Anyone else's kids hate field day?

[stsomewhere]

The activities vary from year to year.
K-11 participate. 12th grade gets out the week before.

I will be letting them skip that day. They don't know it yet. I told them it was based on their behavior this week.

 

[kristilew]

LOL - picked DD up early today so she could miss the field day festivities.

 

[kamik86]

I will be letting them skip that day. They don't know it yet. I told them it was based on their behavior this week.

you know now I'm wondering if all those times mom told me that if I'm REALLY good _____ would happen and I tried so hard to be great that week if I would have gotten to do what I wanted anyway!!

I hate learning all the tricks parents played on us when we were little... (I don't have kids of my own yet so I haven't figured them all out)

 

[ncmickeyluvr]

My kids are having field day tomorrow. They both love it but our school doesn't do particularly athletic games. It's mostly just stations where they run an obstacle course with flippers, a snorkle, and an inflatable tube around their waist......it's hard to be a serious athlete wearing flippers

They do the field day stuff in the morning. DD's class is having a party in the afternoon and every child is suposed to bring a pillow, slippers, and a book to veg out all afternoon. Maybe she's hoping they'll fall asleep after running around all morning

 

[KAMLEM]

Isn't that like every other day at school?


Kids should have field days simply for the exercise and getting outside.

 

[bored]

Gosh forbid should kids go outside and get some exercise. Perhaps we should flop them down in front on an X-box in the classroom for the day!

 

[kwelch10377]

Even if a kid isn't athletic I don't get why they wouldn't want to spend some time with their classmates and have a little fun outside.

 

[Magpie]

Even if a kid isn't athletic I don't get why they wouldn't want to spend some time with their classmates and have a little fun outside.

Because after awhile getting picked last for teams and being told you're the whole reason your team lost, just gets old. So does coming in dead last in the races for the umpteenth time.

Some kids get enough of that in gym class. They don't need to endure a whole day dedicated to reminding them how inadequate they are when it comes to sports.

I do like some of the alternative sports days being describes here, though! If our sports days were like that I'm sure my son would love to go. Bring on the flippers and water balloons!

 

[binny]

]LOL! My daughter HATES field day -!!! She's not athletic, and thinks the whole thing is stupid. She can't believe they actually extended it into middle school too! She says the kids should get to choose between field day and something for the other half of the kids that can't stand athletics![/B] She wants to the school to have a "brain day" where the kids all get to sit around and read a book and then have a quiz show at the end! THAT she could get into!

Thats what my kids think too! One of them cant spend the whole day outside due to medical issues and the other couldnt care less. I let them skip it this year.

 

[katybugsmom]

I teach 4K and we finally did something different for field day this year!
We went out around 9:30(when it's not so hot) and played four different games-we have 4-4K classes so we rotated every 20 minutes. Here are the games we played:

Frog Hop: Kids had to walk on a balance beam with a beanbag balanced on their heads. When they got to the end of the beam they jumped down, threw the bag down and ran to a creek-blue tarp with plastic frogs, snakes, etc. and jumped over it. Next, they ran around an orange cone and raced back as fast as they could.

Fun-oodle Horse Relay: Kids put on hats and bandanas and "saddled up" with a Fun-oodle horse and raced around an orange cone and back.

Lily Pad Toss: Kids had to try and use bean bags to land on a lily pad.

Sponge Relay: Kids raced to a bucket and dipped a sponge in to soak up as much water as possible. Each child would race back and pass the sponge under and over until it reached the last person in line-that person tried to squeeze as much of the water out into a bottle. The team with the most water in the bottle was the winner.

We ended field day with freeze-pops for all the kids! The kids and adults had a great time and it was just the right time of day and the right length of time!

 

[binny]

My kids are having field day tomorrow. They both love it but our school doesn't do particularly athletic games. It's mostly just stations where they run an obstacle course with flippers, a snorkle, and an inflatable tube around their waist......it's hard to be a serious athlete wearing flippers

They do the field day stuff in the morning. DD's class is having a party in the afternoon and every child is suposed to bring a pillow, slippers, and a book to veg out all afternoon. Maybe she's hoping they'll fall asleep after running around all morning

See? Id be all over that! Even a half day would be a lot safer for DD. FTR we DO spend a lot of time outdoors, but the youngest needs to be watch constantly for getting overheated. She is unable to sweat so its a real medical issue for her. We spent the weekend up the Mounatins here hiking around but I know what to watch for. With hundreds of kids around in 90 degree heat it would be easy to miss the signs even with as wonderful as her teachers are.

 

[kwelch10377]

Because after awhile getting picked last for teams and being told you're the whole reason your team lost, just gets old. So does coming in dead last in the races for the umpteenth time.

Some kids get enough of that in gym class. They don't need to endure a whole day dedicated to reminding them how inadequate they are when it comes to sports.

I do like some of the alternative sports days being describes here, though! If our sports days were like that I'm sure my son would love to go. Bring on the flippers and water balloons!

From what some people have posted it doesn't seem like they are required to play some of the sports, I am sure they could just watch with some other kids who don't want/can't play either.

It just seems a little unsocialable to just not attend and maybe if they were were a little more socialable and at least tried then they wouldn't get picked last.

