Our Field Day is divided into 2 days. K-2 on one day and 3-5 the next day. It starts at 9 a.m. and goes until about 11:30. Our PE teacher picks a theme every year and makes up games/activities pertaining to that theme. She always gets someone or a group to come in and do a general assembly before it begins that also pertains to the theme. For example, this year was "Lift Off to Field Days." She had a hot air balloon person come. THe PTA pays for the popcorn and snowcones (we have our own machines) so every child gets one. Those are both separate stations. Next year we are adding a water station b/c it gets very hot. We have parent volunteers at each station, plus the PE staff and teachers help as well. The kids love it. Our PE teacher puts a lot of time and effort into this day. She spends most of the summer coming up w/the theme, etc.
Our school is a k-3 school with 300 kids. We take all day for field day and it is held the last week of school.
The classes rotate throughout various stations for games and events. We do the hoop shoot, egg and spoon race, sack race, 50 yard dash, jump the creek, etc. In addition to that, we have an inflatable station that has a jumphouse, 22 foot inflatable slide, an inflatable obstacle course, and in the afternoons, a dunking booth.
We borrow a concession wagon from CocaCola and we serve nachos, popcorn and coke throughout the day at a designated snack time for each class.
We have many visitors but the volunteer list had faded over the years, so we revamped our strategy. The workers that run each event are the parents from each classroom. Example: When Mrs. Smith's class goes to the sack race, the parents and Mrs. Smith are in charge of running the race. Then at their snack time, Mrs. Smith's parents work in the concession. We have found that people love to volunteer, but want to spend the day with their own child and if you let them travel with their child, they will help with anything.
This is strictly a fun day, not a fund-raiser. The PTO pays for all food and the inflatables, as well as ribbons or awards medallions for the students. They have also paid for shirts in the past, but we also use local sponsors and put their business names on the back of our shirts. When we use business sponsors, we recognize them at field day openeing ceremonies with their own shirt and plaque for them and their child.
We just had our Field Day last week and we were only rained out one day. In Florida who knows...
Anyway, we do events like the 440,dizzy bat,mash relay (funny one), balloon toss, 50 yard dash,
softball throw,tug-a-war,three-legged race,sac race and a few others I can't remember. We have 1st through 4th place. The only event where everyone gets a ribbon is Tug-a-war based on where they placed.
Our coach has been doing this for 24 years so he has it pretty well planned. We make our own awards from the die-cut machine. ( A Parent makes up over two thousand awards, I'm it next year.)All awards are given before the next race. saves alot of time.
The lower grades go in the morning and the higher grades in the afternoon. We take three days to do this. Room Parents have Popcicles ready when they get back and after lunch they watch a movie.
The kids pick the events they like and "try-out" basically, it just makes sure they know what they're to do.
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Our Friday Surprise takes place on the first Friday of each month. The Parent Group purchases a candy surprise that the students purchase for 25 cents. The children look forward to this every month. It is so popular that we only send flyers home to students in k-2 just as a reminder. Most remember anyway. We have about 90 percent participation. Friday surprise is announced in the morning announcements on the Monday and day before Friday Surprise. Friday Surprise is also on the schools calendar that goes home with students at the beginning of the year.
We purchase our candy from a local wholesaler and a lot from Wal Mart. We have a popcorn machine so we have that as Friday Surprise once a year. Each month is a differant Surprise. We have had licorice ropes, ring pops, gummy savers, laffy taffy ropes, tangy taffy, Necco conversation hearts(February), gummy hot dog & hamburger, popcorn, nerds, etc.
We don't make a huge profit on this, this is mostly just a special thing we do for kids. But we do make $250.00 per year and we have 300 children in our school. I purchase the conversation hearts at Wal Mart, 4/$1.00, so we don't make a profit in February, but we make a 60% profit with the ring pops, laffy taffy and a few others.
Volunteers serve this at the childrens last recess, our teachers and principal are ok with them finishing the candy in class. Most kids do finish it at recess. We put the Friday Surprise in the Kindergarten teachers box the night before for her classes. Some teachers that don't want the kids to have any candy during school passes her surprise out as the children leaver the class on Friday afternoon.
We have a new principal this year and I have asked a couple of times if he was ok with some of the surprises (like the ring pop).
Like I mentioned earlier, we serve snow cones on field day as their Friday Surprise. It costs about $100.00 total for machine rental, 8 bottles of flavor, cones & ice. Our rental place lets us return any unused flavor. We don't make any money on this one but it is well worth doing on field day when the children are hot and sweaty from their activities. We serve rain or shine and it still sells on rainy days.
We have our Field Day every other year with an art fair on the "off" years. This past year we kicked off with a Mad Science Assembly in the morning for K-3 while 4-8 went outdoors. Then 4-8 came in for a repeat assembly.
Outdoors, we had a police officer bring a radar gun for fast pitch contests, water balloon toss,basketball free throws, rubber chicken distance toss, obstacle course, etc.
As for prizes, we gave out inexpensive candy like Tootsie rolls on every other activity and freezer pops were a station by themselves since it was soooo hot! The afternoon ends with softball games.
