Can we talk?

Cereal Boxes

    Ever caught yourself reading a cereal box? Whether it's the "ABC's of Cereal" (I read that one this morning. It's about Folate and Iron, Vitamin D, etc.), great movie quotes (like "Yo, Adrianne"), the whole grain story, or how the Care Bears find their way home, they can be very entertaining while munching your Cheerios or crispy rice. A newspaper takes too much room at the table, especially if other people are seated there. And a book may become soiled, if only a little. But a cereal box has a short life, won't be returned to the furniture for years of storage, and is fairly compact. And it's on the table anyway.

    Why don't we take advantage of this great reading surface for better education. Maybe the table of elements, or the multiplication tables. Little biographies, like The Swamp Fox, Florence Nightingale, Walter Reed, Livingston, Schweitzer, George Washington Carver, Maggie Walker, Betsy Ross, Patrick Henry, and many others would educate adults as well as younger readers. Tales of how electricity works, or the difference between watts and volts, could fascinate a whole generation of cereal eaters.

      Dinosaurs. Kids love to read about dinosaurs. Zoo animals, exotic animals, aquatic animals, tropical animals, animals on particular continents, cold-blooded versus warm-blooded animals, birds, fishes. Kids and adults love animals. Cereal box designers could improve animal knowledge and help conservation. Bees are seriously threatened world-wide. Think what the story of bee colony collapse could accomplish on the sides of cereal boxes!

      After a year or two of animals, the brand of cereal could switch to flowers, or botany in general. They could address agriculture in general. As long as the stories stay on a 5th grade reading level or lower, the general public could consume the material quite readily. As long as we stay away from historical movements, politics, government, and religion, the brands wouldn't have to worry about offending anyone or losing customers/readers. And since we tend to look at a cereal box more than once, the material might really be driven home.

    And let's not forget maps. It's become apparent lately that adults, community leaders at that, don't know where countries or states are. They can't name the states that border Mexico, even when that topic is the conversation theme! Teaching kids and their parents where the states are and what they border could be a great use of cereal boxes.

      It might make your kids eager to learn some more over breakfast.