Jared is going to the World Finals for Odyssey of the Mind

Jared is in the back holding the sign CHICKEN OF THE SEA


Daddy trying to keep Bekah and Luke HAPPY!!!
Ring a round the rosy always helps

Jared has been working with a team of 6 kids on Odyssey of the Mind and placed 3rd at Regionals and won the OMER award, then went onto State and tied for 1st place. They have worked very hard on this competition and are now on their way to the World Finals at Michigan State the end of May. They are such a great group of kids and they have worked so hard with their set and script. Jared holds up a sign behind the scenes that says Chicken of the Sea and makes a chicken noise and the whole audience laughs. He is also a cracker that runs out at the end to taste the tuna. We are so proud of Jared for this accomplishement. WOW is the only thing I can say to the time he and I have put into getting him there for practices.

Heres a little background about OM.

Odyssey of the Mind,

Often called OM (although the official acronym is OotM, since "OM" has been otherwise copyrighted), is a creative problem-solving competition involving students from kindergarten through college. Team members work together at length to solve a predefined problem (the Long Term problem); and present their solution to the problem at a competition. They must also generate spontaneous answers to a problem they have not seen before; this is the spontaneous competition.

Problem 5: Food Court

Divisions I, II, III & IV
The problem is to create and present a humorous performance where a food item is accused of being unhealthy and must defend itself among its food peers. All characters are food items and will include "the accused," "the accuser," a jury that is not portrayed by team members, and additional team-created characters. The jury will reveal its decision to the audience.

Spontaneous problems

The Spontaneous problems are the part of the competition that encourage quick, off-the-top-of-your-head thinking. While up all team members may enter the spontaneous room, only five team members can actually participate in spontaneous.[6] Spontaneous problems fall into three categories:

Verbal problems involve responses to a question, statement, or picture; team members' responses are scored on wittiness and creativity (With common responses receiving one point and creative or humorous responses receiving greater amounts, depending on the problem.). Usually, team members have one or two minutes to think of responses and then two or three minutes to give the responses. The order of responses is often random or sequential. Recent problems have also involved a limit to the total number of responses. (Each team member is given a set of colored cards and must turn in a card when they give a response. When they are out of cards, they are out of chances to respond.)
Verbal hands-on problems are similar to verbal problems, but they usually involve manipulating a physical object in some way. This may include using an object as a prop, or taking clay or aluminum foil and making characters, which then participate in a story made up by the team members. Scoring is based on team work and creativity of responses.
Hands-on problems rely almost entirely on the manipulation of physical objects; these problems usually take longer than verbal problems, and team members may sometimes only be able to communicate non-verbally. Scoring is based on team work, creativity, and problem-specific goals.
Although an Odyssey team can consist of up to seven members, only five can participate in the Spontaneous problem. Team members that do not participate must either leave the competition room or stay in the room without communicating with the rest of the team in any way. The team members usually decide in advance who will participate in the different types of Spontaneous problems; after the judge announces which of the three types a team will be given, the other teammates will leave or stay as the case may be.