My Top 10 Activities for a Virtual Field Day!

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Let’s face it, nobody wants a virtual field day! However, with the circumstances of this pandemic and a global shut down, Physical Education teachers worldwide have adjusted and strategized how to bring FUN to their students at home. When my administrator asked me if it was possible to still have a field day without us all beginning present, I was happy for the challenge, but reluctant to start planning. I guess I was still holding onto the glimpse of hope that our Texas Governor would allow us to return back to campus to close the school year. Well, that didn’t happen, and now it is expected that all end of the year traditions will now be virtual. *Sigh*

Luckily for me, using social media and following trending hashtags makes it easy to research and find ideas to plan a virtual field day. I came across a lot of great content on social media. In fact, it was hard to narrow down my favorites to just ten. I wanted our virtual field day to mimic our traditional field day, but not repeat anything we’ve ever done before. Here are my top 10 virtual field day activities I plan to use with my students.

Our field day always includes some type of dance station. Usually, coupled with a snack, drink, and restroom break. We keep the music going to keep the kids moving who want to move, while others can take a break or have a snack, if needed. I wanted our virtual field day to a dance portion in it, so I found these two activities that we will be using.

#10 Cha-Cha Plank

#9 Glow Stick Dance Party

Field days are typically themed, although I have never hosted a themed field day myself. I find that reinventing the wheel year after year seems cumbersome and trying to make our favorite field day stations fit into a molded theme doesn’t always work. So, I seek out feedback from my students and keep what works, and replace the ones that weren’t as fun as I thought it would be. With this year being unusual, I did consider doing a theme for our virtual field day. I figured planning along a theme would make it easier. Then, Minute to Win It popped in my head. I loved this show, and I have experience hosting lots of Minute to Win parties, pep rallies, I even did a school auction once all themed MTWI! While I decided to not go full out and theme our virtual field, YouTube is full of the blueprints to host a fun themed MTWI event. I decided to keep this one in our virtual field, because chances are my students have pasta in their kitchen cabinet.

#8 Noodling Around

The next two include the use of electronics. While I typically don’t include or encourage the use of devices at field day, I figured these two activities were a fun and would still allow our students to be active. In fact, including activities like these in our virtual field day may captivate some our students who like to look at the screen.

#7 Flappy Bird Planks/Squats

#6 The River & The Bank

I wanted to keep some traditional field day items in our virtual fun as well. Sports and running events are all staple field day items. So, the next two activities are somewhat traditional, but modified a tad with items my students should have at home.

#5 Zip Loc Soccer Juggling

#4 Color Run

Another traditional field day event is jump rope. I saw many posts and tweets about PE teachers making their own jump rope using plastic bags and duct tape. I love the idea of a homemade jump rope knowing full well many of my students wouldn’t have one of their own, but I wanted something better than plastic bags. I came across this tutorial and I am excited to include it in our virtual field day. It will be a great keepsake and usable all summer long.  

#3 T-Shirt Jump Rope

My field days are known to be messy, so of course I have to include something in our virtual field day that would be a little messy. This next activity kind of reminds me of the shaving cream and Cheetos puffs station we had a couple of years ago.

#2 Whip Cream Challenge

Ok, so I saved the best for last. I know not all parents are going to want to do this for their children on our virtual field day. Why? Because it’s a little over the top. Anyone who knows me or has been to any of my events I host, knows I am over the top. I wanted a “WOW that was so awesome” reaction and this activity will for sure bring that. We do something similar in at our halftime game entrainment during our annual basketball tournament and it’s a crowd favorite year after year. So, I know the kids will be excited about it, the parents I am not too sure about. The awesome ones will.  

#1 Cash Drop

There you have it, my top ten activities for a virtual field day. I am confident that my students will have fun even though it’s not what we all wanted. My hope is these activities that can easily be done well after my students hit the little X on their browser to close out our virtual field day. As for now, my virtual planning will continue. I plan to create a video tailored to just my students and talk about each activity with a demonstration. I will update this blog when I have completed my video. What are your plans for Field Day? Which events or activities are you excited about your students doing?

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