Bonding Day
Bonding Day Kinabalu
It was a superb day, thanks to the help of the 6th form students and the teachers. Our annual Bonding day was held on Friday 17th November 2014. Overall it was a successful day. The students enthusiastically cheered on their respected – houses and friends. Basically, this day gives students the opportunity to bond and get to know each other better. It also provides them with the skills needed to cope, focus and interact as they enter a new phase of life. The teachers however are a complete different case… let’s put it this way, if students need real life experience to be better individuals, try imagining teachers all year in class without a chance at a hands-on experience.
As morning drops by, the sky with its rays eluded an aura that seemed to develop a sense of tranquillity. The skies were of deep blue and occasional white patches drifted across. Students gathered in their respective groups, a slightly nervous suspense built slowly. We headed for a bus bound for the Youth Park… and started the so-called team building activities. Students as we know it like to win through persistence and yes, their effort did paid off. To be honest, the activities set up by our jolly seniors were seemingly good ice breaker and did fulfil the criteria of bonding day by tying the knots with newcomers and building stronger ties with members you already know rather than taking it for granted.
In what is often known as Chinese Whispers, students have to sit in a line and have an adult or leader not participating in the game tell the first child at one end of the line a word or a message. The objective of the game, to communicate this word or message by whispering it to the child next to them and so on up through the line. The last child at the end of the line must then state out aloud what the word or message was. Children often enjoy the humour of how a word or message can be changed due to miscommunication.
Next up, were some fun activities… football, captain’s ball, Ultimate Frisbee and etc. The grassland looked like a green ocean. I could feel the softness of it like touching a blanket. I closed my eyes and took a long, deep breath. Fresh air tasted like mint went into my nose and filled my lungs. Gardeners grew trees and shrubs along the path. Thoroughly exhausted, the trail brought us to a harmonious resting place. Alongside the tortuous trail, the street lamp suddenly snubbed out. Glancing at the sky, the sun has already risen. An empty, wooden bench and the cafeteria came into sight… it seemed to be break time!
Subsequently, we proceeded back to the bus that took us to ‘Ten Pin’ and yes you guessed it, a bowling centre. It was quite fun as it appeared to be our first time bowling for most of us. We walk into the glassy doors of the colonial bowling alley and are instantly overwhelmed with the oily aroma from the slick looking lanes. The sound of a thundering crash can be heard as the ball strikes the pins with a vicious blow. Seeing the variety of colourful balls lined up on the racks strikes interest in the students. As the ball is thrown and studied very carefully as it glides down the lane towards the intimidating white pins you become excited. Waiting for that intense conclusion of what will happen next. Watching the ball disappear in a white flurry explosion one can feel a sense of accomplishment.
You can tell yourself that it was a good day of bowling at Ten Pin and more of an accomplishment that just a day of bonding…
Bonding Day – Year 8 – Report 2
Vignette:
Yes, it is bonding day… and yes again, the title tells it all… Basically, this day gives students the opportunity to bond and get to know each other better. It also provides them with the skills needed to cope, focus and interact as they enter a new phase of their lives.
‘Even though we’re changing and we’re all finding our own place in the world, we all know that when the tears fall or the smile spreads across our face, we’ll come to each other because no matter where this crazy world takes us, nothing will ever change so much to the point where we’re not all still friends.’
As it is as important as it sounds, this day was scheduled on the 9th of October 2014. In my opinion, Tenby School Penang bonding day means that teachers orchestrate a series of team-building activities for students, usually in some park or forest or maybe a beach for that matter.
Facts and factors:
As morning drops by, it brightens the sky with its rays, students gathered in their respective groups, a slightly nervous suspense built slowly. Each teacher took a group to that teacher’s station, and then the fun started. We headed for a bus and when on to the beach resort leaving only skid marks behind. I have to admit that the sun was scorching hot. But in anyways, we had our sunscreen on.
