American Ninja Warrior Field Day!
In 2016, I created an American Ninja Warrior themed event. I had Joe "Weatherman" Moravsky, James "Beast" McGrath and Jessie "Supergirl" Graff (who amazingly was in the NY area around my event (she lives in Cali). I paid them a combined $1,200 using some of our school PTA cultural arts/enrichment assembly money (I'm the chair of the PTA cultural arts, and the PTA officers all emphatically said "yes!"), but that's the same average cost of having any other school assembly, so they were a no-brainer investement! The show doesn't pay them anything!
I emailed an executive at NBC and asked for a banner...and a few weeks later I got a huge Team Ninja Warrior banner! Even the visiting Ninja Warrior celebrities were impressed (guess they're very hard to come by). I also designed a custom ninja warrior t-shirt that I sold to families. Each grade had their own color to make it easy to find them on the field. I use the same color with each group every year so they don't have to buy news shirts if the old one still fits. They can opt to wear a shirt of the same color, with no need to buy a shirt from me. Of course with this year being a Ninja Warrior shirt, I had 275 out of 425 students buy one! Crazy!
I rented (thanks to fundraising via a 6 week martial arts after-school club) the largest inflatable obstacle course in CT (92 feet). Most of my game stations were obstacle courses or physical challenges (like a traversing wooden pallet wall) aside from a music and art (we integrate as a specialist event) station we run every year. I had a former student come over from the high school to be my DJ for the day. I even had a high school leadership group of about 25 students run my games along with parent volunteers. I created signs for each using poster-board staples onto wooden stakes. Each sign had a special "Nichols Ninja Warrior" logo I created using Comic Life 3.5. I also used Comic Life to create a great visual of my obstacle courses. Oh, and I had all 425+ students sign a risk waver that my PTA sent out and collected for me. We had a 100% return rate, which is incredible seeing as the secretary only has like 95% of sent out parent emergency contact forms from September! My official video playlist of the stations plus the assembly is here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGS-YpNYBNvdFwPLVea62Hq00FpNEVPby
Here's my list of activities:
I emailed an executive at NBC and asked for a banner...and a few weeks later I got a huge Team Ninja Warrior banner! Even the visiting Ninja Warrior celebrities were impressed (guess they're very hard to come by). I also designed a custom ninja warrior t-shirt that I sold to families. Each grade had their own color to make it easy to find them on the field. I use the same color with each group every year so they don't have to buy news shirts if the old one still fits. They can opt to wear a shirt of the same color, with no need to buy a shirt from me. Of course with this year being a Ninja Warrior shirt, I had 275 out of 425 students buy one! Crazy!
I rented (thanks to fundraising via a 6 week martial arts after-school club) the largest inflatable obstacle course in CT (92 feet). Most of my game stations were obstacle courses or physical challenges (like a traversing wooden pallet wall) aside from a music and art (we integrate as a specialist event) station we run every year. I had a former student come over from the high school to be my DJ for the day. I even had a high school leadership group of about 25 students run my games along with parent volunteers. I created signs for each using poster-board staples onto wooden stakes. Each sign had a special "Nichols Ninja Warrior" logo I created using Comic Life 3.5. I also used Comic Life to create a great visual of my obstacle courses. Oh, and I had all 425+ students sign a risk waver that my PTA sent out and collected for me. We had a 100% return rate, which is incredible seeing as the secretary only has like 95% of sent out parent emergency contact forms from September! My official video playlist of the stations plus the assembly is here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGS-YpNYBNvdFwPLVea62Hq00FpNEVPby
Here's my list of activities:
- Inflatable Obstacle Course - Rented for $550. Blew out a fuse on first attempt, had to split power between generator and using a teacher's classroom outlet
- Pallet Wall Climb - Had pallet donations, and a very dedicated PTA dad who sanded them, shored them up to be tough, and painted them ANW colors. We zip-tied them to the kickball fence.
- Obstacle Course #1 - I used whatever I could find in my closet, plus parent donations and even had a former PTA parent who runs a YMCA loan me a bunch of stuff (like 5 expensive Bosu balls!).
- Big Pink Ball Chase - Always have a backup bladder because they are unpredictable! No pops this year. *Whew*
- Obstacle Course #2 - Same info as OC #1
- Wii Just Dance music station (in gym) - Had the music teacher run my laptop cart and projector in the gym to give kids a small break from the sun. He either showed Just Dance or GoNoodle videos.
- Obstacle Course #3 - Same info as OC #1
- Stilt Walking Challenge - Got a set of 24 bucket stilts using Hoops for Heart a bonus certificate. Just in time for field day!
- Wacky Sponge & Bucket - I do this as partners with a ball wedged between them to ensure no one can run and get hurt (as often happens at normal sponge & bucket). They actually had more fun and got more wet this way!
- Obstacle Course #4 - Same info as OC #1
- Wacky Relays - Typical wackiness - hopping balls, potato sacks, ball between knee jumps, egg & spoon, balancing object on foam hockey stick, etc.
- Art game station - The art teacher had students do a relay challenge playing Pictionary with white-boards.
