A New Cereal on the Bookshelf

I think I’d like to try this cereal. The box really sells the product. Too bad it doesn’t exist. It was made up by one of my students as part of an assignment. She did an excellent job on it.

The assignment was to create a cereal based on a book. The students needed to come up with a creative name for the cereal. They needed to include a free prize in the box that was related to the book. And a side panel had to deal with plot, characters, and the setting. It’s a creative way to make books come to life. And students don’t really think of it as a book report.

The Cereal Box Book Report also gave us a chance to discuss how products are marketed. We discussed the use of colour on the boxes, the choice of images and the prizes in the cereals that we all eat everyday. They came to realize that a lot of products are aimed directly at kids. I think for some of my students, it was an eye-opening experience.

I also like the fact that this one assignment can engage the kids and really touch on some key topics. Not only did we reinforce concepts that I had them in art this year, but we also branched off to cover some of the Health curriculum. We looked at the food labels for cereals and talked about what a healthy breakfast should look like.

This example is based on a book about a famous orchestra conductor who loses his baton. So I was able to use this project to tie into my music program. All in all, I can call this assignment a success. The kids did a really good job on it and I was able to cover a lot of material for quiet a few different subjects. I will have to do this assignment again next year.


3 responses to “A New Cereal on the Bookshelf”

  1. Hi Chase,

    What an ingenious idea. Like you said, they didn’t think of it as a book report, and in the process got to learn about marketing, healthy eating, and art.

    With some children having a short attention span, this sounds like an assignment that peak everyone’s interest.

    What age kids do you teach?