Brownies: Making Friends Badge

Hello! Welcome back! Today we are covering the steps for the Making Friends Brownie Badge. I personally think this is an excellent badge to cover at the start of the scouting year! It gives the girls a chance to get to know any new girls in the troop. It's also a great "ice breaker" for the year.

1. Make friendly introductions

   1. Have the girls practice introducing themselves to each of the girls. Have them pretend it's their first time meeting and share their names and one interesting thing about them. 
   2. Use a large bounce ball or beach ball (from Dollar Tree) and write fun questions. Start by passing the ball, when the girl catches it she can say her name and read aloud and answer the question that is facing her. Check out this site for more details.

2. Show friends you care

   1. Emoji swaps for friends (this one is my fav!)
   2. Write a pen pal letter about why you enjoy being friends with someone

1. Share in favorite activities

   1. Have each girl write on a piece of paper their favorite activity or game. Fold them up and put them in a hat and have them guess which activity belongs to which girl. After you have gone through them all save time to play a few games.
      1. Go fish
      2. Eye Found it card game
      3. Jump rope
      4. musical chairs

2. Learn how to disagree

   1. Friendship skips: Have the girls break up into small groups (2-3 work best) and act out scenarios on how to be a good friend and handle conflict.  We bought these cute turtle craft foam kit. The girls got to decorate their own turtle and attached them to sunglasses and used them with their skips as puppets. They were turtle "scouts". You can also attach them to wooden craft sticks if you don't have sunglasses. 

Skits are a fantastic way for girls to express themselves and build courage in their voice. The girls have a ton of fun with them too! 

1. Practice friendship

   1. Visit a park and have the girls practice introducing themselves to the other kids. Get a game of tag going with other friends at the park.
   2. Consider creating a buddy bench at school
   3. Have the girls create and sign a Friendship Pledge". Include in the pledge. Examples of what to include could be: I will befriend the new kid in class, I will include everyone on the playground....

For more Brownie scout ideas check out our Brownie page here!