Lesson Plan for Girl Scouts Through the Years Try-it

Objective: Girls will learn what it was like during different time periods in history. Girls will learn the history of Brownie Girl Scouts.

Materials:

Measuring cups

cereal

raisens

Good and Plenty Candy

animal crackers

mini Oreos

M&Ms

Beans

Egg cartons

Ziploc bags - large and small

Cardstock paper

Scissors

Markers

Crayons

String

Glue or glue sticks

Sample music on tape

To do:

1. Girls will sit in the Girl Scout circle and recite the Girl Scout Law and the Girl Scout Promise. The leader will ask the girls what they think it means to be a Brownie Girl Scout and girls will discuss. Leader will ask how long girls think that there have been Brownie Girl Scouts. Girls will give their best guesses and then the leader will tell them that Girl Scouts have been around since the late 1920s. Their parents and grandparents and possibly even their great grandparents could have been Girl Scouts!

2. The first activity will have the girls counting and measuring different amounts of small foods into Ziploc bags for a trail mix. Each food will have been introduced to the world during a different time period.. Each girl will measure:

1/3 cup cereal (1863)

1/8 cup raisens (1870)

15 pieces of Good and Plenty Candy (1893)

6 animal crackers (1902)

6 mini Oreos (regular Oreos-1912)

1/4 cup M&Ms (1941)

Leader will give each girl a piece of paper with the above ingredients and dates on it for them to take home. Girls will eat leftovers as a snack. As we measure and count, we will talk about how our parents may have just been born when M&Ms were invented and how our great grandparents probably did not know what an Oreo was, etc.

3. Girls will talk about different games they enjoy and will try to guess what the oldest known game might be. The game of Mancala will be introduced and girls will be shown an actual Mancala board as well as pictures of very old ones. Girls will then count out 48 beans and using an egg carton, each girl will have their own Mancala game to take home and play. If time allows at the end of the meeting, girls will play Mancala with partners.

4. Girls will listen to music from different eras during activity time. We will discuss the styles of music as they work on coloring in their art project (next).

5. Girls will look at pictures from the American Girl Dolls book Kirsten's World. They will note the dress and lifestyles of people in the 1850s. They will then make a toy commonly made in the mid 1800s, the chromotrope toy. Girls will trace and cut out circles on heavy tagboard. They will make a design using markers or crayons. Using a plastic needle, girls will poke string through two holes near the center of the circles and knot at one end. Next girls will swing the circle over and over until it is wound up and then gently pull. This is a chromotrope toy similar to toys children in the 1850s played with.

6. Girls will clean up supplies and return to the Girl Scout circle. If some girls get to the circle before others, they can look at pictures of Girl Scouts from different eras and talk about the differences in uniforms. Pictures were printed off of the internet at various sites. When all girls arrive, they will make the friendship closing circle and sing the closing songs together.