Leaders Guide to the Brownie Scout Program

1950 Brownie Girl Scouts Ages: 7-9

Brownie Scout Promise

I promise to do my best To love God and my country, To help other people every day, Especially those at home.

The Girl Scout Laws

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. A Girl Scouts honor is to be trusted. A Girl Scout is loyal. A Girl Scouts duty is to be useful and to help others. A Girl Scout is a friend to all and a sister to every other Girl Scout. A Girl Scout is courteous. A Girl Scout is a friend to animals. A Girl Scout obeys orders. A Girl Scout is cheerful. A Girl Scout is thrifty. A Girl Scout is clean in thought, word, and deed.

Equipment
A Brownie Scout troop does not need much equipment, and what it needs does not have to be expensive or elaborate. The girls need a place to sit where feet can touch the oor, and where there are tables or benches to work on. These can be made. Brownie Scouts like to hammer and paint. Sturdy boxes and small kegs turned upside down can be painted and a padded cover can be tacked on for a cushion. These make very good seats. Orange crates can be turned into cupboards, smooth boards laid across boxes the right height can become work tables (and later moved out of the way against the wall). Sometimes it is fun to get fathers, older Girl Scout sisters and friends, and Boy Scout brothers to help make things. Whatever equipment you have should be durable, safe, with no rough corners to make scratches, easy to move out of the way, and made to look attractive.

Scissors and drawing and construction paper, crayons and paints can be kept in a box. Scraps and materials brought from home can be used for making costumes and in games. Brownie Scouts can make their own beanbags, doll furniture, stuffed toys, puppets, puzzles, and other games. Pictures and cards, interesting maps, booklets and charts may be obtained from travel bureaus, railroad and airline companies, the National Health Council, national dairy, fruit, grain, and meat companies. Pictures cut from magazines, and books borrowed from the library or brought from home to lend each other cost nothing. Such simple tools as scissors and perhaps a hammer might be part of the permanent equipment bought out of the troop budget. The troop may want a United States ag and a troop ag. Most of the things they need to play with or furnish the room with should be very simple. Curtains made of inexpensive material, hemmed with a cross-stitch and perhaps decorated with a stencil by the girls themselves, look far better to them than those bought and hung by the troop committee or someone else, however beautiful they may be. Equipment for use in the program which can be made or secured at small cost is described in each of the program chapters. The important thing to remember is that it means more to the children of this age to do things and make things than merely have things.

Suggestions for the First Few Meetings

There is no one way to run a troop meeting and no denite pattern to follow, but these suggestions are based on successful practice in Brownie Scout troops. If your troop is a new one, it will probably take from ve to eight meetings to get the girls ready to be invested and registered in the National Organization. If the troop is an old one, you can use these suggestions to start off the years activities, adapting them to the girls former experience in the troop.

Suggested Activities
1. Games. If all the girls do not already know each other, play get acquainted games. Sometimes just running and playing together is the best way for children to become friends, so active games are useful too. Both active and quiet games serve a good purpose, for the children need both physical activity and relaxation. Play the girls own favorite games and use the suggestions in Chapter 16. There are many good games for Brownie Scouts in Games for Girl Scouts (Catalog No. 20-632,price 35 cents). Be sure to give some time for free play in each meeting. It may be just running and chasing each other at rst, jumping rope, playing hide-and-seek, or tag, or playing house, but it is one of the best parts of the meeting to the girls (see Chapter 2). Simple singing games are especially good. They furnish the needed physical activity in rhythm and make a good beginning for music, dancing, dramatics, and international friendship, since so many of them are folk games of other countries. In addition to suggestions in Chapter 13, and Games for Girl Scouts, you will nd easy and popular games in Skip to My Lou (Catalog No. 20-198, 10 cents).

