Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Over Easy: Charlotte Quinn plays the 'egg-eating monster' in her team's blue-ribbon-winning skit.
The Great Egg Obstacle Course
Destination ImagiNation inspires kids to reach higher and wackier levels of creativity
By Chantal Lamers
It's a late on a Thursday afternoon at Willow Glen Elementary School. Most of the children have scattered from playing hopscotch and kickball on the hot, black asphalt, and made their way home. But, inside the library, a group of kids are brainstorming.
Seven third-grade girls are giggling from a small corner of the library. Using five practice plastic pink, purple and blue Easter eggs, they go to work. "Normally, we use real eggs," says one girl.
No, they're not planning an Easter egg hunt; the girls are practicing their Eggsploration skit for the Destination ImagiNation statewide competition. The competition will be held at the University of California, Davis, on April 1.
The goal of the 30-year-old international organization, Destination ImagiNation, is to teach children how to manage any situation life can hand them. For kindergartners through young adults, the program teaches life skills, while expanding imaginations through team-based, creative problem solving.
The two Willow Glen Elementary teams, that attended Destination ImagiNation's regional contest at Independence High School on March 4, took home first place for their projects. The first team was made up of seven third-graders, and a second team had seven fourth- and fifth-graders. More than 300 teams attended.
The 14 Glenites, who took home blue ribbons from the regionals, say they had little confidence they would receive such accolades. But, winning has provided new reason for self-assurance. Now these children feel they are destined to attend the nationwide competition at Iowa State University in May. But, meanwhile, the two teams continue their lunchtime, after school and weekend practices.
Destination ImagiNation has two components to its competition. The "Instant Challenge" teaches students to handle life's problems at the moment. Students are given a problem and must act out the solution before judges, in a matter of minutes. Its purpose is to initiate quick thinking, risk-taking, time awareness and cooperation.
The second component requires participants to choose from one of six challenges within a theme. This year's theme, "Food For Thought," could make any stomach growl. The challenges include Eggsploration; Mixing Apples and Oranges; Fruit Roller Coaster; Nonleaning Tower of Pasta; If Music Be the Food of Life, Play On; and the Instant Pudding Improv.
Teams are given several weeks to several months to tackle one of these challenges. But, just before their performance, the team is handed an improvisational item by the judges, and is given just a few minutes to decide how to incorporate it into the skit. Teams are judged in several categories, including artistic, technical, performance, relevance and improvisational skills.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Laughter and Remembering: Shevani Pate, Natalie Groft, Courtney Gibbs, Kellen Barker, Casey Satterlund and Shannan McClain practice their dinosaur skit.
Eggsploration challenges students to get five hard-boiled eggs through a five-part obstacle course in under 10 minutes, without breaking any of the eggs. The eggs must be transported over a wall, across a gap and through a moving device. The team also has to create two additional obstacles that are judged on creativity and degree of difficulty. Teams must narrate the story as the eggs make their way through the obstacle course. The cost for the project must be less than $100.
This particular story follows the adventures of five cloned eggs, all named Eggsianna Jones, and the unusual egg-laying habits of their chicken mother, Chick-a-Chick-a-Boom-Boom. The five eggs make their way over a wall with the help of a fisherman, through a construction site, into and out of the hospital's revolving doors, over a bridge, past an egg-eating monster, and back to their mother.
Not only have the seven Willow Glen girls managed to win blue ribbons for Eggsianna Jones' adventures, they also have learned some new vocabulary words: important Destination ImagiNation buzz words like "brainstorming" and "teamwork." The seven girls nod in agreement that, through "brainstorming," they came up with their first-place idea to send five hard-boiled eggs on an adventure.
The girls say they aren't at all disappointed there are no boys on their team. They agree they could have won with or without boys. "No boys wanted to be on our team," said 9-year-old Charlotte Quinn. "We didn't need boys," she said.
The girls say they chose to take on the egg obstacle course, because it seemed to possess a degree of difficulty that the other choices did not. Eight-year-old Morgan Coleman said the team agreed that this project would put them to the test. "We wanted a challenge," Morgan said. "The rest didn't seem very hard."
That's not the only reason, however, they chose Eggsploration. Lynette Pertilus, 9, said the idea of building obstacles sounded "cool."
The girls recall being introduced to the Destination ImagiNation competition months ago. It didn't take much to convince 9-year-old Soad Romero to join the team. "When I read the word 'challenge' I wanted to try it," Soad said.
WGES teacher's aide, Norita LaCrosse, is one of the team coaches. LaCrosse has been a supporter of the program, since her own daughter participated, from kindergarten all the way through college. LaCrosse and co-coach, Ann Whorton, have attended every practice, but only from afar, since the girls began rehearsing in December.
Coaches are allowed only minimal participation in the ideas and work the students put into their Destination projects. Coaches act as mediators, to explain rules and ensure the members work as a team. "The whole idea is to build some self assurance, to make them feel good about working together and have fun with it," LaCrosse said.
Cindy Gibbs, who helps coach the older team of students agrees it's hard to step back when things aren't going well. Gibbs, a parent of one of the competitors, said that she lets the kids be their own judges. When she and co-coach, Allison Barker, feel the urge to charge in, they walk away, and let the children settle the problem.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
A-Mazing Race: Loreli Guro, 9, guides an egg through a section of Eggsploration, the egg obstacle course.
Destination coaches were surprised and pleased when judges announced the two Willow Glen teams captured first in their categories. But the 14 children were overwhelmed and fell to the ground, giggling, cheering and congratulating one another.
On the other side of the Willow Glen Elementary library, the seven students on the older team spend just as much time practicing for their big day in Davis. They haven't started packing yet--they're too busy improving their project.
The second team of fourth- and fifth-graders, is made up of six girls and one boy. This team was up for a challenge, too. Some of the students on the team competed in last year's Destination ImagiNation competition, and placed 11th. This year when the team brought home its blue ribbons, it had no problem attributing the win to hardworking imaginations.
Their team challenge, Mixing Apples and Oranges, tells the story of an unusual adoption that takes place between two different species. The team has to illustrate parental challenges, and includes a baby book that chronicles the creature's growth. The story begins with the adoption and ends when the youngster returns to its natural habitat. Teams have eight minutes to mix and unmix these apples and oranges.
The Willow Glen team plotted out nearly its entire skit, which includes a dinosaur, disco-queen mother and a time machine, during its second meeting. The team experimented with ways in which one species is forced to adopt another way of life. In this case, a dinosaur learns to adopt a hippie's lifestyle and a disco-queen's habits.
The team, also, came up with its own song about a girl who believes in "flower power" and has "groovy" parents. The team originally chose a Beatles song, but decided to make up their own to garner more points for originality.
"We wanted to do something nobody else would do," said 10-year-old Clara O' Kane.
Most of the other teams at the regional competition choosing the Apples and Oranges challenge, combined humans, bats, insects and werewolves. No one else imagined the concept of a dinosaur growing up through the delicate decades of the '60s and '70s.
Each character also has costumes. The professor wears a lab coat, the disco mom wears an apron and bell bottoms, the hippie wears a tie-dyed T-shirt, and the dinosaur wears a papier-maché head.
But, their originality didn't stop with their performance. The team also won first place for "Most Creative Destination ImagiNation T-shirts." On the back of the team's shirts is a group photo and their handprints.
Before taking off for the state competition, both teams will practice their performances during school assemblies. The weekend-long competition will include hundreds of teams from across California.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
