Freshmen-Senior 'Amazing Race' at STE

Saint Thomas’ Episcopal is a K-12 school. In the past, this meant kids moving from middle school to high school didn’t get the same welcome to high school that others got. The student board decided to change that! They put together a huge scavenger hunt for all the freshman and seniors to get to know each other. They were split into 6 teams,  half seniors and half freshmen, each wearing a different color bandana. The team showed their team spirit with their bandanas and a coordinated color outfit. Some teams wore colored beads and others painted their faces. It was a colorful event with a celebratory feel!

The pink team ties themselves in knots trying to beat the clock.

This scavenger hunt took place all around the school. Like the show, The Amazing Race, each team was given a card with a clue on it of where to go. At 2:30, the teams took off running. Every place had a different activity that they had to complete in order to receive the next card with instructions. In the courtyard they had to completely wrap two members of the team in toilet paper. In the belltower the team had to come up with 3 different song lyrics that had the word “yellow” and sing them. In the Church Apron the team tried to answer as much St. Thomas’ trivia as they could. Questions like, “what two items are on the St. Thomas’ crest?” And “what teacher has been at the school the longest?” On the playground the teams spun around in a circle ten times then tried to run with an egg in a spoon around cones and back. The whole team had to do it and this resulted in lots of scrambled eggs. In the lunch area the teams split into two groups, grabbed random hands, and proceeded to get themselves out of the knot. When the teams had gone through all the obstacles, it was a sprint to the finish where they had to present all of the clue cards. Purple team won, followed by orange in a close second.

This scavenger hunt was a welcome to high school for the freshmen, a get-to-know-the-underclassmen for the seniors and a campus tour for all the new students. The challenges acted as the classic icebreakers, but without all the awkwardness. Seniors got to know the freshmen and the freshmen now have familiar faces in the hallway. And the school has a new tradition!