Do you have a Daisy daughter or lead a troop of the youngest Girl Scouts? Great! Learning financial literacy at a young age is a lesson that will last a lifetime. Try the fun games and activities below!
For more information about GSSI's Nut, Candy & Magazine Program, please contact Director of Product Program Kelly Jansen at 800.345.6858, ext. 2104 or e-mail kjansen@gsofsi.org. Have fun! To find financial literacy games for Brownies and Juniors, visit our website!
Daisy Financial Literacy Games and Activities
Fulfills Money Counts steps 1, 2, 3:
Money Money
You need: Place Value Boards (one for each girl), bags of copied money (one for each girl), Daisy Catalog pages, Daisy Program book pages.
Pass out the Place Value Board (place value side up) one per girl. Pass out the bags of copied money, one to each girl.
Pass out the Place Value Board (place value side up) one per girl. Pass out the bags of copied money, one to each girl.
Ask the girls not to take the money out of the bag yet.
Ask the girls, “How many of you have an allowance?” You may have to explain what an allowance is. Ask the girls, “What do you spend your allowance on?”
Have the girls look at their Place Value Board. Ask them to read what the first column says. ($10.00). Point to the next column and have the girls shout out what that says, and so on to the last column.
Have the girls open their bag and pull out a nickel. Ask the girls, “What is a nickel worth?” Five cents. Have the girls open their bag and remove a penny. Ask the girls, “What is a penny worth?” One cent.
Tell the girls to pull from their bag enough pennies to equal a nickel and place it on their value board.
Now have them put their money back in the bag.
Challenge them to do different amounts, like: $1.32, $1.06, $50.10.
Be sure to include dollar amounts where there are no dimes, or no dollars. Have the girls suggest amounts to try.
Pass out the catalogs. Ask each girl to pick something they would like to buy for themselves. How much does it cost?
Set the amount of the item out on your Place Value Board. Have them pick an item they would give as a gift. How much does that cost?
Make a list of Girl Scout programs or trips the girls may be interested in, along with costs. Ask the girls to pick activities that they think sound like fun. How much does it cost? Set the amount of money the program costs on the Place Value Board.
Follow up: What are some things you like to do? Do they cost money or are they free?
Paying the Price
You need: play money and change for each girl, place value card for each girl, and small items with cost on them
Hold up the first prop, a lollipop that costs .05. Ask the girls to put .05 on their boards. Don’t give them any other directions. See what they come up with – most will either put five pennies or one nickel out. Some will put both. Point out how there are two ways to make five cents. If the girls only have one, have them try to make another.
Hold up the rest of the items, one at a time. Have the girls make their boards up to reflect as many ways as possible to make the cost of the item.
Dollar Digit
You need: Dimes and Pennies Game board (one copy per girl), Pencils (one per girl), bag of copied pennies and dimes (one per group), two normal dice (two dice per group)
Organize your group into smaller groups of 2-4 girls each. Pass out copies of the Dimes and Pennies Game boards to every girl and a bag of the pennies and dimes to every group. Each group also gets two dice and every girl gets a pencil.
Explain the rules:
1. Each player takes a turn rolling the dice.
2. Each player chooses if she wants to match the number on the dice with pennies or with dimes. For example, the first player rolls a one and a five. That makes six, right? How many pennies is that? (six) Can you use a dime? (No)
3. After the player puts her money on the coin board, she passes the dice to the next player.
4. Everyone rolls seven turns.
5. Your goal is to get as close to $1.00. How many pennies are in $1.00? (100) How many dimes? (10)
6. After seven rolls, count how much you have on your coin board and see what the rest of your group has.
7. Who has the most? Who has the least? Who is closest to $1.00?
GORP
Play this game as a group for Daisies, since it can be a little confusing! Double check your allergies and substitute as needed. The original game calls for banana chips, apricots, raisins and walnuts. If you have girls with tree nut allergies, pull walnuts and put in cranberries (check the processing label of all the food you buy to make sure there are no references to tree nuts or peanuts). If you have girls allergic to sulfites, pull the apricots. Other suggestions are sunflower seeds, chocolate chips or M&Ms.
Edit your game sheets to reflect your ingredients and copy for each girl.
You will need: Inflatable Dice (three), bags of pennies and dimes, and the coin board again to help the girls with the final cost analysis.
Read the description to the girls:
A camping store makes trail mix from these ingredients (list your ingredients). We have 10 ounces of each ingredient, which is why it says 10 on your sheet. Each bag of trail mix has three ingredients. We will take turns throwing the giant dice to figure out how many ounces of each ingredient go in the bags. We are going to try not to have any leftovers, though – the camping store has to sell all their ingredients to make money!
Choose three girls. Give each a die. Assign each girl an ingredient. Ask the rest of the girls to do a drumroll on their tables or desks before the girls throw their die. Have the girls throw their die and read their number.
Have all the girls write on their sheet the numbers. Ask the girls to write down the number on the line next to the roll number. Then ask them to subtract the rolled number from the 10 they started with. You may need to demonstrate with your fingers. For example, a girl assigned Walnuts rolls a 6. 10 minus 6 is 4. We have 4 ounces left of walnuts.
Choose three more girls and repeat, making sure you do the subtraction out loud with the girls every time.
After three rounds, ask the girls how many of each ingredient they have left.
Let’s pretend we run the camping store and for every leftover ounce of ingredient we lose .05. For every bag of trail mix we sell, we earn $3.00. How many bags of trail mix did we sell? How many leftover ounces do we have?
Use the coin board to figure out how much money we lose and how much money we make. Put five cents for every ounce in the pennies column. How many cents did we lose total? How many dollars did we make? (You made three bags so thee bags at three dollars each is 3 plus 3 plus 3). Subtract the cents we lost from the money we made. This will require a little help from you – nine minus whatever your total loss is – you may need to prompt them.
Line up your edible ingredients. Put two spoons in each ingredient. Give each girl a bag and let her add however many spoonfuls of each ingredient into her bag for a snack.
