Cereally Speaking!
A Unit About Cereal and Advertising
by Amanda Thompson

This unit was conceived on the premise that students encounter advertising and propaganda everyday. Products such as breakfast cereal often aim their advertising at children. What better way to make them aware of advertising and propaganda than to have them actively participate in it!

The lessons in this unit cover objectives in many subject areas including math, science, language arts, art, and music. Main concept of the unit - advertising and propaganda - would be considered part of social studies. The lessons give the students real life experiences with how price, prizes, the Internet, jingles, characters, packaging, and commercials can all work together to influence product choices. What follows is an overview of the unit lessons.

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  1. Cereal Taste Test: Generic vs. Name Brand
Students make observations about a name brand cereal and an equivalent generic cereal and make a hypothesis as to which cereal is the name brand cereal. Students understand how advertising affects prices.
  1. Probable Pen in the Cereal Box
Students find out how many boxes of cereal they would have to buy in order to collect all 6 prizes. Students gain an understanding of equal probability while seeing how prizes are used as incentives to buying cereal.
  1. Cereal Histograms
Students reinforce graph interpretation skills.
  1. Cereal Advertising and the Internet
Students evaluate several cereal-related Web sites for effectiveness as advertisements. Students also gain a basic understanding of how the Internet functions as a whole.
  1. The Crunch Cereal Contest
Students use descriptive words and phrases to create jingles.
  1. Cereal Nutrition Comparison
Students compare several cereals based on fat content, calories, protein, carbohydrates, and vitamins & minerals. Students also learn about the importance of nutrition in product choice.
  1. Name that Cereal Character
Students create their own cereal characters and learn about the importance of characters with product identification. Students also reinforce writing character descriptions.
  1. Create Your Own Cereal
Students use persuasive writing to convince others that their cereal idea should be developed.
  1. Create Your Own Cereal Box
Students learn how product packaging is also an aspect of advertising. Students also use art skills to create their own box.
  1. Making Cereal Commercials
Students learn the propaganda techniques used by advertisers and reinforce understanding by creating and role-playing their own commercials.
1998 - Amanda Thompson, amandakaye@yahoo.com
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