Discover engaging and educational activities to make the most of Girl Scout Cookie Season with your kids!
Recently, a friend here in Reno told me some of the great ways he and his daughters were inspired by Girl Scout Cookie season to explore everything from multiplication to measuring height, calories, and even kilowatt hours. They aren't just learning business and money management skills, they're learning math, facts about geography and nature, and so much more. And, they're using cookie activities as a way to spend time together learning, laughing, and pitching creative ideas.
Here are a few of the activities he and his girls tried, and a few more for you to test out with your Girl Scouts this year.
"How many cookies tall is the Eiffel Tower?" "How many Johnny Depp's-worth of cookies have we sold?" "How many cookies heavy is a blue whale?" These are a few of the MANY questions my friend and his daughters came up with, each one an opportunity explore world facts, math calculations, and creative ideas.
To do this activity with your kids, you might kick it off with a question of your own. "How many cookies to you think we'd have to stack to be as tall as you?" Let them share their ideas, questions, and guesses, and then get out the tape measure and find the answer together!
Here are a few more of the questions my friend's kids came up with:
"If we each at a whole box of cookies, how many hours would each of us have to run to burn off those calories?" In addition to the math, this one gets your kids thinking about reading that nutrition label, and about how different people use energy based on size, age, and activity.
"How many cookies do we need to sell to stack taller than the tallest building in the world?" This one lets your kids do some fact-finding - what is the tallest building, and how tall is it? Then you've got conversions and multiplication to play with.
"If we crushed them up, how many boxes would we need to fill the whole car with cookie pieces?" Now you're playing with volume, and a hands-on activity. Let your kids crush up a sleeve of cookies to measure the volume they take up.
The ideas are endless, especially once the kids get going! Share your favorite cookie question in the comments.
Look, we're never going to let a chance to talk money management with kids pass us by. Girl Scout Cookie sales are a top notch opportunity to talk about everything from cash denominations and making change to setting goals, tracking spending and income, and so much more with your kids.
While the troop probably has someone in charge of the math and money, there's no reason your kids can't do their own business expense planning. For this activity, you'll help them estimate total sales, calculate how much to spend on materials, how much to save, and how much to invest in purchasing more cookies. You can look at the profit they would make selling more cookies vs. less, and at the cost and potential benefit of different activities and marketing they could try.
Bonus activity - work together to calculate how many cookies they'd have to sell to earn enough profit for... whatever! A flight to Paris! A horse! College!
Turn Girl Scout Cookie Season into an exciting geography lesson with the 'Cookie Sales Map Game'. This activity combines learning how to read a map, calculate distance, find reference markers, and keep sales records with the deliciousness of Girl Scout Cookies.
Before you all go out to sell cookies in a neighborhood, let them make the map for where to go and how to get there. On your phone or computer, pull up a map of the neighborhood you want to sell in. Ask them to make a plan for how to get from point A (your house, school, etc.) to point B (the neighborhood they'll sell in). What streets will you go down, where will you turn, what landmarks will you pass, and how far is it? Is it close enough to walk to, or do we need to drive or ride bikes? Try it without using the directions tool, then let them try the tool to see how close they are.
Once you've made a plan together, let them take the map and be your guide on the way to those houses. Help them find street signs and reference points (parks, school, businesses, a friend's house). Talk about addresses and how they go up or down as you move through the street. Then, when you're done, ask them to guide you home again.
After the kids make cookie sales in a neighborhood, you can help them find the houses they sold to on the map. Print it out so they can color in which houses bought cookies, and which didn't.
Cooking with Girl Scout cookies is a fun way to engage your kids in the kitchen during Girl Scout Cookie Season. This activity allows them to get creative while learning about different recipes and cooking techniques. The results won't always be delicious, but they'll be fun!
To start, write out the names of several types of cookie on slips of paper and put them in a hat or bowl. Then, write out names of other ingredients you have that could go well with the cookies on other slips - peanut butter, pancake mix, cream cheese, strawberries... Ask your kids for suggestions to add to this list. Add those slips to a different hat or bowl.
Then, let your kids pick one of each - a cookie slip and an ingredient slip - out of the hats. Now they have to create a new dish combining those ingredients!
You can make this challenge a competition for the most delicious creation, or just work together to come up with great ideas. This is a chance to talk about kitchen science - What ingredients make a cookie fluffy? What are different ways to cook food? - or to work on planning out the dish - What are a few things we can make? What will taste best? What do we need to make that dish? Who will do what? What will it look like when we're done?
Let us know if you try any of these fun ideas, or what else you come up with! Remember, cookie selling season should be about so much more than just driving the kids around. Get creative, get curious, and see what questions and ideas they come up with!