Every year 7th and 8th grade go on a field trip to a place called Camp Tecumseh. This year when our 7th grade class went, we had tons fun. To me, Camp Tecumseh was a place where we came closer to each other as a class. We did a program called Foundations for Success where we did activities that helped us gain trust with each other, have leadership, have self-confidence and believing you can do anything if you try hard, gain problem solving skills, and to communicate with each other in an easy way to understand. This changed the lives of my classmates and I by teaching us that if we have these skills, we will be more successful in our everyday lives.

I believe that our class is very close. Since we’ve been with each other since kindergarten, we are more like siblings than just friends. We even fight but we realize that we are just so close that we fight like brothers and sisters, not like friends. Camp Tecumseh helped us realize this and since then, I feel that we have fought less and been a lot closer as classmates.

At Camp Tecumseh you do a lot of fun activities including Communication Station, Optimist Challenge, Survival Simulation, Team’s Course, Mission Possible and the Climbing Tower. All of these activities focused on the foundations for success. Most people said their favorite of these activities was the optimist challenge because it focused on helping us build trust with one another and it was fun at the same time.

Another thing we did that was really popular at Camp Tecumseh was a game called Gaga. It’s when a group of people go in this wooden octagon called a Gaga pit and you have a ball that you can only hit with your hands. The object of the game is to hit the ball at other people to get them out and try to not get hit by the ball. It was extremely fun and now we have our own gaga pit at school so we can play it even when we aren’t at Camp Tecumseh!

Camp Tecumseh brought us closer as a class by helping us use the foundations for success with each other but also by just letting us hang out and relax at a place besides school. It gave us the chance to just take a break and have fun as a class while not having to worry about homework or quizzes. Overall, Camp Tecumseh was a great experience and it helped our class comes closer now so I can’t wait to see how much closer we will come by going again next year.

Our class also went on a another field trip this past week to a place called the Fatima Retreat House. While we were there, we did similar activities we did at Camp Tecumseh, and these activities also had life long lessons. We did an activity where we had to talk to people in our class and see what we had in common and what our differences were. This taught u to step out of our comfort zone. We did another activity where you had to find a way to connect nine dots using only four straight lines. This taught us to think outside of the box. The most fun activity was when you and your partner took turns walking through a trail in a forest blindfolded while the other one guided you. This taught one of the most important traits in life, trust.


Since Camp Tecumseh and the Fatima Retreat House, I believe that our class has actually been nicer to each other and I think we are less competitive. I don’t hear that often anymore about fights during recess over silly things that don’t even matter. I also see that people are taking the time to be nicer to others by having a better attitude towards them. We are thinking more often about how we want to treat people the way we want to be treated.


All in all, we had a great time at both Camp Tecumseh and the Fatima Retreat House. Both field trips taught us to be more kind to each other. When people in the past came to talk to our class about being nice, we would be nice for the rest of the day but by the next day, we would be fighting again. Fighting over silly things such as whether or not someone got out during kickball at recess. Now, we let it go and remember it’s just a game and it doesn’t really matter. We went to Camp Tecumseh in September and now it is May. It is eight months later and we are still being nice and hopefully it will stay that way for the future to come. Even though we were only at Fatima about five days ago, I guarantee we will see even more improvement in the long run.