2. Outdoor activity. At least part of each meeting, even the rst ones, should be held out-of-doors. It is what the girls want and need, and what they expect as Brownie Scouts. Take them out, not only for play, but for all the interesting things you can help them discover even in a small yard or down a city block. Help them nd interesting things about the trees in the yard or the hedge or a ower bed or some living creaturea bird, a dog, a worm, or an ant. Take short walks to see what each girl can observe with ears as well as eyes. Look for way sin which the city government takes care of people, such as traffic lights, re plugs, and so on. This can lead to a discussion of what Brownie Scout can do to help the community. 3. Dramatizations, pantomimes, and original shows. Your girls will like nothing better than giving a show. Dramatizing life situations is part of their everyday play and they enjoy acting or pantomiming stories and rhymes they know. They are very creative and will make up a play on a moments notice. Costumes and stage settings may be imaginary or created out of whatever is at hand. The suggestions for dramatizing the Brownie Story on page 83 can be used for any story. 4. Writing. Pencil and paper have a great appeal to girls of Brownie Scout age. They like to write and to draw and an activity that has proved successful for the very rst meeting is to have each girl write on a large sheet of paper her name, age, home address, telephone number, and school grade. She enjoys showing how well she can write and being made to feel that information about herself is important. Making a list of things she likes to do at home and a list of what she thinks would be fun in the Brownie Scout troop serves the double purpose of telling you something about her and helping you plan, and of making her feel that she has a part in planning the troops activities. 5. Drawing and simple crafts. Girls of Brownie Scout age are creative and like to draw and to make things. It is fun to draw pictures to illustrate a story being told or to sketch a tree or something else out-of-doors. Do not be afraid to introduce simple crafts early in the life of your troop. You will nd the arts and crafts program eld one of the most popular with your girls. See Chapter 7 for suggested activities. One troop of seven-year-old Brownie Scouts made a book they called Brownie Ways which they still prized three years later after they had learned simple bookbinding and had made beautiful ones well. About the third meeting of the troop each girl selected her own colored sheet of drawing paper and drew a picture of her own idea of how a Brownie Scout can help at home. The cover was a brown sheet with the title printed on it by one of the girls. Holes were punched near the edge of each girls sheet and they were all tied together with a brown cord. 6. Stories. Girls of this age like to have stories told and read to them. They also like to tell them. Almost any activity you wish to initiate can be found in some good story they will enjoy. Suggestions for telling stories and where to nd them are given in Chapter 12. 7. Parties or picnics. It takes very little to turn a Brownie Scout meeting into a party or picnic. Brownie Scouts like to eat and refreshments as simple as cookies and fruit juice or just lollipops can furnish an occasion for being hostesses, decorating the table, and brushing up crumbs. Sandwiches under a tree can be come a picnic. Such simple beginnings can lead to homemaking activities that mean so much to girls this age when they are so eager to do grown-up things and still play at keeping house. 8. Housekeeping in the troop room. You can start making the troop room attractive during the rst meetings of the troop. Having a share in furnishing or decorating it makes a girl feel she really belongs. Taking turns in getting it ready for the meeting and putting it in order at the end is a good way for the girls to begin accepting responsibility for the whole group.

9. Helping other people. Just as the girls become a real group through satisfying activities, the best way to interpret the Brownie Scout Promise is by putting it into practice. They can discuss how to help other peopleespecially those at home and they can learn to do useful things well at the troop meeting that can be done at home. For further suggestions see Chapter 10. It is also possible to include the idea of service to the community in these rst meetings. You might make something like simple toys for the day nursery at one meeting if they do not take long. Or, in talking about helping others, each girl may think of someone who lives near heran old person, a lonely child, or someone who is unable to get outto whom she might take owers, or run an errand for, or show some kindness. 10. Ceremonies. Girls of this age love ceremonies and special occasions. They should be simple, not too serious, not too long. The investiture ceremony for Brownie Scouts is, of course, the most important one and is described in this chapter. Other ceremonies may be planned for a birthday or a visitor or a holiday such as Thanksgiving Day or Washingtons Birthday. Two special Girl Scout days are Juliette Lows birthday on October 31 and the Girl Scout organization on March 12. For further suggestions, see Chapter 5.

Things to Do: True Crafts

1. Model in clay. The girls like the feel of clay and enjoy working with it, shaping it into whatever they wish. It is important to use real clay of the right consistency. If possible, have their favorite article red so they can keep it. 2. Visit a pottery and try to see a potter at work. Examine the kiln and try to see objects before ring and when they come out of the kiln. 3. Find out if there is clay that can be used for modeling anywhere in the vicinity and if possible get some and learn how to prepare it for use. 4. Visit a museum or craft shop to see the pottery from other countriesEgyptian, Mexican, Italian, and so on. Visit gift shops that carry pottery. Suggest treasure hunts at home to look for objects made of clay. 5. Make simple trays, mats, or baskets of reed and raffia. See what you an nd in your section of the country that can be used, such as vines, palmetto, or grasses. 6. Learn about the Indian basket makers of this country. Visit museums, craft and gift shops, and notice the designs used in basket making. 7. Learn to weave. Girls of this age can learn more easily on a two-heddle loom than a smaller one. Making potholders or dishcloths with yarn on a small cardboard or wooden frame is fun. Visit rug weavers. Go to a museum to look at tapestry. 8. Knit squares of bright-colored yarn and make an afghan for the troop to give someone. Be sure to use of knitting needles is not too difficult for the girls in the troop. Many children of this age do learn to knit but it is much too arduous for others to attempt. 9. Learn an easy embroidery stitch or hem curtains for the troop room, or do some other simple sewing that does not call for small stitches or too much concentration. Sewing is too difficult for most seven-year-old children to attempt.

