Through the Years Brownie Try It

Today we were working on "Brownie Girl Scouts Through the Years" (It's a pointing down!)  This one is on the retired list, so if you are going to undertake it-- make sure you buy it first and set it aside.

#1 - Food.
We started by looking up possible snacks (#1) that Brownie Girl Scouts might have eaten in other decades. 
I was a little nervous when she chose the 1920's.  PLEASE pick fruit, PLEASE pick fruit... nope.

Cheese and crackers?  (Hmmm... maybe.)  Oops-- no cheese.  (But we have Velveeta!)  I made her research when Velveeta was invented.  (SHOCKING!)  It was in the made in the 1920's!  (late, but hey...).  Saltines I knew had been around forever, but she looked it up.  (1876).  So we had a snack.

Here's a list of easy snack foods we found from the 20's - some of these surprized me.
Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches were a popular 1920's snack.  Doesn't get much easier than that!  (I have two girls who, for whatever reason... do not eat this, even though they have no allergies.)
Peanuts, molded jello salads, pickles.

Here's a list that might be helpful:

Food 1920's: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cream cheese sandwiches, pickles. Koolaid, jello, peanuts.  Invented in the 1920's - Kraft maccaroni and cheese, Velveeta, Peanut butter cups.

Food 1930's: kettle potato chips, popcorn, fritos, twinkies! Ritz crackers.

Food 1940's: m-n-m's, cheerios (called Cheerioats), tootsie rolls, cereal, yogurt, ice cream

Food 1950's: hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled cheese, potato chips, pretzels, rootbeer, lemonade, cola

Food 1960's:pizza, pop-tarts,Ruffles, Lucky Charms

Food 1970's: Guacamole,  Crackers, corn chips, back yard grilling, chocolate chip cookies, pop rocks, starbursts

#3 - Next, we needed Entertainment.  Since tv (and yes, Xbox) were out.  We turned again to an Internet search.  Card games were big, and Dominoes!   So I took this opportunity to break out the moes.  The girls had never played, so we started with just basic dominoes.   It was fun and reminded me it's about time they learned 42.

For those doing the 1930's-- game boards were invented.   The 1940's yo-yo's and marbles were big.  In the 1950's The Cat in the Hat was written and Barbie was invented.  The 1960's brought Nerf balls, cartoons such as the Flintstones. The 1970's - Try skateboarding, or disco dancing!

This link has a lot of good information -- some of it may be too hard for your Brownie to read herself.

This link  has a lesson plan for the try-it.  It trys to cover multiple decades.

#2 - Clothing. 
 For clothing, we are still in the 1920's, but it would be a lot easier to do the 1950's or 1960's.
For language use, the following was very helpful: http://local.aaca.org/bntc/slang/slang.htm .  Some of my favorties are "bees knees" and "dapper" - which meant a flapper's dad. Another (still in use some today) "you slay me".

#4 - Sing a Song
For the 1920's can I tell you how hard it was to NOT pick "He's in the Jailhouse Now." ..But settled on "Bye, Bye, Blackbird."

#6 - Service Project
It happens that this weekend is the boy scouts "Scouting for Food" drive.  Big K will help with this drive by collecting cans to donate to the drive.

Big K and Brownie Try Its

Like many little girls her age, Big K is in her first year of Brownies, having bridged up from Daisies last spring. She is a part of a really sweet troop of eight girls. They have two uber-fabulous leaders who work on lots of try-its with the girls.

Many of these I am not present for, so you won't find comments on those here... except of course my overflowing gratitude to these two tireless ladies!

To supplement what they do with their troop and help feed her interest in these activities, we've been working on some additional try-its at home. Some of these are from the try-it hand book, and some are Council's Own Try-its.

If you are not familiar with Council's own try-its, these are try-its designed by individual councils. ANY girls scout can earn them, however, and most councils are more than happy to share. Many of the topics are more in depth than those in the Try-it hand book, and there are many to chose from.

Some have on-line stores with the individual try-it requirements, as well as the try-its available for purchase on-line. Some, you have to call the store and order. Since most of these councils do charge a shipping/handling charge- it's helpful to purchase more than one at a time. Either for a group of girls, working on the same try-it, or wait until you have a few different try-its to order. That way, the cost per try-it is not as high.

Many times, we just choose a try-out that fits with what we are already foing that day. For example, the day we spent biking with the neighbors on the greenbelt, I pulled up the bicycling try-it requirements as well as the sports and games requirements. (Remember! No Double-Dipping!) The day we went skating, I googled Skating Try-it-- and found one. Several of the requirements could be met easily on that outing.

Future of Try-Its: You have probably heard by now that Girl Scouts are Rolling out their JOURNEYS in the fall of 2011. By 2012 all Girl Scouts should be in the new program. This means by the time she bridges to Juniors, we'll be in a whole new program! You can still earn and add try-its until then, as long as they are available. If there's one you really want to try, you might want to go ahead and buy it, set it aside. The council's own try-its, in particular, can't be reordered while they are making the switch. So get 'em while you can.

Mary Kay wasn't born cheap... but she got there pretty quickly.