Help! Math extra credit!?

Start by making a grid. I'll see if I can make one in text:

Carp|Cook|Deli|Papr|Blue|Gree|Ivor|Whit|

........

Jean

Marc

Sara

Theo

-------

Blue

Gree

Ivor

Whit

(You don't need to make the grid for where the colors overlap). Go through each of the clues, and where a clue can be crossed off at an intersection, mark it with an X. If you deduce a piece of information that you know for a fact is true (i.e. process of elimination), you can put a O in that square and an X in each of the remaining squares in that row and column in that particular category.

Since Theodora, the person with the paper route, and the person with the blue phone are three different people, you can put in a X in the squares for Theo-Pape, Theo-Blue, and Blue-Pape. You can do the same with any other clues you determine.

Now we do a little bit of deduction on our own. Marcia is not the cook (clue 3), the delivery person (clue 3), or the paper route (clue 6); she must therefore be the carpenter's apprentice. Jeanette is not the cook (clue 3) or the delivery person (clue 3); she must be the paper route.

By clue 2, Marcia and Saralee have, in some order, the blue and ivory phones, leaving Theodora and Jeanette to have the green and white phones, in some order.

Theodora is either the cook or the delivery person, as is Saralee. This means that she cannot live on the same street as Saralee (clue 2), so she does not have the green telephone; by elimination, she has the white phone and Jeanette has the green phone.

By process of elimination, the white phone does not belong to the carpenter's apprentice (clue 2), the cook (clue 5), or Jeanette, the papergirl; it must belong to the delivery girl, who must therefore be Theodora. By elimination, Saralee is the cook.

Since Jeanette and the cook, Saralee, live next door, Marcia and Theodora live on the same street (clue 3); since Theodora lives on the same street as the person with the ivory phone (clue 4), this means that Marcia has the ivory phone. By elimination, Saralee has the blue phone.

In order:

Jeanette, papergirl, green

Marcia, carpenter's apprentice, ivory

Saralee, cook, blue

Theodora, delivery girl, white

Alright, there are three eight hour shifts throughout the day and no elf is allowed to work more than one shift. If there are 9,000 elves working at the same time, this means they are all part of the same shift, correct? If this is true than those 9,000 elves can't work again for the rest of the day because they are only required one shift. So if there are three shifts and 9,000 are always working at the same time, you would mulitply 9,000 by 3 to get the total number of elves working each day: 27,000 elves. Now if each elf needs cookies during his break, you just multiply 27,000 by 2: 54,000 cookies. So final answers: 27,000 individual elves work every day. 54,000 cookies are needed each day

Some pretty good arguments.