Easy Field Day Games
For the last few years I have helped with my elementary school field day activities. It has been a
learning experience and I want to share what has worked well for us so that as you plan yours,
you’ll be prepared!
Today I’m sharing the easy field day games we have done the past few years as well as how we structure our field day activities. I hope it helps make your field day great!
Field Day Organization
- To begin, we make arrangements with the school for the dates and times that work best during the last week of school.
- We have 2 grades attend each of the 2 hour sessions on the back lawn of the school.
- One grade is separated by class and attends rented inflatable activities (bouncy house, obstacle course, inflatable game center, frozen treat station) as well as a treat station where popsicles are served for one hour, rotating every 12 minutes (with 3 minutes to rotate).
- The other grade is separated into classes and sent through lawn water games, rotating every 12 minutes (with 3 minutes to rotate).
- Then after one hour, the grades swap places and enjoy the activities they didn’t do the first hour.
- There was a time when we didn’t have the budget for the inflatables so we only did the lawn water games with a frozen otter pop given at the very end and that was great too! Fortunately the lawn games have readily available supplies that don’t cost much.
Parent volunteers run each of the 10 stations.
- We send a Sign Up Genius link and ask them to volunteer during the 2-hour time slot their kids will be attending.
- Additionally, we create a google slideshow that gives photos and instructions for each station. This is sent to teachers and parent volunteers along with the rotation schedule so everyone is aware of the instructions ahead of time.
- Teachers go through the slideshow with their class so that as they arrive, they already know how to play and can spend the entire 12 minutes playing. This has been such a helpful tool to make sure volunteers, teachers and students know what to expect!
You’ll see below that I list 5 activities for each side of the lawn (inflatables/treat & lawn water
games), this is because we have a couple of grades that have 5 classes. When they come, we
add in the extra station so they can still rotate as a class.
Easy Field Day Lawn Games
Sponge Relay
Supplies Needed:
- 2 kitchen sponges
- 2 buckets full of water
Separate students into 2 teams. Have each team form a straight line with all students
facing forward. When the parent says, “GO!”, the student at the front of each line takes
a sponge out of the bucket of water and passes it over their head to the student behind
them.
The second student grabs it and passes it under their legs to the next in line. The
students continue to pass the wet over/under until they reach the back of the line.
The last student runs to the front of the line with the sponge and dips it back into the water to
get it wet again. They then pass it over their head and it continues down the line.
Keep going with the back student running to the front, until the student that started the game
is back at the front of the line. The first team to go through all of their players wins!
Drip, Drip, Dunk!
Supplies Needed:
- 2 cups marked with Dunk line and Fill line. Drill 4 tiny holes in the bottom of each
cup. - 2 buckets of water
This game is played like “Duck, Duck, Goose.”
Separate class into 2 groups and have each group sit in a circle on the grass with enough room around for running.
Select one student from each team to be “it.” That student then dips the cup into the water filling it to the top line marked on the cup.
While walking around the circle, the student will hold the dripping cup over the head of each player and say, “DRIP”.
When the water gets to the lower line marked inside the cup, they turn the cup over on the head of that student and say “DUNK!” That player then chases them around the circle, and the person who
was “it” tries to beat them back to their spot.
The person who doesn’t sit down first is now “it.” Play continues until it is time to rotate.
Water Ball Toss
Supplies Needed:
- 50 sponges or water balls
- 2 buckets filled with water
- 2 empty buckets marked with a fill line
Have you ever been to a wedding and seen the bride toss the bouquet? In this game,
one classmate gets to toss water splash balls or sponges to classmates in a race to fill a
bucket with water!
This game uses a lot of water so be prepared!
Instructions
- Start by separating the class into 2 teams.
- Have one student from each team be the water ball tosser. That student stands at the front with one bucket full of water balls and one bucket to be filled with water.
- On, “GO!” they toss the balls one at a time up and over their head to their team standing behind them.
- The team catches the water balls and runs to the empty bucket.
- They squeeze the water from the ball into the empty bucket and put it back in the bucket of water to get wet again.
- Play continues until the first team fills the bucket with water to the line or for 5 minutes.
- If you play for 5 minutes, the team with the most water wins that round.
- Then you start again with a new water ball tosser.
Six Corners
Supplies Needed:
- 6 buckets each marked with a large number 1-6
- A large 6 number dice (I made mine out of a box but you can buy some here)
- Water squirters
Instructions
You should have six buckets numbered 1-6 placed around the perimeter of the play area.
The entire class will start in the center and a countdown will be called by the parent
helper. Within those five seconds students must run to the bucket of their choice. Then
the parent will roll a large dice. The numbers on the dice coincide with the numbers on
the bucket. If a 3 is rolled, the parent volunteer will use the water soaker to spray water
in the air above the children at bucket number 3 or on their legs, getting them wet. The
game continues by having the children run back to the center of the play area and the
countdown being repeated.
Cornhole
Supplies needed:
- Cornhole boards and bean bags
Instructions
For a class of 25-30 we used 4 sets of Cornhole boards (8 total boards). We modified
traditional Cornhole rules to make it more simple. Separate students into 8 teams. Set
up one team at each Cornhole board. Pass out one bean bag per student. The players
on one side throw each of their bags one at a time, attempting to get the bag to land on
the board or in one of the holes. Then the players on the other team throw theirs.
Players get 3 points for each bag thrown through the hole. One point is awarded for
each bag that stays on the board without touching the ground at any point. At the end of
each turn (all players on both teams completing their throws), total the points. The team
with the most points wins that round!
Tips for Easy Field Day Games
We also bring lots of sidewalk chalk to draw on the blacktop because there are some
kids that don’t like getting wet and choose to doodle instead. Sidewalk chalk also serves
as our 5th station in the inflatables rotation for those grades with 5 classes.
A few notes:
- Be prepared to have a couple of volunteers that just go around filling water
buckets. We had a hose that filled a large tupperware storage bin and then we
could just scoop the buckets and take them to the game stations, but this was a
pretty constant job for 1 person. - Assign one volunteer to take photos and keep track of the rotation time. Bring a
whistle or a megaphone to signal the time to rotate. We had one person for each
side of the field because the inflatable activities were so loud that they couldn’t
hear the whistle blown by the person monitoring the lawn water games. - Bring a few 10 x 10 pop up tents for the treat station to provide a little shade for
while the kids take a break and eat their treat. - Make treat distribution quicker by separating the otter pops into bags by class
and labeled with the grade and teacher name. Then freeze them. We used the
school cafeteria freezer to store them in. We pulled only one grades bags of
frozen treats out each hour and put them in a cooler to keep them frozen. We
also had extras for the parent volunteers.
These easy field day games have simple supplies and instructions but bring lots of fun!