Bath County’s Valley Elementary School would like to send DI team to Globals

Hey look, there’s someone in the distance!”

“Hey you, who are you?”

“What if it’s someone we don’t want to encounter?”

“Like who?”

“Like Lucas’s sister.”

“The Evil Wizard?”

“No, Santa Claus. Of course the Evil Wizard!”

“Well, geez.”

“Oh gosh. I knew we shouldn’t have come. We’re going to regret this for the rest of our short lives.”

Creating suspense, developing a plot line, memorizing a script and assembling costumes are just a few of the skills a group of seventh graders from Valley Elementary School in Bath County learned through their Destination Imagination experience.

“Oh get on with it.”

“What?”

“It’s me.”

“Who is me exactly?”

“It’s my . . . “

“Sister-Lucille Von Hale, The most powerful wizard on the planet.”

“Oh Darn.”

(all) “It’s the Evil Wizzard.”

This excerpt is from the skit, an essential challenge, part of a Destination Imagination competition that Valley Elementary students have been working on since well before Christmas.   DI Teams from both Highland and Bath have performed well this year, including some from early elementary in Millboro. The Valley team however is facing the challenge of completing their fund drive to take themselves to Global Competitions in Knoxville, Tennessee.

When they attended regional and state competitions they were required to complete an Instant Challenge that involves using specified materials to construct, either a machine or model in a limited amount of time. Their Central Challenge was part of what the whole group focused on leading up to the competitions. Students who participated were Tye Hooker, Kaylan Harmon, Colby Lowry and the following:

“Fred Brumfiel, seventh grade, Valley Elementary School, Coult Fussell, same school, same grade, Eliza Brumfiel, seventh grade, Valley Elementary School, Jackson Blankenship, seventh grade, Valley Elementary School’.

Those were the four performing part of their script here, so I asked them, what the challenge was that Destination Imagination had proposed.

Jackson Blankenship,

“Basically decide on an animal, and then write a skit on how that animal blends into its surroundings, his habitat. So, we decided to do the great horned owl.”

“My friend Eliza Brumfiel, wrote the whole script and everything. We all got together one day, and worked on the costumes, and that took us a period of about two or three weeks.“  Adults, even the most inspired, well-meaning, crafty moms are required to stand back at all timesLater, judges made suggestions with ways to improve their skit, and the way they performed it.“And, we went to Regionals, and performed our skit, and got first place.”

“Which one do you think you all enjoyed more, the instant challenge, or “Hidden in Plain Sight?”

“Hidden in plain Sight, yeah, although our last instant challenge was super fun. You have to do it in a short amount of time, like 2 to 4 minutes. You have to plan it out.”

Part Two to be aired soon on AMR.