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St. Peter’s DI warmup benefits Haiti victims

On March 13, eight fifth-graders from St. Peter School in Huber Heights are teaming up to compete in Destination ImagiNation at Sinclair Community College, a competition designed to cultivate teamwork and problem-solving skills. The participants include (front row, from left) Kyleigh Breslin, Sydney Fower, Ashley Flohre, Kali Deis and Dana Potts, and (back row, from left) Claire Farrell and Callie Smith. Emily Flohre is not pictured. Contributed photo

handout On March 13, eight fifth-graders from St. Peter School in Huber Heights are teaming up to compete in Destination ImagiNation at Sinclair Community College, a competition designed to cultivate teamwork and problem-solving skills. The participants include (front row, from left) Kyleigh Breslin, Sydney Fower, Ashley Flohre, Kali Deis and Dana Potts, and (back row, from left) Claire Farrell and Callie Smith. Emily Flohre is not pictured. Contributed photo

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By Beth Anspach, Contributing Writer 3:49 PM Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Most kids learn early in their school careers how important team work is to success.

On Saturday, March 13, eight fifth-grade students from St. Peter School in Huber Heights will put to use what they have learned about teamwork during the past several months as they compete in the Destination ImagiNation challenge at Sinclair Community College in Dayton.

Callie Smith, Ashley Flohre, Claire Farrell, Kali Deis, Kyleigh Breslin, Emily Flohre, Sydney Fowler and Dana Potts will be competing against other area students in the annual competition, which is designed to cultivate skills through teamwork and problem solving.

According to Jenny Farrell, Claire’s mom and also one of the adult advisers of the team, the girls have been working since November after school and on weekends to put together a skit around this year’s theme of recycling.

“The DI folks have pretty strict rules,” Farrell said. “The kids have to come up with ideas and problem solving on their own.”

Adults can make suggestions, however, and it was Farrell who had an idea to help the girls practice working together after a recent earthquake hit the country of Haiti.

The girls put together — assembly-line style — eight kits with essentials ranging from soap to washcloths to toothpaste that would be sent to Haiti through a church organization.

“I basically gave them instructions of what should be in the kits and there was a time constraint,” Farrell said.

By the end of the project, the girls felt more like a team. “We learned how much more fun it is to work on something together,” Claire said.

The girls forged ahead, knowing they had to work together to complete their DI challenge and be prepared to compete this Saturday. “We made all of our costumes out of paper for the recycling theme,” Ashley said.

Skits are required to be about an event outside of the U.S., and the St. Peter team chose the building and “gifting” of the Statue of Liberty by the French. Included in the skit are several French characters, the famous statue herself and even some can-can girls. Each team has eight minutes to set up and perform their skits.

And because several of the girls competed last year, they had some reference at the start.

“The biggest problem last year is that we fought too much with each other,” Sydney said.

“We had too many ‘chiefs’ with big egos,” Kyleigh said.

Farrell, who was involved last year, agreed, saying she was proud the girls came to this conclusion on their own.

“We are doing so much better this year,” Kyleigh said. “We are scoring 98s regularly in practice.”

Contact this columnist at (937) 475-8212 or banspach@woh.rr.com.

HEREABOUTS beth anspach

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