I know what you’re thinking, Señora Chase isn’t having any fun in her classes this year, why is she writing about a game? Well…turns out my Little Darlings have really pulled it together the last few weeks! (Praise Jesus!) and so, I wanted to try something focused and fun for the last 15 minutes of class, and this was just the game for my squirrely freshmen!

Blair Richards first blogged about playing BeanBoozled in her French class years ago, and we’ve been playing a variation of it ever since. Blair graciously gave me the greenlight to write about my variation; please check out her original post at Blair’s CI Journey!

If you’re unfamiliar, the makers of Jelly Belly have created a party game called Beanboozled. About half of the flavors are the ones you know and love…but the other half look exactly the same, but are really gross. Is this one here chocolate flavored or dog food flavored?! Is this yellow one pop corn or rotten egg? You can imagine the highly compelling language opportunities that await your Little Darlings!

To prep:

• Project this slideshow in Spanish or this one in German, 6th edition (Danke to Katie Reimers)
• If you’re wanting to translate this into another language, here’s an editable copy! (Be sure to look at the “speaker notes” at the bottom of the slides for some tips to make translating easier! As always, if you share it back with me, we can share your translation with other language teachers too and spread the love!)
• Get yourself a Jelly Belly Beanboozled dispenser or you can just buy the refill bag to make it even cheaper (FYI- these are Amazon Associate link which means if you purchase these, or anything from Amazon using this link, Amazon will mail me about a nickel, at no additional cost to you! But you can totally find the nasty beans at Target or Walmart or maybe even at your local grocery store too!) My slideshow is based on the 5th edition Beanboozled beans…if you happen to have another edition with different flavors, just grab a copy of the slideshow above, and snap a picture of the card included with your jelly beans, and add in the missing translations. (If you play with the German edition, it’s the 6th edition!)
• Do yourself (and your students) a favor, have a trashcan nearby and some mints or gum handy.

To Play:

• Divide class into teams. I like 4 humans to a team, but go ahead and follow your heart.
• Pass out a mini whiteboard/ marker/ eraser to each group.
• Give students a few minutes to look at all the Jelly Bean options on slide 2. Have them figure out what each flavor is with their teams, then run through it quickly to make sure everyone is familiar with the flavors.
• Explain the rules, slides 3-6. Remember, giving rules is a great opportunity to give them more comprehensible input. Go slow and use lots of language they can understand.
• Ask for volunteers then pick ONE student who wants to eat a jelly bean. Just one. Not one per group. Just one kid. No one HAS to eat a nasty jelly bean, pick one who WANTS to. Look for the kid who is waving their hand around, dancing in their seat and pleading “me, me, me, pick me!!!!!” as if their life depended on it. That’s the perfect kid to pick as the volunteer.
• Here’s why I love the little plastic BeanBoozled dispenser: It’s supposed to randomly pick up one bean, but it almost always picks two. I ask the volunteer if he (or she) would prefer to eat the green one or the yellow one, in Spanish, of course. The volunteer looks at the options (projected on the board), decides which one he (or she) wants to eat, and takes the chosen bean…but does not eat it yet!

• Now, each group must guess which flavor the volunteer has in his/her hand, and place their wager. On their whiteboard, they write out how many points they are betting and their guess of flavors, using the projected screen to help them: The volunteer is holding the bean, but has not eaten it yet. Anticipation is building, groups are negotiating, everyone is waiting on the teacher for the next move. Each team writes on their board “We bet # points that it is _(flavor)_.”

• As groups finalize their wager and prediction, the teacher announces each guess to the class, doing what CI teachers do: giving them lots of comprehensible language, comparing the groups’ bets, commenting on their predictions,etc. Remember, our goal is to give them lots of language they understand, not to get as many volunteers up front, eating a gross jelly bean!
• Then the teacher starts chanting “¡CÓMELO! ¡CÓMELO! ¡CÓMELO!” (Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!), of course the class joins in, then the volunteer eats the jelly bean and we all wait breathlessly for the verdict. (Because chanting “CÓMELO” proved to be just about more than mine could handle, we practiced saying it exactly three times, then being silent while the volunteer chewed up their bean…you know your Little Darlings and what they need to be successful.)
• The volunteer announces which flavor it is. (If the volunteer can’t tell which it is, the normal flavor or the nasty flavor, go with the normal flavor. Believe me, if it’s the nasty one they will be able to tell!) If it’s the bad one, give them the trashcan to spit it out, and offer them water/gum/mints and your most sincere apology. The volunteer goes back to his team to participate during the next round as a spectator.
• The teams adjust their scores, which they keep on the mini whiteboards, depending on if they were correct or incorrect. (Adding or subtracting their bet from their team’s total points)
• Teacher asks for another volunteer, who selects the next bean and the process begins again. Each new round, a new student for each team records their guess and bet on their mini whiteboard, just to keep everyone engaged.

What makes this a great game for this year:

• This game is TOTALLY teacher paced and directed; they can’t get too crazy. It’s not like Quick Draw or Scrambled Sentences where students are playing independently (meaning, more opportunities for making bad choices, like for example, the boy who smacked another boy in the FACE with a TAMPON last week. Lord Jesus, send help!) The teacher selects the volunteer, the teacher gives the groups instructions, the teacher tells the volunteer to eat the jelly bean, etc. If at any point, the class can’t follow the instructions, it’s time to switch gears and try something a little less fun. My kiddos were having a jolly good time and were super focused and it was like a breath of fresh air.
• Speaking of fresh air, this game is a great one to play in places that don’t have mask mandates for students, but teachers are still masked, by mandate or by choice. We have been playing this game for years, long before the pandemic started, but I enjoy it much more now when I am masked and can’t smell the disgusting jelly beans! (I have a very sensitive gag reflex. Long after Covid is behind us, I just might mask up for this game!)

Have fun, my friends!