Simone Berry learned a valuable lesson about teamwork from reading a book and going on the sixth-grade field trip to Camp Ramapo in Rhinebeck.
“It’s OK to work with people you don’t normally work with. It’s good to try something new,” said the Bulkeley Middle School student.
Sixth graders read Leo Lionni’s “Swimmy” before going on the trip.
“It was a book on teamwork and we all really worked together on the trip. It was fun,” said Berry.
Sixth graders are adjusting in a new year by attending a new district school, Bulkeley Middle School, and taking classes with some students for the first time.
This is the third year that sixth graders took this trip.
“The goal is to help kids get to know one another, learn to work as a team, make connections with not only the adults but with new members of the cohort,” said sixth-grade teacher Nancy Erlanger of the trip. “At the beginning of the year, we do a lot of work with community building. The trip is the more physical piece of the community building, where they have to take risks and they really have to work as a team to accomplish goals.”
Erlanger added, “In writing class, we talk about leadership and talk about risk-taking and struggles and finding a way to go on despite the struggles. We talk about helping one another. Swimmy helps the other fish. The book is a great connection to the trip, but in the classrooms, other things are happening as well. You’re in a new school and we’re all fish, and we have to work as a team.”
The trip featured fun games where teamwork was needed.
“When we got there, we played a fun game called knee tag,” said sixth grader Mia Senate. “You had to tag people’s knees and the only way you were untagged is if someone high-fived you.
“I learned how to work together with people that I might not hang out with that much.”
Senate shared she liked the moo game where students moo like a cow.
“You can say it with a silly face or something, and you had to be on all fours like a cow,” she said.
Sophia Pendergast recalled a jump rope game where students jumped rope and could not let the rope touch them.
“It was fun because we got to be outside. We got to walk around and play all the games,” she said.