For our field day, we have an all out "Survivor Day." We have the kids split into teams and give them each a different colored bandana as their "Survivor buff."
We have them running (or jumping for the littler kids) through tires placed on the ground, crawl through play tunnels, and "swim" through water by walking through it barefoot.
It's a great, fun day and all the kids beg to do it again and again.
We have had a ping pong ball blow relay and sack races in the past.
This year, the student council wanted something different (they are in charge of the games) and decided to do tie dye t-shirts for everyone (they paid for it themselves and we only have 128 kids).
We also have the traditional parent/teacher versus student softball game.
This is always combined with a end of year BBQ put on by our parent club.
For our field day - we have tried with LOTS of participation and success...
popsicle eating contest, 3 popsicles each kid, fastest time wins,
big mouth contest (students had to be nominated for this event) high # of
cheetos in your mouth w/o chewing wins,
watermelon toss - 2 people per team toss to each other at 3 feet, 5 feet, 7 feet, etc. last team with an undropped watermelon wins,
then using the dropped watermelons, new teams & pitchers with volume marks on them, juice your watermelons contest, fastest team to reach the mark with watermelon juice only wins (need a strainer, screen, collander over the pitcher to catch chunks - also could use a sand bucket from DollarTree instead of pitchers)
and best of all - waterslide from hardware store 100' x 20' clear plastic runs about $40 run it down a hill, soapy water, sprayed constantly with hose from teacher/volunteer. Hope these work for you!!!
- See if the town police would be willing to bring out the speed machine or radar gun. If so you might be able to have a fastest pitch or kick station.
- Hull-Hoop Chain. Split the group (or have two groups) hold hands in a circle. The first person has to take a Hulla-Hoop and guide it to the next person in the chain without using their hands (Hull-Hoop starts on the joined hands between the first child and the last). Then so on until it gets back to the starting position. Possibly have these timed and post the results.
- Bouncy Ball Relay.
- Sponge Race. Simply have a bucket of water on one side with an empty bucket on the other. The empty bucket should have a level goal mark. First child dips their sponge in and races to squeeze it out into the empty bucket, then races back and gives the sponge to the next in line. Keep going until the level goal is reached.
- Parachute, bubbles (use a swimming pool), chalk
- Tattoos
Also this year, since we normally get over 100 parent volunteers anyway, we're looking at possibly combining our annual barbeque to Field Day. This way we might get even more parents to attend and they would only need to take one day off to enjoy both activities.
Our school is a 2nd -5th grade building with 15 classrooms. We played games and other outside activities. We had a Wacky Olympics theme and used an inflatable obstacle course and tricycles as part of a triathylon. I found this great website for theme ideas: www.pecentral.org/lessonideas/fielddays/fielddaysindex.asp
