13th labor of Heracles stretches Odyssey of the Mind
By James Lomuscio
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Posted: 03/08/2009 01:53:07 AM EST
STAMFORD — Sponsored by the Stamford Youth Foundation, the Odyssey of the Mind Showcase also was held in conjunction with the Chess Family Fun Fair, of which Allan also is director.
More than 130 students from kindergarten through eighth grade turned out for chess.
They competed on boards set up on cafeteria tables, and some became chess pieces themselves, sporting paper hats ranking them from kings to pawns. Their larger-than-life board was a checkered mat on the cafeteria floor.
“Miss Flannery, will you move me?” asked a boy in a knight’s hat.
“Ask your king to move you,” said Joan Flannery, a science and technology teacher at Rogers Magnet Elementary School. Her duties were divided between chess and Odyssey.
“I started chess at Rogers five years ago, and it’s just grown,” Flannery said. “They love their chess. I guess I owe a lot of it to the ‘Harry Potter’ film where they had a live chessboard.”
Though separate events, Odyssey of the Mind and Chess Fair were linked by critical thinking and creativity, Allan said.
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It’s important for kids to enhance their minds.