10 Seriously Fun and Memorable Summer Activities
Make some memories. Try some of these activities this summer with your troop!
- Make Ice Cream in a Bag-Ingredients for one girl
1/2 cup Milk or half and half, 1 Tbsp. Sugar, 1/2 tsp. Vanilla
1 Quart Zip-lock Bag
1 Gallon Zip-lock Bag or large coffee can
Ice
Rock Salt or regular salt
A towel (for melting ice clean-up)
Newspaper or mittens or socks on your hands
Tape (Masking or Duct is best)
Pour all pre-measured ingredients into the Quart bag, squeeze out all the air and put a little tape across the zipped top so that it doesn’t open up. Place 1-2 Quart bags into the Gallon bag half full of ice or a large coffee can and 6 Tablespoons of salt of rock salt. Seal the Gallon bag shut. Wrap in newspaper and tape closed or put mittens or socks on your hands or wrap in a towel. Or if you’re using a large can you can duct tape around the top.
Toss the bag back and forth (or roll the can back and forth) to a partner approximately 5-10 minutes. The ice cream will then be soft serve and ready to eat. Cut one corner and squeeze it out into your mouth or add fresh fruit or some crushed nuts and eat with a spoon out of the bag and enjoy! - Make a Laugh Train or a Circle Lapsit
To do a lapsit you stand in a tight circle and all sit back on each other’s laps at the same time. Another variation is the laugh train. This is best done when you’re laying on your backs in the grass. Each girl puts her head on someone else’s stomach. When one starts to laugh everyone else will laugh and all the heads will bounce up and down.
Variation – Back scratching train, hair braiding train, massage train etc. - Scavenger Hunt
Divide the troop into smaller teams and send them out to find a list of things within a certain amount of time. This could be nature objects if you’re at a park or types of trash or pictures with different landmarks or items found door to door. It’s also fun to have your older girls make a scavenger hunt for younger girls. Here are some examples:
Girl Scout Council at Balboa Scavenger Hunt
Old Town Scavenger Hunt (and patch!)
Balboa Park Scavenger Hunt
Quick Hunts has some nice ideas for scavenger hunts around the school, in a park etc. - Make Armpit Fudge –
Armpit Fudge
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons cream cheese or 1/2 slice american cheese
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder. Put all of the ingredients in a resealable plastic bag. Squeeze the air out of the bag and seal it. Knead the bag until all of the ingredients are thoroughly mixed. You can use your armpits, your knees, your hands–anything you can think of to warm and soften the ingredients and smush the bag! After the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, you can add some chopped nuts or mini m&ms or raisins. Open the bag and eat with a spoon or chill slightly to get a more firm and fudgy consistency. It’s also good with peanut butter instead of cocoa as long as you don’t have any peanut allergies! - Friendship Bracelets – Any project that takes a long time and is easy to fold up into your pocket is great for summer!
My girls loved making friendship bracelets from embroidery floss. Here’s a terrific website that will get you started:
http://friendship-bracelets.net/tutorials.php - Shooting Stars and Sparkle Smiles – summer is a great time to look for shooting stars and if you don’t see any you make your own.
The big perseid meteor shower August 12 2016 would be a great time to find a place to sleep outside with your troop and watch for shooting stars. The perseids are always in mid-august. If it’s a cloudy night then be sure to bring some wintergreen lifesavers. When you chomp on those with your mouth open you’ll see green flashes of light. Almost as fun as shooting stars. - Capture the Flag – is a classic game for summer evenings. All you need are 2 bandanas and two teams.
The field is divided into two clearly designated halves, known as territories. Players form two teams, one for each territory. Each side has a “flag” which is most often a piece of fabric, but can be any object small enough to be easily carried by a person (night time games might use flashlights, glowsticks or lanterns as the “flags”). It is also suggested that teams wear dark colors at night to make it more difficult for their opponents to see them. If one team has the opposing team’s flag on their territory they may be tagged because they have the opposing team’s flag.The objective of the game is for players to make their way into the opposing team’s territory, grab the flag and return with it to their own territory without being tagged. The flag is defended mainly by tagging opposing players who attempt to take it. Within their own territory players are “safe”, meaning that they cannot be tagged by opposing players. Once they cross into the opposing team’s territory they are vulnerable. - M&M game – I used to use the M&M game as a “get to know each other” game and we often used it to brainstorm ideas for the troop calendar. The idea is that each color of M & M represents a different category. You pick an M&M out of the bowl and then have to share an idea in that category…you can come up with other ideas on your own.
Get to Know You M&M Game
Yellow – favorite subject or thing to do at school or favorite book
Blue – what’s one favorite food
Brown – what are you looking forward to doing this summer?
Green –favorite thing you’ve done or going to do with Girl Scouts
Red – something about your family or pets
Orange – things you like to do: indoors or outdoors or favorite sport
Troop Calendar M&M Game
Yellow – what journey would you like to work on?
Blue – what badge looks interesting to you?
Brown – where would you like to go camping?
Green –name something we should do outdoors this year
Red – what community service project would you like to do?
Orange – what game, craft or other activity should we do? - Cup Stacking–
Cup stacking is a worldwide competition but your girls will think it’s fun! They might even get really good at it! Council has some stacks you can check out in the resource room or try it with
10. Sand Sculptures
It’s fun to go to the beach in the summertime and look for treasures. Take bags and gloves and it becomes a clean up, Sing songs afterward around a fire ring and it becomes a bonfire. My older girl scouts loved going to the beach for a bonfire and it was a great end of summer celebration. Turn in an activity approval if you’re going to go in the water and pick a beach with a lifeguard on duty! One of our favorite things to do at the beach was to make a beach sculpture or candle.
Pour some water on the sand, make a “mold” using a cup or your foot or hand, decorate it with stones and shells, pour it full of plaster of paris or melted wax and let it set up. Rinse it off, dry it and spray it with shellac to keep it shiny. It makes a great paper weight, book end or even a fancy bowl! I like to mix plaster in a zip loc bag. Scoop a cup or more into a gallon bag. Add water and mush out all the lumps till it’s smooth and thick as sour cream. Pour into your mold.
Look for many more ideas on the Sunnytrails Pinterest boards!