their eyes with a delightful expression on their faces. Cheers.
Average age in the room well over 90, 2 virtually blind residents and half had dementia and we all had a ball! we had a great time with our fly swats and balloons such a cheap easy activity. I was very sceptical that all would be able to participate but every one thoroughly enjoyed it.
We cut our pool noodles into three so it was easier for our residents to manage. They loved hitting the balloons and there was plenty of laughter.
Yes, so much fun! Thanks for your feedback Wendy.
We played balloon volleyball and it was a hoot! One resident participated for the first time and loved it. To save myself from having to go chase balloons around on the floor, I tied a ribbon to the balloon and taped the ribbon on the middle of the table so it couldn't fall on the floor. High five for this activity!
Hooray, for your creativity Jill! Thak you for sharing. Cheers.
To further spice up this motor activity. I tossed three balloons, at varying intervals, and all of the same colour, into the circle. Any balloon within reach was "fair game" the result was hilarious laughter and controlled 'chaos' - with balloons shooting everywhere.
At first, I threw in balloons of all different colours, but found our dementia patients could only focus on and track one coloured balloon.
Tossing in one then.. two, then... three of the same colour,
solved the problem fantastically.
Well observed Janaya, well done! Cheers.
Played this recently with my Dementia Residents round the table (8) and they all had such a fun time will definitely do it again. Lots of laughs from both the nurses and Residents playing and watching. Thanks for the ideas. Love Golden Carers. Cheers!
Thanks so much for your feedback Sancha! And thanks Janaya for sharing this activity.
Yes, balloon games are always popular, thanks for sharing Janaya!
A new activity has been posted by a Golden Carers member: Balloon tennis
I love the idea of the pool noodles being used! We do balloon tennis and make our own rackets with wire coat hangers which we bend out into a circle shape and stretch pantihose over them...the sharp bits at the end are covered with tape.
We use table tennis net and bats and use balloons great fun and enables all levels to participate including wheelchair/tub chair/stroke residents who only have use of one hand including those who can stand and are quite mobile, many think they are back playing tennis again
we made bats out of wire coat hangers then covered them with panty hose[ the knee-highs] when discarded firstly you bend hangers to form a bat then put the knee highs on, great fun
we do a balloon tennise but we use balloons as balls our net is toilet paper our bats are fly swats it is a lot of fun we were taught this by a clown doctor
I went to the local cheap store and had to improvise as there was no noodles.
Instead I got 6 foam tennis bats and turned it into balloon tennis.
It was a fantastic session and all the residents loved it :)
It was great to see them all laughing bending stretching and smiling.
I would recommend this to anyone else :)