And I am saying all this as a kid who stunk at sports and was far from popular, but at least tried to participate or cheer on my classmates.

 

[RunDanceSkate]

Even if a kid isn't athletic I don't get why they wouldn't want to spend some time with their classmates and have a little fun outside.

Some kids don't want to participate because it's not fun. DD13 had her field day last week. Grade 7 and 8, 998 kids. They each are assigned 3 events, one running, one field and one either. They then spend 7 hrs outside in the sun waiting for their event.

DD's events were
100m dash (less then a minute including set up for her heat)
high jump (less then 10 min for her to get out, the starting height was over her head and she has never done high jump before, I wonder who thought it would be funny to have the shortest girl in the 8th grade do high jump)
long jump (less then 10 min for her to get out)

So in 7hrs she spent less then 21min being active including the standing time for her events, (actual active time was less then 5min) the rest of her day was spent sitting and watching.

Her walk to school (2 miles) takes longer then that.

She is an active child, up at 4:45 ever weekday morning to spend 2 hrs on the ice training for her synchro skating teams. Dance 4 days a week, 2 hr classes. 3 trips a week to the gym for not less then one hr. each. She also runs 5 days a week training for her next 1/2 marathon.

Track and field day does not add anything to her activity level.

C

 

[kwelch10377]

For those of you that have kids that do not like the activities that are included in field day do you either express your concerns to the organizers or offer your time to help out with additional acitivites that would appeal to those that may not want to participate in the sports?

 

[Magpie]

From what some people have posted it doesn't seem like they are required to play some of the sports, I am sure they could just watch with some other kids who don't want/can't play either.

It just seems a little unsocialable to just not attend and maybe if they were were a little more socialable and at least tried then they wouldn't get picked last.

And I am saying all this as a kid who stunk at sports and was far from popular, but at least tried to participate or cheer on my classmates.

My boy is actually one of the more popular kids in his class. Always invited to parties, always going places with a bunch of other boys in tow. I hardly see him on weekends anymore, because he's always sleeping over with one boy or another. His teachers call him a "leader" in class.

But he's flat footed, awkward, and part of his LD involves gross motor delays. So if he tells me he'd rather round up some friends and have everyone head over to the museum for the day instead of going to school - I'm okay with that. It won't hurt his grades.

P.S. There are no consequences for missed days in our school system, so "playing hooky" is entirely at the parent's discretion.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

The only reason I didn't hate it is that they didn't make us do the sports. So if you wanted to sit on the sidelines with your friends and talk while watching the friends that actually did like sports that was acceptable.

They also had some arts and craft like stations that we could go to as well.

Exactly. I always loved cheering on my athletic friends, even though I never participated in anything but the class tug-of-war. They, in turn, always cheered when I won class or grade Trivial Pursuit type games.

ETA: If I'd been forced to "participate" I'm sure I'd have memories of HATING Field day at school. Fortunately, our gym department had the wisdom not to force it on us. We could all enjoy watching and eating carnival type food and we all had fun in the tug-of-war at the end of the day, though.

 

[MouseEarsJenny]

I hope none of the kids in our seventh grade hate field day. We've been working on during our prep time all week! Our school is being rebuilt in our old athletic fields, so we're busing the whole grade over to a local park for the day. Our students sign up for two morning activities from a list of six: a craft, a nature walk, formations (where you have a certain amount of time to match your group to a picture of a group in a formation), wiffle ball, capture the flag, and a silly obstacle course. Then in the afternoon we have our homeroom challenge, which does include some traditionally athletic things like relay races, broad jump, 100m dash, a softball toss, and a football punt. It also has events like hula hoop challenge, limbo, and water balloon toss, though. Students not in each event wear colored leis to indicate their team and cheer on their homeroom. We end with a tug of war between the various homerooms.

We have donated cases of water, a pavillion to eat lunch, and we have a special surprise planned. After lunch, an ice cream truck will pull up to the park, and when the kids start wishing they had brought money, we'll hand out tickets and tell them the truck is there for them. Should be a blast! (Now, if any of them find this out from the DIS, I'm toast! Our team leader sent a STERN e-mail about keeping the surprise! )

Anyway, it's better than the movies and busy work going on all over school since our grades had to be in... a week before school ends!

 

[MomNeedsVacay]

My oldest daughter is having her first field day next week!! It encourages team spirit...Each grade has the same color t-shirt and they encourage sportmanship and how to cheer on kids for doing THEIR best, not neccessarily THE best. God forbid we challenge our non-athletic children to go beyond their comfort zone... We tell kids to try their best in academics, but not sports?? I was never the most athletic kid, but always thought Field Day was a blast...

 

[declansdad]

Because after awhile getting picked last for teams and being told you're the whole reason your team lost, just gets old. So does coming in dead last in the races for the umpteenth time.

Some kids get enough of that in gym class. They don't need to endure a whole day dedicated to reminding them how inadequate they are when it comes to sports.

I do like some of the alternative sports days being describes here, though! If our sports days were like that I'm sure my son would love to go. Bring on the flippers and water balloons!

I'm sure that the kids that struggle academically feel the same way everyday in class. There is nothing wrong with having the classes spend one day in the school year outside enjoying participating or simply watching and cheering on their classmates.

 

[jrmasm]

My kids love field day!