At Home

• Talk about ways your family investigates health symptoms that family members are experiencing.
• Discuss remedies your family uses when family members are ill or injured.
• Identify things your family likes to do together that make everyone feel happy, and do those thingstogether.
• Ask your Girl Scout about the new MyPlate food guide.
• Plan and cook a healthy meal together.

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys 

My Best Self

Snack

Snack Discussion

While enjoying a healthy snack, here are some things for girls to talk about:

What are your favorite healthy foods to eat?

What can you do when you are scared to try a new food?

What is your favorite sport to play?

Name something that makes you unique.

Thinking back through the past 24 hours, what was the happiest time?

What was your happiest time in the past week?

When you had a sad or nervous time in the past week, what did you do to cheer up?

What types of things do the people in your life tell you or encourage you to do when you feelsad or nervous?

What do you tell your family and friends to do when they feel sad or nervous?

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys

My Best Self

What makes you feel…?

Brownie: My Best Self Step 1 - Get to know your body

• Have a posterboard with it written: What makes you feel happy, hungry, tired, nervous, sad, or thirsty? (with each emotion having its own box)

• Give the girls sticky notes and have them try to write one thing for each emotion and stick them on the board.

• Once most people are done pick a few common ones on the board and ask how you can make yourself feel better

posterboard

sticky notes

Craft (15 min)

Look At Me!

1. Have each girl draw a picture of herself. She can draw her eyes and hair color and even her favorite outfit. (or you can use the self elf handout)

2. Share the pictures with the group. As girls show their drawings, have them share one thing that makes them special.

3. Write on your elf self where you feel happy, hungry, tired,

nervous, sad, angry, and thirsty. Do you get butterflies in

your stomach when you're nervous? Do you get a big smile

when you're happy?

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys 

Paper or self elf printout

My elf self.pdf

Coloring utensils

My Best Self 1

Make a life-size "me chart."

Cut a piece of butcher paper to the size of a girl.  Then have the girls lie on their back.  Have them ask another girl to trace around them.  They could even get traced in a pose from a favorite activity-perhaps a dance move or a jumping jack?

From: Girl Scouts USA

butcher paper

Coloring utensils

Try new foods

Bring in some different healthy foods that girls may not have tried before.  Have them choose three to try that they have never tried

From: Girl Scouts USA

new food

plates

utensils

napkins

Try three different kinds of exercise

Such as jumping rope, jumping jacks, situps, pushups, etc.  Have the girls choose an physical activity that they like to do and do it for 20 minutes 3 times a week for 1 or 2 weeks

From: Girl Scouts USA 

No Sugar Drink Challenge

Have the girls drink some milk, some water, and then some juice. Ask how each makes them feel.

Challenge the girls to:

Take a thirsty challenge. Try not to drink sweetened juice or soda for one week. These drinks have added sugar that makes you feel full of energy, and then really tired. Instead, drink water, low-fat milk, or fun fizzy seltzer. Can you keep making healthy choices?

From: Girl Scouts USA

cups

different drinks

Craft (30 min)

What’s For Dinner?

1. Optional: The US Department of Agriculture recently updated the food pyramid to MyPlate. Research

the MyPlate food guide online or read about healthy nutrition in a book.

o United States Department of Agriculture: http://www.choosemyplate.gov

o KidsHealth: kidshealth.org

o The Monster Health Book: A Guide to Eating Healthy, Being Active and Feeling Great for

Monsters and Kids! by Edward Miller

2. Discuss what food groups make up MyPlate. Brainstorm foods in each food group.

3. Write down foods for each group on the MyPlate worksheet.

4. Have the girls plan a healthy meal for their family using what they have learned. They cancut pictures of food from magazines or draw their own to create their own healthy meal.

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys

MyPlate worksheet

My Plate.pdf

Construction paper

Scissors

Glue

Magazines

Coloring utensils

My Best Self 2

Game

Balloon Keep Up

This game is great for when you have an extra ten minutes that you don‘t know how to fill. Have the girls sit on  the floor in two lines with their feet touching each other. Have the girls start hitting the balloon back andforth,  making sure that their feet stay touching at all times.

balloons

My Best Self 2

Game (15 min)

Symptom Charades

1. Ask for a volunteer. The first girl picks a card and acts out the word on the card without saying anything out loud. The other girls should try to guess what the first girl is trying to show.

2. Once girls have correctly identified the symptom, lead girls in a discussion about:

o What doctors or parents do to investigate when a child is experiencing that symptom.

o What types of sickness that symptom might indicate, if applicable.

o What types of remedies a doctor or parent would use to help the child feel better.

For example, for a sore throat doctors or parents might look for redness in the child’s throat or do a throat swab to test for strep throat. A sore throat might indicate strep throat or just a common cold,

and remedies might include medicine, drinking lots of liquids, or even warm soup or cold popsicles.

3. Have other girls take turns picking a card and acting out the symptom. Lead a similar discussion for each card.

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys

Symptom Charade cards

Symptom Charade Card.pdf

My Best Self 3

Game (25 min)

Happiness from A to Z

1. Discuss with girls that everyone has times when they feel sad, shy or nervous. Talk about how sometimes it helps to think of things that make you feel happy or things you enjoy. Tell girls they’re

going to make a book to help remind them of things that make them happy.

2. Pass out 27 index cards to each girl.

3. Tell girls to make a title page first. Sample title might be “Happiness from A to Z.”

4. On each subsequent page, girls should write or draw something or someone that makes them happy  hat starts with each letter of the alphabet. Encourage girls to be creative, identifying their favorite things, people in their lives, activities they enjoy, musicians or authors, and descriptive words.

5. When girls are finished creating pages, punch a hole in the corner of each page and help girls tie each book together with a piece of ribbon.

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys

Index cards (27 per girl)

Ribbon or string

Hole punch

Markers or colored pencils

My Best Self 4

Create a "happy box" with five things that make you smile.

Tell them: The next time you feel worried or upset, get out your picture and go get one of the things that makes you happy

From: Girl Scouts USA

paper

coloring utensils

Feeling Faces

Tell the girls to:

Each day for one week, draw your "feelings faces." Do this in the morning, after school, and before you go to bed. Which time of day is your happiest? Why? Talk with your family, a teacher, or a librarian about how to make more times happy. Maybe by reading a story or playing catch?

From: Girl Scouts USA

feeling faces handout

Feeling Faces.pdf

Game (15 min)

Doctor Match-Up

Print a Doctor Match-Up worksheet for each girl

1. Discuss with girls that sometimes people need to visit “health helpers” to stay healthy. There are many different types of doctors and different doctors care for different parts of the body or different groups of people.

2. Pass out Doctor Match-Up worksheets. Tell girls to match up the type of doctor (in the left-hand column) with the body part or group of people that type of doctor treats (in the right-hand column).

3. Have girls go through the answers out loud together.

4. Group girls into pairs and have them share with their partner about one doctor or other health helper in their life that has been helpful to them. Talk about what they liked about that doctor.

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys

Doctor Match-Up worksheets

Doctor Match-Up.pdf

Writing utensils

My Best Self 5