Destination Imagination

DI became a major focus in January and February. For my first and second grade group it was the usual Thursday after school meeting, but for Brad's team a lot of time was spent preparing for the competition. This meant a lot of Friday or Saturday work days at our house in addition to their usual Thursday meeting after school. We received so many thanks for getting this program started at the school, and I always just tell people that the reason we are willing to put so many hours into this is because I can honestly see how much it has benefited Brad being in the program when he was younger, so I want that for my kids and everyone else. SO, here is our life of DI the last several months...

1st and 2nd Group

We focused on instant challenges, which helps build creative thinking, quick thinking and problem solving, along with major teamwork skills. Makin takes the lead of his team each time and I have loved seeing him in this group.

"Team Talk" we had each Thursday while they ate a snack.

Leaning Tower Of Pisa

The Happy Campers
Brad is an awesome coach. It is quite the challenge to stand back and let a bunch of 4th and 5th graders write an entire script and build a structure for this competition and I have to take notes of how he manages to do this. He had a few shifts in his team after Christmas but in the end he had four 5th graders and two 4th graders, all of which are oldest siblings and one only child. Yep. The good news is they were a super kind-hearted group, so while they all want to do their own idea, they are very good at complimenting the other team members ideas! :)

An instant challenge moment at school.

They worked together really well, but in the instant challenge area it was often hard to come to one idea and roll with it. When they worked on the skit, they did a GREAT job memorizing lines and practicing and when they performed they didn't miss a beat. We also had a couple of girls who had been in quite a few school plays so they would work on making sure everyone kept their face to the audience etc. Lorelei built several structures and enjoyed learning all her dad could teach her to hold as much weight as possible.

Brad doesn't remember what they are laughing about here but its so cute!

Lorelei and Brad testing a structure. Not only did they need to test this,
they had to practice putting these weights on many, many times
 as it had to be done during the skit and timed just right.

Cutting the poles for their backdrop.

Makin typically had Charlie and Julia to play with during work days.
He also just loved watching the older kids work sometimes.

They came up with the idea to have four of them sketch an idea for a backdrop and then two of them chose which one they liked without knowing who drew it. Then they drew that onto a sheet and later painted it for the backdrop.

They had to include a "special effect" which they decided would be a net to catch the Splurtlecoon.

Lunch break chat. 

They made spider legs for the Splurtlecoon using black pantyhose and paper.
Next they used fishing wire so that the legs came up when Sheaden lifted his hands.

Practicing an instant challenge on a work day.

 

This girl working on another structure.
For this challenge, to get the score for the structure you add your weights, and then remove your weights. You add those two weights together and then divide the total weight in grams that your structure weighed. Basically, you wanted as light a structure as possible to hold as much weight as possible. (Note: it looks like her structure is solid in this picture but that is actually just a piece she used to help keep the shape while she glued the tiny pieces together...)

Rockin' their required safety goggles.

Each work day we ended with a group supper, either out at a restaurant, ordering pizza or cooking at our house. I loved all the friend time both kids and parents got and I love all the fun memories they will have working together on those days. Makes my heart so happy.

Competition Time

Competition day younger siblings finding things to do...this time it was rolling a ball.

My kiddo isn't in this picture because she was moving the weights, but I just wanted to show a bit of what it was like in the classroom for the competition. They did such a great job on their skit!

More down time. These kids had fun allllll day just hanging out.
They also watched several other teams perform throughout the day.

Sticky note comments from the appraisers.

The three GCA teams at the awards.

We had mixed emotions at the competition for sure. The Happy Campers pulled off their skit wonderfully, BUT the structure broke. (It wasn't supposed to break!) It had held the weight when they tried it at home but it must have gotten weakened from that first test. The instant challenge also factors into your score and it was a really tough one according to Brad. They came out frustrated but actually didn't do as badly as they felt they did compared to others. Overall they got 5th place, which put them right in the middle as they competed against 11 in their group. (There was the same challenge with 12 more in another room...that is how huge this region is!) The 3rd-grade team (The Animal Loving Problem Solvers) placed 4th and they were totally elated. The evening team (The Creative Cats) placed 9th but received The Spirit Of DI award which only 6 out of 155 teams total in the competition, so that was pretty awesome as well.

All three teams that competed this year. One of our biggest highlights was how excited the other teams got at the competition. They really saw how much the students had grown this year and how awesome the event is and are on board and already excited for next year! :)