Games / Activities for Third Grade Girls?

[texanne]

How about a sewing/crafting project? These are things that kids just aren't doing any more.

Hook rugs.
Cross stitch embroidery. (not the little tiny kind, but the one where the design is printed in the "canvas.")
Crochet
Ohhhhh...remember the loom where we made the potholders as kids? That's something you could probably do in one or two sessions, and the kid gives the potholder to mom. Might be too late for Mother'd Day this year, but perhaps next year.

[LisaMc46]

A community service project would provide a great way for your troop to bond and earn some badges.

I'd recommend planting a garden and giving the harvest to a local food shelf. Many food shelves lack produce and the poor are often hesitate to buy fresh vegetables and herbs because of the cost.

Seeds are inexpensive and your local garden center or neighbors would probably be willing to donate some. The garden could be at your house, on a community garden plot if your town offers one, or at the home of one of your troop members.

You could spend some time each week weeding and caring for the plants and you could bring the produce to the food shelf together each week. You could also start a compost pile, which aside from providing free fertilizer, would provide the opportunity to earn some type of environmental or conservation badge.

If this seems overwhelming, you could Plant-A-Row for hunger. This is a popular activities with school children here in Vermont. All you have to do is plant an extra row in an existing garden and donate the produce to a food shelf.

Gardening is also a great way to get kids outside---something I think is important and not emphasized enough these days.

[jtur88]

Let them make up their own rules. Start out, any game, for a few minutes, and then hold up your hands and say "Wait a minute, this isn't working. Let's change the rules to make it a better, fairer game. How can we do that? Then stand back and let them. Kids are, for the most part, very very fair, most don't like to cheat, and if it's just a game, a strong sense of letting the little kids play too.

That's the way we played baseball when we were kids, far out of sight of any parents. Littlest kid strikes out, we lose track of the count and say that's strike two. The little kid says no, I was counting, and we say somebody called time out on one of them. Everybody wins, because we demanded rules that did not make winners and losers, but players, and we changed the rules if necessary.