BY AMANDA MOSES
The first day of school can be difficult because it’s the start of a new class under the instruction of teachers you may have never had before with students you’ve yet to meet.
To help counter the start of the school year jitters, members of Gateway Intermediate School (IS) 364 hosted two days of ice breaker activities inside of the Brooklyn Sports Club’s (BSC) gymnasium.
With the instruction and guidance of IS 364 teachers, classes in six, seventh, and eighth grade competed against one another in team building exercises in the afternoon. Groups of pre-teens and teenagers were divided into sections so that they could participate in simultaneous games, rotating out as they completed their tasks.
The games included an exercise where a group of students attempted to pass a hula hoop between themselves without letting go of each other’s hands. Whoever succeeded in doing this the fastest won and moved onto the next game.
The following section was a traditional potato sack race, where two students sprinted against each other while inside of a brown sack. Whoever hopped back to their team the fastest, and once the whole team finished, they would be declared the winner and move onto the next activity.
The final game involved dribbling a basketball around cone obstacles. Like the other competitions, this activity had to be completed quickly with each team working together to pass the ball the fastest.
The goal of these challenges were to promote friendly competition and allow the students to get to know one another through fun games.
Photos by Amanda Moses
