Leaders feel free to add your ideas to the below try its and even add any that are not listed.
Brownie Girl Scouts Around the World
* We tied this try it in with World Thinking Day. The girls made their own passports (pictures and all), paired up and flew to three countries to get facts on them, They also flew to the other five to fill in what girls are called in their countries. The girls also made post card swaps. We talked about World Thinking Day and WAGGGS. The girls loved flying via Air Girl Scouts around the world. We also, handed out try-its, this was done by taking a piece of construction paper and making each girl their own Flag. The try-its were stapled on in all different patterns etc.
Info and patterns are under the Thinking Day page of this site to download.
Make It and Eat It
* Make your own pizza- use bread dough, let it rise, then cut in 1/3 rds, each girl streches and shapes it, then adds red or white sauce, several different toppings.
* Ice cream floats
Stitch It Together
* We had the girls take 4 squares, stitch them together using a running stitch, they sewed a button in the middle of the quilted square, the individual (4 pcs) squares were sewn together to make one big quilt for the girls to sit on during the meetings.
Science Wonders
* Some different ideas besides those in the try it book that we did were
Make your own paint- take 1/8 cup. liquid starch for each color you want to make. then add 1/8 cup of water to each of the colors. Add food coloring to make (put several drops otherwise paint will be light in color). mix together. Girls can paint with paint brushes or Q-tips.
Make homemade bubbles- put 1 cup water in a container, add 4 Tablespoons of Joy dishsoap, mix gently (try not to make bubbles), then add 2 Tablespoons of Glycerin (can get at a pharamacy) or I also made it with Karo syrup (2 Tablespoons), mix again gently. I got 35 mm film canisters and put some of the mixture in the canister for each of the girls. For bubble wands- we used 1/2 of a pipe cleaner, made a small loop (bigger loops don't work as well).
Stained glass- take two sheets of wax paper (same size), place one sheet on a piece of newspaper, then shave crayons (you can use a pencil sharpener, or the back side of a plastic knife), place the shavings on the wax paper, you can use as much or as little as you want, then place the second piece of wax paper on top, place another piece of newspaper on top of the wax paper. With a low setting iron, place it on the newspaper, for a few seconds (just enough time to melt the wax- the longer you leave it on the more the colors blend together), the wax paper seals when it is heated. FYI- if you move the iron back and forth it will smudge the colors. When cool- the girls can cut out any design they wish.
Water on the move- explore the capillary action of water, that is, how water moves through the tiny space in fiber. Fill a glass with water and set it beside an empty bowl. Twist a paper towel around and around to form a wick. Set one end in the full glass of water and the other end in the empty bowl. The water will travel up the towel wick and then drip into the bowl. FYI- for time purposes use a 1/4 piece of paper towel, We started with a 1/2 sheet and the girls didn't see results fast enough so, we went to 1/4 pieces twisted and it worked much faster for the length of our meeting.
Colors and Shapes
* A couple different things we did with this try it were we made pictures with warm colors and pictures with cool colors, the girls would write their name on the paper and then make a collage of colors around it. We also made Kalideoscopes- use a clear 35 mm film canister with lid (see if Rite Aid has any they are going to recycle. need mirrored paper board (can get at Michaels), and plastic wrap. Drill a hole ~1/4" in diameter in the bottom (this will be the eye hole). Cut a piece of mirrored board 1 3/4" x 3" fold to make a triangle with the mirrored side to the inside, tape to hold together. Insert this into the canister. Put sprinkles of glitter or small confetti in the indentation of the inside of the lid. Cover this with clear plastic wrap. Place the cylinder onto the lid and snap it into place. Point the canister up to the light and turn the canister (adjust the amount of sprinkles etc.) if they don't move or not enough it won't make a good design.
Playing Around the World
* We did this try it during the winter so, we did indoor "carnival type" games from around the world. From Africa- Simbii- (Kenya) player tries to throw 10 buttons consecutively into a hole (we used a tupperware container) 5-6 yards away (we also adjusted the distance). Asia- Chopsticks challenge (China) player carries a small item (cotton balls) from one bowl to another without dropping them. Could give a prize based on how many items player can transfer without dropping them. Originated as a relay game in China. We also, had other shape, sized items to see if they could do that. Central & South America- Hit the coin- (Brazil) Place a 12-18" dowel into a christmas tree stand (I also used a bigger mason jar filled with stones and placed the dowel in the middle. The dowel is suppost to be stuck in the ground), draw a circle about 5" diameter around the pole and place a bottle cap/coin on top of the dowel (plastic bottle cap should be placed on its edge), Player stands approx. 4" away from dowel and tries to knock cap/coin off of dowel by throwing coins at it (we used quarters). The object is to knock the cap/coin off - the dowel to fall outside of the 5" circle. Pacific- Bounce Eye (Australia) Game of marbles- where a player drops a "shooter" marble from eye level to try to knock marbles out of a 1 foot circle. Prize could be awarded based on the number of marbles knocked out after three tries. From Japan- Jan-Ken-Pon (aka Rock-paper-scissors)