At Home

• Ask your Girl Scout to help you grocery shop. Look at the prices of the items on your list together. Help her exchange money with the clerk.
• Take a trip to a clothing store to chat about the costs of clothing for your Brownie Girl Scout. Now take a trip to a local thrift store and discuss the differences in cost.

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys 

•  Play the Price is Right GS version: Talk with your daughter about the how much things cost in your everyday life: mortgage, heat, water, gas, food, and other expenses.  Give her a multiple choices as to the cost, let her guess, and then tell her the correct answer. 

Money Manager

Activity

Go Shopping

Brownie: Money Manager Badge Step 2-Shop for elf items with your elf money

Daisy: Money Counts Step 1 and 2

1. Set the girls up in pairs.  One is the customer and one is the cashier.

2. Have the customer girl pick three items to buy.

3. Have her pay the cashier by counting out the right amount of money.

4.  The cashier’s job is to make sure that the customer is paying the right amount

5. Then do another round switching roles

money and item printouts (1 for each group of 2 girls)

Elf groceries and money.pdf

Game (25 min)

Fun Money

Collect grocery advertisements (grocery stores often have multiple ads available in store).

1. Begin by discussing the definition of a budget.

A budget is a list of expenses (thing you pay for) and income (money you get, usually for doing a job).

2. Talk about how each family has to have a budget to manage costs. Part of a budget includes buying food for their families. In this activity, girls will experience what shopping for a family budget is like.

3. Have girls pair up. Decide as a group what the budget will be for each pair. You can keep the budgets the same for each group or, to increase discussion for this activity, each group may have a different budget.

4. The pairs should then search through ads and decide what groceries they will purchase for two family dinners. They must buy all parts of the meal, including drink and dessert, if they choose.

5. Pass out each group’s budget in Elf or play money to help them see how much they are spending.

6. When girls have determined their purchases, have them pay the grocery clerk (you) for their total purchase to determine if they stayed in their budget.

7. Discuss the purchases. Did all of the pairs choose the same items?

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys

Gather materials and supplies.

Materials Needed:

Optional: Elf Money from Girl’s Guide or play money from a board game

Grocery advertisements

Money Manager 2

Game (15 min)

School Supplies

Visit a local store or browse online to determine the cost of school supplies.

Create a price list for each school supply item. This should only list the prices of the supplies and not the items.

Create an answer key that lists each school supply item and its price.

1. Have girls play a guessing game to learn about the costs of school supplies.

2. Display a large price list for the whole group to see or individual price lists for each girl to see.

3. One at a time, hold up each school supply item and ask the girls to pick the price on their list that they think matches the item.

4. Once they have decided which price matches each object, discuss the items as a group.

Were you correct?

Were you surprised at the cost of any of the items?

Optional: The girl with the most correct price matches wins a prize.

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys

Assorted school supplies: markers, pencils, glue, scissors, notebook, folders

Bag to contain supplies so girls cannot see them

Price list of supplies

School supply answer key

Money Manager 3

Game (20 min)

Cost of Fun

Brownie: Money Manager Step 5 - Have some fun

Daisy: Leaf Talk It Up - Step 3 - Find out about the cost of fun

• Have the girls  brainstorm different fun activities they like to do that cost money, such as going to the movies or the zoo. List the activities on paper for girls to see.

• Now have girls brainstorm fun activities they like to do that are free, such as playing outside, sleeping over at a friend’s house, etc.

• Have the girls select one fun activity that costs money and one activity that is free that they would like to do as a troop.

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys

Large paper or whiteboard

Markers

Money Manager 5

Send home a handout for girls to complete Money Manager 2,3, and 4 at home

Example email

Today I sent home information on a badge that we will work on some at meetings and some at home.  Your daughter will have three things to complete at home.  The badge is an introduction to money and staying within a budget.  If you wish to do this badge, please complete the three steps by our first February meeting as we will do our last step and earn

Printout for each girl

Money Manager at home assignment.pdf