By Julie Slama | [email protected]

For three days, Ridgecrest Elementary students were doing the same thing as people in Russia, Greece, Hungary and all around the world—cup stacking.

In coordination with the World Sport Stacking Association, these elementary students had high hopes of setting a world’s record for the “most people sport stacking at multiple locations” to beat the record of 638,503 stackers.

“I think it would be really cool if we do it,” first-grader Leah Overa said. “I’d tell my mom and dad, my grandpa and grandma and everyone.”

Her classmate, Venice Shaw, was stacking the plastic cups to create a tower.

“It’s taller than me,” she said. “It is really very special to be a part of this.”

Fifth-grader Moya Croft said it stands for what they did at Ridgecrest.

“As a school, we could say we did something that not everyone else can do, and we contributed to the record together and that’s cool,” she said.

While class after class took part in cup stacking in the school’s gym, some trying for speed and others trying for height, Ridgecrest’s PlayWorks coach Angi Williamson tallied students participating to send into the association.

“This is our first time trying to be a part of the world record,” she said, adding that for the past four years, students usually participate with cup stacking during inside recesses, sometimes even as relay races. “The students really love sport stacking. For the older students, it’s more competitive and they track how fast they can do it and I will ask them to figure out their class’ average time. The younger students have fun creating with cups, but it’s more than play. They’re learning teambuilding and skills like eye-hand coordination. They also have a challenge, which involves them needing to concentrate and problem-solve. It lends itself to visual and hands-on learning.”

With sport stacking, contestants try for the fastest times as they compete building up a predetermined number of cups and then down stacking them, with world competitions being held this year in Colorado, Canada, Denmark, Spain and Germany. Some former Ridgecrest students have competed in tournaments, Williamson said, however, trying for this world record allowed students to be more creative. Many students worked together in small groups while combining the 30 sets of bright-colored plastic cups.

Williamson, who received an email invitation to participate in the record attempt, said that students have gotten excited about the possibility of setting a record, they checked out other records of all sorts in the “Guinness Book of World Records” in the library.

“It inspires them to see what all they can do, to look beyond what every day brings,” she said.

Ridgecrest was one of more than 1,800 schools from 16 countries to participate in the three-day world record attempt. However, the world participants learned they came up short, with 509,544 stackers.

That didn’t take away from their enjoyment of sport stacking.

“I stacked a lot with my friends,” Ridgecrest student Maya Jacques-Skinner said. “So, it was a bunch of fun.”