Buttered Popcorn or Rotten Eggs? An Inferential Brain Break

Whether you call it a "Brain Break" or a "Sponge" Activity, "Bean Boozled" can be a great way to have a little fun with inferences: 

How do you play this game?

I'm not really sure what the official rules are for this game. I think they come with the kit, but we have that kind of classroom where we make up our own rules. What we came up with is: I start by choosing two students randomly. I use the random feature on Class Dojo, but there are many methods for choosing students. Someone spins the spinner. Today I played a round with a student and it landed on buttered popcorn/rotten eggs. We each took the appropriate colored jellybean and popped them in our mouths. The idea is to trick the class, which is watching us very carefully for facial expressions, or any other clues to decide if we got a rotten egg or a buttered popcorn bean. I had rotten egg and failed miserably at keeping a straight face or offering a subtle clue that I had something tasty in my mouth to fool everyone. Two bites in and I'm shaking my head and saying nope as I make a beeline for the garbage can to spit it out. Yuck! The kids are much better at this game than I am.

There is another version similar to this, but with a "face-off" element to it, that another group of students came up with. Two students "face off" against each other and the student who is right gets to go again, choosing the next volunteer. If there is a tie, they keep going until there is a winner. This rarely happens, because it takes a fair amount of composure to act like something is strawberry deliciousness when it really tastes like centipedes-not that I would know what an actual centipede tastes like, but the Jelly Belly version is very gross.

Sometimes a student will opt out, and I really don't blame them. It is equally fun to observe with this game and eating gross stuff isn't for everyone.

Students also have fun coming up with new ideas and recipes for gross Jelly Bellies and sending them to the factory. They can mail them to: 

Headquarters and Visitor's Center: Fairfield, California

• Jelly Belly Candy Company
• One Jelly Belly Lane
• Fairfield, CA 94533

Where can you get this game?

I bought mine at the actual Jelly Belly factory, but I have seen them in grocery stores, candy shoppes, and it is available on amazon.com for about $7.00. Once I had the spinner from this package, I just add to my bean jar with the Bean Boozled jelly beans, because it is cheaper than buying the whole kit.