St. Mary's Destination Imagination Team Heads to State Competition

The seven students on the Popping Corns team will be the first students from St. Mary Parish School to ever compete at the Destination Imagination state competition. 

The team placed first at the regional competition on March 26.  At the competition the team was judged on their skit and their performance of an instant challenge.

This year, the fine arts theatrical challenge is called “Triple Take Road Show.”  Each competing team chooses a story to adapt, and tells the story three different ways.

For their skit, the team, consisting of two third-graders, four fourth-graders, and one fifth-grader, chose to adapt the story of “The Lion and the Mouse”.

“The lion and the mouse weren’t good friends until the lion captured the mouse.  The mouse said ‘if you let me go I’ll do a good deed for you.’  The lion let the mouse go because that gave him a good laugh.  Later the lion was stuck in a trap and the mouse helped him escape.  After that, they became friends,” said third-grader Mary Kaupp.

The students have eight minutes to set up and perform the story three times.  They adapt the story to appeal to three different audiences.  The team chose to perform for: babies at a preschool, rappers at a recording studio, and scholars at a convention.

“They vary their storytelling method for each audience.  All of the ideas and problem solving comes directly from the students,” said team coach Patti Gorecki.

Gorecki and her eighth-grade daughter Alyssa facilitates team practices, but they don’t give the team ideas.

“DI is about teamwork, thinking creatively to solve problems, and quickly improvising,” Gorecki said.

“The most challenging part of DI is staying focused.  It was hard because we are with friends and we want to play around, but we need to get down to business,” said fourth-grader Kristina Gorecki.

In addition to the skit, the team practices instant challenges one or two times per week to prepare for the competitions.  The challenge they practiced on April 7 gave the students five minutes to build a tool out of the materials provided to take the balls off of the cardboard rolls without crossing the taped line or tipping the cardboard rolls over.

Instant challenges help the team practice improvisation, collaboration, and creative problem solving. 

At the state competition, the teams will be given between two and ten minutes to create a solution for their instant challenge.  Then, they have to perform or build their solution in about five minutes.

Gorecki is also a coach for St. Mary’s Monday DI program.  Every other week from January to March 13, coaches conduct instant challenges during lunch with 85 participating students.  These teams don’t compete at the regional or state competitions, but the students have fun doing mini word problems and building problems.