Field Day Festivities

By. Meredith Biesinger

It’s officially that time of year…Field Day Time! Your students have looked forward to this for a while now. Some may not have had a field day due to the pandemic over the last year or two. The seasoned student knows what’s coming, and they are excited! Field Day is like a rite of passage, a time to celebrate a school year full of hard work with some outdoor fun!

Students love it! Teachers….well, they love to see their students happy and having fun. Field Day for teachers takes a lot of planning and organization to ensure safety and enjoyment at the same time. 

Here are some simple and fun field day ideas:

Pizza Delivery Relay

Put a fun twist on relay races with pizza boxes for field day, challenging your students to work as a team to get a box filled with “pizza” across the field.

Hula Hoop Rolling

Ask your P.E. teachers for hula hoops for a field day game, and challenge your students to use rulers to roll their hula hoops across the field. Want to up the challenge? Set out some cones to create an obstacle course for students to roll their hoops through.

Hoop Scotch

If you lucked into many hula hoops from the gymnasium, you might want to set up a hoop-scotch course. Think hopscotch, but instead of boxes drawn with chalk, students will hop through a course of hula hoops laid out on the grass or playground.

As a break from all that running around, why not pull out the sidewalk chalk for a quiet field day activity? Students can get creative drawing and practice writing, or you can incorporate some of the concepts they learned during the school year, like jumping around on a math hopscotch board!

Fill the Bucket

If you’re brave enough to incorporate water into field day, it can be a lot of fun for students — especially on one of those hot days near the end of the school year. In this field day activity, students are faced with two small buckets (usually available at the dollar store this time of year) and one giant sponge. The goal is to get all the water from one bucket into the other empty bucket — using only the sponge to transport it!

Keep It Up

One of the reasons so many of us remember field day fondly is the sense of class community that comes with the day. Build on that unity with a “keep it up” game using a beach ball. The rules are pretty simple. Place the class in a circle, throw a beach ball in the center, and challenge students to keep the ball from hitting the ground!

No matter what you decide to do for your Field Day this year, remember it’s about having fun with your students and celebrating your school year together. Oh, and don’t forget to wear tennis shoes and sunscreen!