Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.

Help me prepare and run the exercise below. First ask for my participant count, time, setting, access needs and intended result. Check these against the stated limits. Use the supplied rules and materials. Explain any proposed changes before using them, and label them as adaptations. Do not invent source claims or require personal disclosure. Give me one step at a time when I say start. I manage the people, physical activity and clock; do not claim to observe the room. Ask me what happened before choosing a next step.

Reference revision: f2d87db8520caf9cfdc1f7a933c3d9770de724b8c28359dc308281fd8a73494b

# Jelly Bean Trade

Participants circulate and negotiate one-for-one trades of colored sweets or tokens to assemble a complete matching set. The activity provides a quick, active social mixing round with a simple shared goal.

**Time:** 10 minutes. Source suggests about 3 minutes for trading; UWT extends to 10 minutes to cover briefing, hand washing, trading, and debrief.
**People:** 4 to 24. Whole room mingling with pair trades

## Choose this exercise

**Purpose:** Mix participants across a room and prompt brief, low-stakes negotiations through one-for-one item trades.
**Use it when:** Use at the start of a meeting or workshop when people need to move around the room and greet peers they do not yet know.
**Skip it when:** Skip when physical movement across the room is impractical, when hygiene rules forbid handling food, or when an analytical or serious tone is required immediately.

## Materials and tools

- 10 colored jelly beans or wrapped sweets per person (use 3 to 4 distinct colors total, distributed evenly across the room)
- Small paper cups or clean napkins for holding items (1 per participant)
- Sanitizing wipes or hand sanitizer dispenser
- Optional non-edible alternative: colored counting tokens, beads, or poker chips

## Before participants arrive

1. Count out cups containing 10 assorted sweets or colored tokens per participant, ensuring the pool has enough of each color to make full sets achievable.
2. Place hand sanitizer at the door or distribution table.

## Say this to open

Take a cup with ten assorted sweets. Your goal is to collect a full set of ten sweets that are all the exact same color. To do that, move around the room and make one-for-one trades with other people. You may only trade one item at a time with a partner before finding someone else. If you do not want to eat sweets, trade with tokens or save your cup. Let us begin.

## How to run it

### 1. Explain rules and distribute items (2 minutes)

Hand each person a cup containing 10 mixed-color items. Explain the single-trade rule: each transaction between two people is strictly one-for-one. Example: 'I give you one green sweet, you give me one red sweet.' No bulk swapping.

### 2. Trade and collect (4 minutes)

Signal the start of the trading period. Participants circulate freely, negotiating trades to consolidate one single color. Stop when someone achieves ten of one color, or when the four-minute timer sounds.

### 3. Verify sets and conclude rounds (1 minutes)

Ask anyone who assembled a full matching set to raise their hand. If multiple people finished, acknowledge them. Invite participants to keep or discard their items according to local hygiene rules.

### 4. Debrief trading dynamics (3 minutes)

Gather the room. Ask two participants how they chose which color to collect and how they handled scarce colors.


## Debrief questions

- What made you commit to your specific color early on, and did anyone change strategy halfway through?
- How did you negotiate when someone had a color you needed but you did not have the color they wanted?

**Finished output:** Each participant ends with an altered distribution of colored tokens or sweets, with one or more participants completing a full monochromatic set.

## Remote

The physical item-swapping mechanic cannot run natively online without changing the game into a digital inventory simulation. Run the related alternative 'Virtual Color Barter': Give each participant a private chat list of 5 letter codes (e.g., A, B, C, D) and use breakout rooms or main chat direct messages to trade letters one-for-one until someone collects five of a kind.

## Hybrid

UWT hybrid adaptation: Everyone uses Virtual Color Barter from the Remote section, including participants in the room. Use one shared roster of the full group rather than separate location tracks. Each participant needs an individual device and an approved messaging space that supports private inventories and trade requests. Give each person five letter-code tokens drawn from A, B, C and D. All participants use the same goal: collect five matching tokens. A trade exchanges one token each only after both people confirm it; both update their inventories before trading again. A lone remote participant can trade with anyone on the roster. Prepare inventories and check access before starting, use the existing trading time and whole-group debrief, and describe this as UWT's digital barter variant rather than physical sweet swapping.

## Access and participation choices

- Provide non-edible plastic tokens or wrapped items for participants with dietary restrictions or sensory preferences around food handling.
- Participants may pass on circulating by acting as a stationary 'bank' or trade depot where others can visit to exchange items.
- Anyone may decline eating treats without explanation.

## If the session gets stuck

**A participant finds no one wants their remaining colors and gets stuck.**

Allow three-way trades or place a neutral surplus bowl in the center where anyone may swap an unwanted token for a random draw.

**Participants try to trade five items at once to finish instantly.**

Enforce the one-for-one single item rule so participants must talk to multiple partners.


## Terms used here

- One-for-one trade: An exchange where two people swap exactly one item each per interaction.

## Sources and adaptation

Observed in Playmeo, where it is attributed to Mark Collard.

Retained the core mechanic of trading mixed jelly beans one-for-one to collect ten of a single color from Playmeo. UWT added explicit sanitation setup, non-edible token options, dietary protections, structured time blocks, and a focused negotiation debrief. UWT clarified the delivery instructions on September 20, 2026 to preserve the stated task, make participation across locations explicit, and distinguish digital variants from physical procedures.

[Playmeo](https://www.playmeo.com/activities/ice-breakers-get-to-know-you-games/jelly-bean-trade)

[Playmeo](https://www.playmeo.com/activities/ice-breakers-get-to-know-you-games/jelly-bean-trade/)

Current run sheet: https://unitedwetransform.com/exercises/fun-interactive-icebreaker-game-for-groups-jelly-bean-trade/