This week I added a new tab to the site: Spontaneous Tasks. It’s full of spontaneous practice problems, used by Odyssey of the Mind coaches to get their teams ready for competition. I’ll be adding more soon, but the ones highlighted so far are some of my favorites.
But what if you’re not an OotM coach?
No problem.
Whether you’re a homeschool parent, classroom teacher, camp director, or sport’s coach, these tasks can be customized—so basically, I curated them for you too! They fall into three categories (verbal, hands-on, and a combination of both) and even though they are designed to be administered to a small team, many of them would be super effective in a classroom setting as well.
What are they exactly?
Let’s focus on the verbal problems first.
Designed to help kids learn to think on their feet, get comfortable sharing their answers in a group, think creatively, and hone their problem-solving skills, these challenges are given to kids on the spot with no advanced prep time.
Here’s how they work.
Divide your classroom or group into teams of 5-7. If you have more than one team, you will need more than one facilitator. Then instruct the team to respond to the verbal question as quickly and as creatively as they can, one at a time. A common response is worth one point and a highly creative response is worth five.
For example:
In the task, Name things that are scary, a few common responses might be: a ghost, a witch, or a bear. A few creative responses might be: my aunt without make-up, a trip to the principal’s office, or missing the game-winning goal. The time limit is up to you. Most OotM teams use five or eight minutes as a guideline but as long as you have a timer and you tell your team how long they have to respond; any amount of time works! Just remind the kids that they cannot pass and that they must answer with something. The next person cannot respond until they do.
What about using verbal spontaneous problems in a classroom setting?
Yes, definitely! Verbal Problems are like icebreakers. They’d be incredibly effective as a morning warm-up or as an after-lunch energizer. In either case, ask a verbal question to the entire class. As kids give their answers one at a time, you make a tally mark on paper that the class cannot see, indicating a common or creative response. At the end, add up the points and reveal to the class what their collective score was. If you do this every day or week, the kids will become better at it each time, and work hard to increase their classroom score.
The reason I like keeping the common/ creative tally marks private is that judging answers is very subjective and you don’t want any of the kids to feel like their answer wasn’t good enough. Because all answers are good provided, they make sense. There is no wrong answer—just ones that are more creative than others.
Administering verbal tasks in a classroom setting is such a great way to foster a positive team environment for students. Competition is good, right? Besides, it’s fun for the kids and a great opportunity for them to flex their creativity!
So, whether you use these verbal practice problems in a large or small group setting, get ready for some interesting answers! You’ll be surprised at how well your team responds… and how fun it is for all of you.
Next up: Hand-on tasks.
But for now, scroll down for a peek at some of my favorite verbal tasks! To download, click on the Spontaneous Tasks tab at the top of the page.
Thank you so much for reading another swirl and spark blog post. I hope you found it to be insightful and that it motivates you and your team. Until next time…keep those ideas swirling until your next spark of inspiration hits!
