The Best Field Day Activities for Primary School Students

Outside of the classroom, there are plenty of activities geared towards fostering the growing leadership and cooperation skills in your children and students.

From contrived treasure hunting escapades, to the general, time-tested physical activities, setting up a friendly and competitive atmosphere leads naturally to a system of rewards for achievement. It’s important to focus on the fun your kids will have, and not emphasize the skill necessary to come in first – although this is a natural aspect of every game.

Ideally, the activities you choose will involve both physical and mental aspects of behavior. Many of these activities will work for students of ages 4 to 11.

Playing for Fun versus Playing to Win

A well-liked pastime of being a kid is Frisbee, using stopwatches and marked-off areas to help highlight the lax rules of the game. For added fun, awards can be placed off to the side for the winning teams. You should implement a system of first place, second, third, and so on so that every team of children gets a chance.

Such field day activities are hardly limited to Frisbee. You can employ makeshift accessories like empty soda bottles, inexpensive, store-bought plastic eggs for an impromptu treasure hunt – there has never been a generation of children not down for a treasure hunt – marbles and jacks for the classic game, Hula Hoops and much more.

There’s such a variety of games that you never need to have the same one twice for your current generation of students. You can’t stress enough the main goal of having fun, but with a consistent strand of competitiveness in each game. The fancy acrylic awards you have should serve as reminders of what’s at stake.

Specific Field Day Activities Shooting free-throws in the game of basketball is precisely the kind of field-day activity tailor-made for children of all ages, who are just about strong enough to manage it. Separate lines should be made for the boys and girls, and even for different levels of skill as judged by the teacher.

For some variety and less gender-specific field day activities, you can set up classic games like miniature golf for the kids, or bowling by using the soda bottles as pins and finding a safe, hefty ball-substitute – a basketball does quite nicely. A soccer ball and softball also work, of course.

A more involved activity, if you can secure the small amount of funding necessary, is to make use of a swimming pool and have the third-graders dive for plastic eggs. This pool can also double as a “pond” from which to catch fake fish (or fish substitutes like ping pong balls). Using groups of separate teams, each student can have a time-allotted period to catch as many as they can, with the winner receiving an award.

Some of the big events can happen near the end of the day such as the Long Jump, the High Jump, and the Relay Team Race. These races are generally for the older kids, and create a lot of buzz around the campus. These events also take a lot of practice before hand, that the students usually partake in during Physical Education or gym class during school hours.

The beauty of these field day activities is that there’s a lot of variation possible with each one, allowing you to put your own spin on them for your third-graders.