Finally, there comes the highlight of the day… castle-building activity! I could definitely tell that everyone was so excited and that it was hilarious watching them… and also a little abhorrent as well. Some were over engrossed with protecting their sand castle rather than building it as a team. It was clearly shown that the groups that struggle with leadership featured damaging results. It was also proven that cooperation succeeded best.
Next up, it was time to kick up some dirt, get wet and sweaty… it was my favourite game, crab football! We were asked to use our hands and legged to move around the sand like a four legged creature (a crab maybe?) while playing football. Some were quite good while others were still learning the techniques. Overall, the boys scored more goals over the girls. I would recommend you to try it one day…
All in all, this was a fantastic day. Some of my peers were thinking, laughing, cooperating, arguing and trying new things. Teachers
also enjoyed the day, and had many fun stories to tell each other afterwards over glasses of wine in the nearby bar. My school is known for having a great social atmosphere and close bonds between students and students, students and teachers, and teachers and teachers. I now think that that Bonding Day definitely is a major way in which we make these bonds happen.
Bonding Day (Year 7)
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Wednesday 9th October 2013.
This was the day. The day we went for bonding day-a 2 day trip to the Nature Lodge, Penang Hill.
When we arrived (at the train station), we got separated into our groups and had to think of a name and team cheer for our group. The names Y7 had used were … Fruitilicous, The Unknown 12, Dragonite, Dragon Clan, Penang Hill Dragons and last but not least Blue Fire .
Although it was a really bad squash in the train, it only got worse when we arrived up there. We had to walk 1.5km all the way to the Nature Lodge (I found it was easier to walk when we were laughing). Once we got there, we got a talk about the Nature Lodge. The Nature Lodge is a heritage building made by the British when they arrived in Penang to escape the heat.
After that we had lunch and a treasure hunt. For the treasure hunt, we had to use a map and a compass to find cards with a letter and a number on it .The number was for telling you which letter it was eg. 1=Q 2=P etc. The letter was for making a word –you had to find all letters then unscramble them to form a word.
We then painted flags for our team then played activities.
One of the activities we had was Water Balloons with Miss Alyssa where we made giant water balloons then split into groups to throw at each other and the team that caught the most water balloons won.
Another activity was rocket launching with Miss Anis – where we used water pressure and air pressure to launch the rocket.
Next, there were fun games with Miss Aimee; we did balloon races by putting balloons under our legs, running to a point, running back then passing it to our team mate then repeat until everyone has finished. Also with Miss Aimee, we played the fox(es), mother chicken and the chicks and balloon tower building; making our tower the sturdiest structure.
We also had dodge ball with Miss Nicole where there were 2 throwers at each end of the field and the people between had to dodge the balls as the throwers threw the balls. Sometimes they threw the ball so hard it fell off the cliff!
We had Miss Carolyn too with her hoop games and team writing. For the team writing we split into 2 groups and each group got a pen with five strings attached to it – we each got a string and tried to write our team name on the board (mine being ‘Blue Fire’). It was tricky but we managed to succeed (sort of –all the writing was wobbly).
After that we had spaghetti tower building with Miss Christine. Most of the groups got to do that; unfortunately our group didn’t get to do that but we mixed groups and played TRUTH OR DARE! Not all groups got to do everything in one day but it was a FUN day.
Soon, we set up our tents and had a delicious dinner that consisted of sweet and sour chicken with rice OR if you were vegetarian we had garlic spaghetti. We got to have a bon fire, that Xander’s dad kindly put up for us, and enjoyed ghost stories or singing.
After a fun day (and a bit of chit chat before sleeping) we finally settled down and got to sleep in our tents or dormitories with our friends excited for another day of FUN.
On Thursday we continued with our activities and had a quick lunch of (three choices) jam, egg or tuna sandwiches. We carried all the equipment up the hill and began our 1.5km back to the train station where we all got squashed again and went back to the bottom of the hill.
We came back on the bus and either went home or continued with our activities.
That had been a fun trip and we look forward to more!
Written by Tan Zhi Ni (7T)
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