Cool Beans
Next time you’re at the supermarket, grab a bag of Jelly Belly jelly beans for a simple activity that’ll give them something to chew on. It’s fun for one kid or a whole gang of them and makes a great party game.

Sort the jellybeans by flavor and put each into its own paper cup, out of the line of sight of those who are playing. You’ll only want to have a dozen or so varieties. Assign a number to each flavor by writing it on the cup, and make a list to record each number and its corresponding flavor.

Each child needs a blindfold (I’ve discovered that using a simple mask and covering the eye holes with masking tape works great) and a paper and pen. Start by having them to put on their blindfolds and drop one flavor No. 1 jelly bean into each of their hands. Once they’ve chewed and swallowed it, have them remove their blindfold and write down the number and their guess of what flavor it was. Continue the process with each of the remaining flavors.

Once they’ve tried all the flavors, go around the table and ask each taste tester to share his or her guess. Then reveal the actual flavor. It’s funny how off their tastebuds can be! You’ll have some fun laughs with guesses like lemon when the flavor was mint and cotton candy when it was pina colada!