By: Hannah Gundermann
Students walk like zombies from class to class everyday. They see the same students, same teachers, and same classrooms, but today their routine received a change in pace.
On April 29, 2016, Hershey High School hosted its first Community Day. This day was dedicated to allow students to explore interests that are not included in the normal curriculum. Michelle Kindt of the foreign language department was in charge of running the large group games session.
“I decided to run this session because I have past experience with summer camp games and have fun leading games,” said Kindt.
In this session, students had the opportunity to participate in new games and meet people they don’t normally see. The 44 minute session was broken into three activities.
“I signed up for this activity to have a fun time with the boys,” said Sammy Steele. Steele’s friends Andrew Sullivan and Alex Morgret were also in this session. The three of them joined together to be on the same team for the games.
The first activity was a warm up to wake up the students before they played the other games. For the warm up, the group divided into two teams of boys and girls. Each team then assigned a “runner” for their group. The basic principle of the game was to get the said object to Kindt before the other team.
Kindt used a variety of items such as pencils, lip gloss, shoes, and more. In the end, the girls team came out on top, beating the boys team.
Next, students had to use their body for communication rather than words. Once again, the teams were girls against boys. The teams each formed a line of chairs and held the hand of the person behind them.
At the top of the column was Kindt with a coin. She then flipped the coin. If it was heads, the person would squeeze the hand they were holding. The hand squeezing went down the line and the person at the end would have to grab a stuffed animal. The boys team was able to snag the win in this activity.
The third activity was the most challenging, but most fun for the students. Everyone in this session put chairs in a big circle. Each person identified an animal with a gesture that coordinates. This animal was then identified with the chair, not the person.
One person would say the animal identified with their chair and another animal. Whoever was sitting in the chair identifies with the second animal would repeat their animal and someone else’s. This continued and increased in speed. If a student said the wrong animal/gesture or were too slow they would have to move to the chair with the lowest rank.
This session was then concluded. The second group of students then started entering including sophomore, McKenzie McLeod.
“I wanted to spend time doing something with new people I don’t normally get to see,” said McLeod.
