Last year my Daisies earned two of their financial literacy leaves: this year we are working on Money Counts and Making Choices. My Brownies are working on Philanthropist. For Money Counts the girls have to learn about different types of coins and paper money and they have to figure out the cost of fun. For Making Choices they have to learn the difference between needs and wants, learn to set goals and learn to help others with what they need and want.
Philanthropist which requires the girls to learn the meaning of Philanthropy, find out what every person needs, investigate how to hep people who are hungry, find out how to help people who need clothing, and find out how to help in times of emergency.
My meeting plans for these badges are loosely based off the plans of Girl Scouts River Valleys and VTK.
Needs and Wants
Both groups needed to learn about needs and wants. When they came in I had newspaper ads and old text books on the table. I told each girl to cut out five pictures of things she liked that you could buy in the store (no trees, suns, rocks etc.). I had poster boards divided into two parts: Needs and Wants. The girls had to paste their pictures on the correct side and we talked about why we picked that side. We talked about how sometimes quantity changes things from a need to a want--you need clothes, you do not need 20 shirts. We also talked about how sometimes where and when can make a difference--you need earbuds in the classroom to work in the computer; you want them to listen to music at home. Is junk food a need or a want? Its a want if you are shopping, but if it is the only thing you have and no other food is available, its a need.
Goal Setting
We talked about what a goal was and how it gave us something to work toward. Then we did the Jumping Jacks activity from the GSRV plan. Each girl did jumping jacks for 10 seconds, counting how many she did. Then I told them we were going to do it again and their goal was to do two more. We talked about how they would have to jump faster to meet that goal. Most of them managed to do so.
Money
We split into two groups, one leader to a group and sat down and counted money and talked about how many of this coin equal that and how many of this bill equals this. Not the easiest skill or the most fun, but very necessary, even in today's credit/debit card world.
Snack and Social Time
The girls enjoyed King Cake and visiting with each other while we held a short parent meeting about cookies.
Overall, it was a good but not great meeting. The girls enjoyed the jumping jacks and making the posters. We talked briefly about how cookies help us do fun things in Girl Scouts and most of the girls do enjoy selling cookies. The poster activity was fun, but most did not really enjoy the money counting exercise.
Next Time
My plan for the next meeting is to ask the lady who runs the parish food pantry to give us a tour and talk to us about helping the poor in our area. I'll have the girls each bring an item for the food bank and we can talk about donating some of our cookie money and donation cookies to the food bank as well. I'll probably ask her to talk about where poor people can get clothes and how the girls can help.
We will discuss the meaning of philanthropy, and will do some activity about how we can help in an emergency such as a hurricane or earthquake.
I will also have a goal sheet for each girl showing several activities the girls want to do and how many boxes of cookies it takes to earn the activity. At that time, pre-orders will be over, so I'll have a figure for each girl. They will color in boxes to see how their sales support their activities.
Are there any financial literacy activities your girls particularly enjoyed?
Are there any financial literacy activities your girls particularly enjoyed?
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