First Posted: 9/3/2014
Senior citizens at the Falls Active Center prove that thinking can actually be very fun.
The Falls Active Center offers an activity called Brain Games that its members play every Tuesday at lunchtime.
During the center’s lunch period, Twila Watkins, in her fourth year as the center’s director, asks the seniors questions on historical occurrences to keep them thinking and their brains active.
“The Brain Games are just a little activity that we do usually on Tuesdays,” said Watkins. “Sometimes I read a historical event and then we discuss it to bring back memory of history and events that happened in the past, just to kind of sharpen us.”
Watkins started the Brain Games in her first year, in the hopes they would keep senior citizens active and allow them to have some fun while eating their lunch.
She likes to keep it simple, but at the same time try her best to expand the seniors’ minds by giving them any piece of history from anywhere in the world from any time period.
“It’s world history,” said Watkins. “I have a sheet about events that happened in the past with all kinds of information about it, and then I read that and then we discuss things about it. Maybe its something to do with the World War. Maybe it’s something to do with an important person, or event. That’s mostly what we do.”
One thing Watkins has noticed about Brain Games is that sometimes, by recalling a certain historical event from world history, the seniors will then recall a certain memory from their own history.
Watkins reiterated that Brain Games is not a formal thing the seniors do, but rather just a weekly activity.
During the activity, the seniors will eat their lunch while Watkins asks the questions. No hands are raised, as everyone just shouts what they think is the right answer.
Right or wrong, the seniors joke with each other and poke fun at one another and end up filling their lunch time with good laughs and expanded knowledge.
Watkins acknowledges that the seniors have their fun and she’s happy that Brain Games are something they enjoy.
“They like it,” she said. “ In fact, one of the guys will always say ‘Do you have a story for us today?’ The book often has a thing for almost every day of the year, so it’s part of Brain Games, but sometimes I do it more frequently. It just depends. You do different activities at different times.”
While Brain Games is a fun way to keep the seniors’ brains thinking, it is not the only way the Falls Active Center keep them active, as Watkins said they do other activities.
“I have a book,” said Watkins. “It’s just activities, maybe proverbs or sayings. Just different things like that. Usually, we do verbal things because some of our people are visually impaired. I used to have things that people wrote out individually, but I found that’s very challenging with our visually-impaired people, so we do things, usually, as a group so that everyone can participate.”
