Mini-term 2025 Brings Students on Adventures Close to Home and Around the World
Mini-term is one of the hallmarks of every Bentley student’s year, K–12, with each grade embarking on deep dives into learning and adventure that are thoughtfully crafted and painstakingly planned by our wonderful faculty.
This year, during the 9th grade’s Mini-term week, the class focused on service, connection, and class bonding throughout the Bay Area, with urban hiking in San Francisco, volunteering with the Alameda Food Bank and City Team of Oakland, mastering the ropes courses and trails of Strawberry Canyon, and embarking on a kayaking adventure on Friday.
Click on the headline above to read more about our students' myriad Mini-term adventures...
This year, during the 9th grade’s Mini-term week, the class focused on service, connection, and class bonding throughout the Bay Area, with urban hiking in San Francisco, volunteering with the Alameda Food Bank and City Team of Oakland, mastering the ropes courses and trails of Strawberry Canyon, and embarking on a kayaking adventure on Friday.
Click on the headline above to read more about our students' myriad Mini-term adventures...
Mini-term is one of the hallmarks of every Bentley student’s year, K–12, with each grade embarking on deep dives into learning and adventure that are thoughtfully crafted and painstakingly planned by our wonderful faculty.
This year, during the 9th grade’s Mini-term week, the class focused on service, connection, and class bonding throughout the Bay Area, with urban hiking in San Francisco, volunteering with the Alameda Food Bank and City Team of Oakland, mastering the ropes courses and trails of Strawberry Canyon, and embarking on a kayaking adventure on Friday.
This year, during the 9th grade’s Mini-term week, the class focused on service, connection, and class bonding throughout the Bay Area, with urban hiking in San Francisco, volunteering with the Alameda Food Bank and City Team of Oakland, mastering the ropes courses and trails of Strawberry Canyon, and embarking on a kayaking adventure on Friday.
Meanwhile, many of our Upper School Mandarin students spent the week traveling through China, visiting historic and cultural sites such as the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, and the Terracotta Warriors and connecting with the culture by sharing lunch with local families, visiting a school in Chengdu and partaking in kung fu, tai chi, and cooking classes. Other Upper School students embarked on adventures near and far around the United States, with groups immersing themselves in the bustle of the Big Apple, the tranquillity of the New Mexican desert, and the stunning beauty of the California coast. The NYC cohort took in Broadway shows, some of the best museums in the world, and landmarks like Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. The trip to New Mexico focused on space travel and astronomy, with students visiting the Dunn Solar Telescope, the New Mexico Museum of Space History, and the Very Large Array. Finally, our backpackers took to the trails, hiking through Point Reyes and covering 27 miles over the course of the week, carrying all their own food and gear along the way. Each journey allowed students to pursue their passions, learn more about the beautiful world around us, and connect with one another.
Our 6th and 7th grade Mini-term classes included an incredible array of options for students, from beautiful batik-making and community service projects both on campus and off to chess with a certified chess master and a deep dive into Taylor Swift’s songwriting to robotics and a study of influential modern feminist figures. There was something for every interest, and our younger Middle School students had such a memorable week together while the 8th grade ventured to Washington, DC! In the nation's capital, our intrepid 8th-graders embarked on a memorable tour that included the Capitol (where the Bentley contingent met with U.S. Congresswoman Lateefah Simon, representing the East Bay); the American History Museum, the African American History Museum, the Holocaust Memorial Museum; the Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr., and Lincoln Memorials; the National Archives (home of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights); Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; and the Greek Embassy. All this was mixed with relaxation and class bonding, as the students and their chaperones enjoyed a night of bowling and an NBA game featuring the hometown Wizards!
One of the most celebrated aspects of Mini-term is that it is a K–12 experience, a week set aside each year for every Bentley student to explore and discover. Lower School students had a joyful week of immersive learning and adventuring of their own, studying everything from oceanography (kindergarten) to fantasy creatures (1st grade) to dragonology (2nd grade) to Rube Goldberg simple machines (3rd grade) to the solar system and stop motion animation (4th grade) to a solar cook-off (5th grade). Sprinkled in were trips to Bay Area gems such as the California Academy of Sciences, the Adventure Playground, the Chabot Space & Science Center, and more. Congratulations to all of our Lower School students on diving head-first into these areas of study and closing out the week with incredible projects and presentations to showcase the depth of their curiosity and understanding!
The beauty of Mini-term at Bentley is that it provides an opportunity to take time away from our normal routines to push ourselves, try something different, forge new friendships, and be inspired by the world around us.
