By Luke ‘27
One of the most anticipated elements of 7th Grade at HW is the retreat, where students go on a class trip and enjoy fun activities. It serves as a grade-wide bonding experience, especially important for a class of 7th graders just a few months into school. This year for retreat, students were split into groups of around 12, with a teacher as their group leader. Looking back at a truly memorable experience, I’m happy to share my favorite moments from retreat.
On Monday, the highlight of the day was building and decorating student sized cars. With limited time, materials, and knowledge of car building, we got to work. Communication was key, and we pooled our ideas until we somehow had what looked like, well, a car! Miraculously, even with someone sitting inside, it rolled! In a somewhat surprising turn of events, our team won the race, an exciting end to the first day.
For the second day of retreat, we went off campus to a nearby camp. The morning consisted of a ropes challenge course, along with a zip line. Groups navigated an obstacle course in the air, something as fun as it was scary. In the afternoon we did some archery, along with playing a grade wide game of Ga-Ga-ball. Finally, we concluded the day with a 40-foot rope swing. We pulled students up as high as we could manage before releasing the rope and letting them swing.
On Wednesday, the competition was back on as we selected group names based on our provided color. We were the Pink Panthers. The competition: a downtown scavenger hunt, taking us from one landmark to another to get as many points as possible. Larger challenges were landmark related such as, “Sing a disney song at Walt Disney Music Hall.” We chose “Let it Go.” There were also smaller challenges throughout the day such as, “Take a picture from the highest building you can find.” My favorite places we went were Angel’s Flight, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the Broad, among countless others.
Finally, the next and final day of retreat was a trip to the Science Center. We traveled as a full grade to the Science Center, and students explored exhibits of their choice throughout the morning. My favorite exhibit was the Lego Exhibit, an exciting and relatively new portion of the Center. In the afternoon, we watched a 3D nature documentary, a relaxing end to our week.
I absolutely loved 7th Grade Retreat. Not only was Retreat fun, it also brought together our entire grade over shared experiences. Two of my now best friends I didn’t know until we were put into the same retreat group. I absolutely recommend participating in retreat, the perfect way to make countless fun memories. Overall, 7th Grade Dean Ms. Reola says it best: “My favorite thing about 7th grade retreat is that it allows students the opportunity to take a break from their academic work and bond with their classmates.”
