Peer Pressure Lesson: M&M Guessing Game

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Looking for an end of the year (or any time of the year) lesson on peer pressure? This lesson works for 4th grade and up. It’s an interactive no-fail lesson and I’m planning on doing it this week with my students. There is a guessing game element, a move-to-a-corner activity, and a great video that promotes refusal skills that our kids will need for the upcoming summer and for every day.

Click here for the PPT that guides the lesson.

Click here to see the free Detailed Lesson Plan for the M&M Peer Pressure Guessing Game, but the gist is:

1. Have students write down their guess of how many M&M’s are in a jar. (You should pre-count and know the answer).
2. Answer sheet is available in the above detailed lesson plan.
3. Next, have students get into groups and come up with a group answer for how many M&M’s are in the jar.
4. Finally, have students go back to individually guessing how many M&M’s they truly think are in the jar.
5. Process how the group decision made you change your first answer. (Process how students were influenced/peer pressured to change their 1st answer.. maybe in a good way, or in a negative way).
6. Hold off on telling the real # of M&M’s  till the very end of the lesson, but go around the room and see who was closest. At the end of the lesson you can give a snack pack of M&Ms to that person.
7. Next, play a 3-corners game with “Agree”, “Disagree”, “Unsure” signs on different areas of the room. Give different statements  (ie: 13 year old kids should be able to have cell phones in school. or I like broccoli.” Afterwards process with the students how they might have been influenced by which corner their peers went to.
8. Review Refusal Skills
9. Reveal who won the guessing game and give out prize to that person. Review how peer pressure played a role in the M&M guessing game