10. Make a dollhouse and all the furnishings. This is a good group project for the whole troop and can combine many crafts, using clay for bathroom and kitchen xtures, weaving bedspreads, making curtains, and so on. 11. Make a simple book to be used as a sketch book, diary, recipe book, or notebook. Directions for bookbinding can be found in Arts and Crafts with Inexpensive Materials (Catalog No. 20-303, 50 cents). Make a simple portfolio to hold drawing paper and sketches. 12. Learn to make stencils, letting each girl select or make her own design. Stencil a border on mats or tea towels for a gift or on curtains for the troop room. This activity is practical only for older Brownie Scouts. See Arts and Crafts with Inexpensive Materials (Catalog No. 20-303, 50 cents). 13. Make simple purses or book covers out of leather. Tooling leather is too difficult for girls of this age. 14. Learn what hides are used for leather. Visit a leather or luggage shop and learn the difference between leather and plastic. Visit a shoemaker and see how shoes are made. Discuss the care of leather. 15. Hammer bits of metal into ash trays or coasters. 16. Look for objects made of metal in the troop room and at home. Learn about the different metals and what they are used for. Visit a museum, craft, or gift shop to look for and recognize metal craft. Visit a blacksmith shop and see how the blacksmith works with iron. Look for wrought iron in the community. 17. See how many different kinds of wood can be found in the troop room. Find out what wood the furniture at home is made of and what wood is used in buildings. Visit any special example of architecture in the community, and notice doorways, arches, and towers. 18. Visit a carpenters shop, a cabinet maker, the woodwork shop at the high school. 19. Bring samples of different kinds of wood to the troop meeting. Let the girls look at the grain of the wood. Let them smooth a piece of wood with sandpaper. 20. See how many trees you can nd that are used in making furniture and houses. Look at a stump of a large tree that has been cut and count the rings that show how the tree grew each year. Estimate how old it was. Learn what wood is used to build ships and why. Find out what trees are cut for fence posts. 21. Visit museums and parks to see statues and other examples of sculpture. Learn what they are made of and where marble is found. Visit a stonecutter. 22. Tell, read, and dramatize stories of craftsmen of the past and present, such as sculptors, silversmiths, cabinet makers, potters, weavers, clockmakers and so on. 23. Arrange an international craft exhibit in the troop room, displaying such things as a Chinese bowl, ash tray, or print; a piece of wood carving from Switzerland or Germany; glassware fro Czechoslovakia; a Swedish towel; Italian peasant pottery, English or French porcelain. The girls can bring some of these things from home; and they can be borrowed from individuals and from craft shops for the occasion.

24. Help the girls learn about the materials they use. Satisfy their curiosity by nding out with them what clay is, what paints are made of, what pewter is,how color can be taken from plants. 25. Have the girls learn the importance of tools used in any craft. Give them the responsibility for taking care of the ones they use.

Things to Do: Free Play

1. Run, skip, jump rope, climb, swing, play jacks and marbles, chase each other, play ball, and be as noisy as the girls like. If the meeting place is in the school building or near a playground, they may want to use the swings, slides, other equipment, and sometimes even the sandpile. It is a good idea to have a supply of jacks and marbles and hoops on hand. 2. Roller-skate or ride their bicycles. 3. Play with dolls, paper dolls, or other toys the girls like to bring with them. 4. Stay out-of-doors all you can. If a small stream is near enough, go wading, build dams, sail toy boats, and dig caves. Find a tree they can climb. 5. The girls would nd it great fun to walk on stilts as children used to do. They are inexpensive and easy to make. 6. Blow soap bubbles and spin tops. 7. Play hide-and-seek and tag games. 8. Learn to y kites. 9. See Things to Do in Chapter 15, The Out-of-Doors and the other program elds. 10. Plan time in troop meetings for dramatic play. See pages 191-192 in Chapter 12.