Voice & Choice for Field Day Activities

Students bouncing on balls outside

Ready, set, go! It’s time for a field day! You may remember participating in field day as a kid. Maybe, in more recent times, you’ve hosted a field day for your own students. Either way, field day is a great way to unwind at the end of the school year, participate in interactive activities, and celebrate the summer season ahead! Let’s explore what field day is and how we can empower our students through voice and choice for field day activities.

What is field day all about?

Field day is an exciting event that is held across the country for many schools, usually with athletic activities. It can also incorporate different challenges, community involvement, artistic activities, and so much more. Field day is the perfect opportunity for students to show their school spirit and celebrate all that they have accomplished throughout the school year. Typically, field day takes place outside, but can also take place inside a gymnasium or even virtually if necessary.

Field day is also more than just an exciting event for students. There are so many different skills that are accomplished through the planning and execution of a field day event. Here are just a few of the skills that you may see students work on throughout field day events:

Physical activity
Friendly competition
Teamwork
Communication
Problem solving
Working outside the classroom
Following rules and guidelines
Maintaining appropriate behaviors

Promoting student voice and choice

As you can see, field day is more than just athletic competitions and allows for students to work through many different skills. We know the importance of voice and choice in classroom activities, so why not incorporate this into the field day experience? Voice and choice offers a variety of possibilities for students to complete tasks, projects, and other activities. By giving students voice and choice, it helps to create trust, encourage participation, and give students an active presence both in and out of the classroom. It also gives students agency as they plan a school event. Additionally, it allows students to feel a sense of pride and school spirit. Here a few ideas to try with your students:

Design field day apparel

This art-focused activity allows students to play an active role in creating a shirt (or other article of clothing) that best represents themselves, their class, and their school spirit. Consider using a design tool such as Canva or Google Drawings to have students design their shirt or have them utilize paper and drawing/coloring tools to sketch their ideas.

Example of a field day shirt design — Get as creative as you want! You can even have students design apparel with different colors, representative of field day teams.

Develop a class mascot

Similar to the previous idea, this gives students creative freedom to create something that best represents their class for the field day event. They can work in teams, vote on the mascot, and even create a costume to bring it to life!

Create flyers, posters, and decorations

These tools can also be used for the actual field day event or to promote the event days in advance. Students can each take on a different component of the class poster to best represent themselves and express themselves in a unique way.

Make a vision board

A vision board is another great way for students to have a voice in the field day process. They can each create one to showcase their goals and ideas for field day and then show it off to the rest of their class. This allows you to see what students are looking forward to and what they would like to include in field day.

Example of a field day vision board with different apparel designs, activities, and color schemes. — Vision boards are helpful to map out your ideas all in one space, especially for those who learn better with visual aids.

Create a station

Voice and choice is in full swing as students brainstorm ideas for their own field day station. They will give it a name, discuss materials needed, draw a picture of what it looks like, and of course, describe the activity. This is also an excellent chance to see what students are interested in and, once again, have them vote on which field day station(s) they may want to participate in.

Example of a station creation form for students to fill out — This is a great way to give students autonomy over what activities they are/aren’t interested in, as well as get them excited if their idea is chosen.

Take your pick from a choice board

Create your own or share the one below with students. Give them the option to pick a certain number of events that they would like to participate in during the field day event.

Example of a field day choice board with various activities — With choice boards, each student will get to pick activities they want, this way, everyone gets at least 1 of their choices.

As you can see, field day is the perfect opportunity to give your students voice and choice. Hopefully you are feeling inspired to put a unique twist on the standard field day plan and try out some of these new ideas. Be sure to check out our accompanying OTIS course, Bringing Student Voice to Field Day, as well as many other courses in the OTIS Course Library.

For more tips, tricks, and tools for teaching in and out of the classroom, check out more content on the Teq Talk blog or our YouTube channels OTIS for educators and Tequipment.

We also offer virtual professional development, training, and support with OTIS for educators. Explore the technology and strategies that spark student success — no matter where teaching or learning are happening!

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