Wheaton students try to break speed stacking record

The Longfellow Elementary School gymnasium was a whirlwind of neon colors and clink-clacking noises Thursday as students took part in an attempt to break a Guinness world record for speed stacking.

A similar scene occurred in nearly 3,000 schools around the world - including more than 100 in Illinois - as students from 35 countries stacked small plastic cups for at least 30 minutes.

"The kids just love it," said Barb Williams, physical education teacher at the Wheaton school. "Cup stacking helps their reaction time, their focus time. Also, they're crossing their midline, so they're having to cross to the right and to the left, alternating right hand, left hand. And cup stacking is a lot of fun."

The event, called STACK UP! 2014, is sponsored by the Colorado-based World Sport Stacking Association. This is the ninth year the organization has connected schools to try to beat the previous record for "most people sport stacking at multiple locations in one day."

Last year, nearly 556,000 people participated. Williams said verified results from this year won't be available for several weeks.

Longfellow students have been practicing cup stacking in gym class since 2004, but this is the first year the school participated in the record-setting attempt, Williams said.

To prepare, the students learned how to properly arrange the bright cups into three stacks of three, or two stacks of three, with a stack of six in the middle.

"It's good exercise and it helps me focus," said fourth-grader Maddie Del Alcazar.

Williams said other benefits of the activity include improved concentration and even better reading scores at schools that incorporate it regularly in their curriculum.

On Thursday, each grade level at Longfellow was split into groups that rotated around three stations of cup stacking activities set up around the gym.

At one station, each student had a chance to play with their own set of stacking cups. Some arranged their cups on a pad that timed how fast they completed the stacking.

Another station was set up as a simple relay. Students stood in lines and ran to a table halfway across the gym, where they stacked cups as fast as they could and then ran back to the line.

A third station was a more complicated relay, where students stacked cups in between doing push ups and sit ups as their classmates cheered on.

Several parents came to take pictures and keep the activities running smoothly.

Gus Holland said his fifth-grader told him what stacking was, but he was still surprised to see what it actually looked like.

"I think the activity level that they're doing along with stacking the cups is fantastic," he said.

Anne Wanzenberg, past president of the Longfellow Parent Teacher Association - which helped pay for some of the stacking cups - said Williams does a great job of keeping the kids moving and getting parents involved.

"I think they're just so excited to partake in something that's so much bigger than them and the school," she said.