Harry Potter jelly beans have been around for a while and though I have been tempted to try them, their expense and the thought of eating a nasty jelly bean has always deterred me. Then a few months ago when my husband showed the family a you-tube video with a couple sisters taking the Bean boozled challenge I was once again not interested. However, my sweet 10 year old daughter was and begged me to do it. Her friends did it on a day she couldn't participate and it filled her with more angst and longing. The begging continued. I still had no interest whatsoever.
Yet when inspiration struck me while trying to plan activity day activities for the year I added a Bean Boozled choose the right activity to the list of options for the girls. Somehow they chose it So we had the activity and this is how it went (add the dramatic pause and dun dun dun):
It started out nice and calm, we sang Choose the right (found here https://www.lds.org/music/library/hymns/choose-the-right?lang=eng) Then I had everyone tell me what they thought agency meant and what it means to be responsible for our choices. Since the girls are all between 8 -11 years old, many did not know what agency meant or what being responsible for our choices would entail either. We discussed how agency is the ability to choose for ourselves what we want to do. However, with each choice there are consequences good and bad. When we make a choice sometimes we know the consequence and sometimes we don't. Either way we need to accept the consequence of our behavior and learn from it.
After our discussion we took the Beanboozled challenge. I had previously divided the different colored jelly beans into bags. Bean boozled jelly beans come in 10 different colors and 20 different flavors. Each color has a good and a bad jelly bean. You don't know whether you are going to get a good one or a bad one. Examples of the flavors and their mates include licorice/skunk spray, baby wipes/coconut, barf/peach, toothpaste/berry blue, etc. Each of the girls had the choice whether or not they wanted to participate and each of them had a cup to spit the gross one out into. We took turns spinning the wheel that would tell us the next color we would try and then taking a jelly bean. All together we tried our jelly beans and either ate or spit out the one we received. Unfortunately for me and Sister Stephens (the other leader) we got only one good one each.
Let me tell you the bad ones were just absolutely horrid. They really did taste like real skunk spray or real barf. It was so gross and by the end I was gingerly biting into those things to avoid as much of them in my teeth as possible. The absolute worst part is that the cups got smellier and smellier and the room really started to reek. Girls were going to water fountains and one poor young 7 year old boy came to try it out with us and threw up. So there is a reason I warn you. Amazingly enough the girls absolutely loved it. Also, you might not think baby wipes sounds bad, but it is....it really is. That one surprised me the most.
I would recommend a prompt removal to an outside trash all the cups because the smell was horrendous. It took everything I had not to loose my dinner while cleaning up the messy remains.
To wrap it up I pulled out a little box of all the good jelly bean flavors and the diagram that tells you exactly what you are getting. Then we discussed how making good choices that include reading your scriptures, praying, fasting, and going to church can be like a guide for us. That these choices help us stay close to the Lord and can be like the diagram that gives you a much better idea of what you are getting. I bore my testimony that making good choices really does help you develop greater faith and trust in the Lord. It doesn't always end up perfect, but He brings peace to all things.
So if you are crazy enough to give this a try, go right ahead. Hopefully, it left an impression with these wonderful girls.
Here is what a bad jelly bean reaction looks like. It was pretty funny to watch.
Sounds like a really good activity to teach the concept :).
ReplyDeleteI love this!
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