5 Fun Activities to help you earn the Making Friends Brownie Badge

What You Need:

• Music Player

How to Do It:

1. Pair the girls up and give them 2 minutes to create a unique 3-step friendship handshake (e.g., clap, high-five, snap).
2. Start the music and have the girls mingle around the room. When the music stops, they must instantly find a new partner.
3. They must introduce themselves, share their favorite outdoor activity, and then teach each other their custom handshakes.
4. Repeat for 3 rounds!

Why It's Fun & Works for the Badge:

It breaks down the social anxiety of talking to different girls in the troop by centering the introduction around a silly, creative physical action. It works beautifully to practice introductions and learn how to share bits of personal information.

Leader Tips:

Keep the music changes fast-paced to avoid awkward standing around. To encourage mixing outside of normal school cliques, check out Magnetic Name Tags on Amazon so everyone can easily spot each other's names from across the room. 

What You Need:

• A bowl or small bag
• Paper slips with different feelings written on them (e.g., lonely, excited, left-out, proud)

How to Do It:

1. Have a girl pull an emotion slip from the bowl and act out that feeling using only facial expressions and body language—no words allowed!
2. The rest of the troop guesses the emotion. Once guessed correctly, ask the girls: "What can a good friend do or say to help someone who feels this way?"
3. Take turns until several emotions are explored, highlighting how to spot clues when a friend needs comfort.

Why It's Fun & Works for the Badge:

Brownies love acting games! This satisfies the kindness and caring requirement by physically practicing empathy and discovering how to read social cues when a friend is having a hard day.

Leader Tips & Product Recommendations: 
Keep a pack of Emotion Flash Cards from Amazon in your bin to make the game even faster to set up.

What You Need:

• Large paper plates (1 per girl
• Colored markers

How to Do It:

1. Pair the girls up with someone they don't know very well and have them fold their paper plate down the center line.
2. On one half, they draw things they disagree on or like differently (e.g., cats vs. dogs, or math vs. reading).
3. On the other half, they must discuss and find things they completely agree on (e.g., we both love pizza, we both love recess).
4. Have them decorate the middle seam with a drawing of them shaking hands, turning the plate into a friendship compromise shield.

Why It's Fun & Works for the Badge:

It visually models that friends don't have to agree on everything to be close! It satisfies the requirement to work through differences by teaching girls to identify and respect different opinions while looking for common ground.

Leader Tips: 
Use sturdy, smooth paper plates like these on Amazon so the markers don't bleed through or rip the paper while the girls are coloring.

What You Need:

• A small beach ball or soft plush toy

How to Do It:

1. Have the girls sit in a circle. The person holding the ball passes it to the girl on her right and says one specific way they can make a new student feel welcome at school.
2. The next girl must pass it along and share a completely new idea (e.g., "Invite them to sit at lunch," "Show them where the restrooms are," "Ask them to play tag").
3. Continue around the circle until every girl has offered a welcoming action, creating a collective troop strategy list.

Why It's Fun & Works for the Badge:

It builds a culture of active inclusion. It shifts the perspective to hospitality and ensures that every scout knows exactly how to step into a leadership role when meeting an outsider.

Leader Tips:
If a girl gets stuck, prompt her by asking what she would want someone to say to her on her very first day. Grab a colorful inflatable colorful Beach Ball to keep the game visually engaging and lightweight for inside meetings.

What You Need:

• Clean, empty plastic water bottles or cardboard tubes
• Small slips of paper
• Markers

How to Do It:

1. Have each girl write down one thing they love about their current troop friends on a small slip of paper.
2. Roll up the slips of paper along with a copy of the troop photo and slide them inside their container to build a "friendship capsule."
3. Decorate the outside of the capsule with bright tape or stickers, and instruct them to keep it sealed until their final meeting of the scouting year as a way to celebrate staying in touch.

Why It's Fun & Works for the Badge:
This hits the final requirement of celebrating the friends you have and finding unique ways to preserve connections over time.

Leader Tip: 
Collect cardboard paper towel rolls ahead of time so girls are recycling, or purchase a set of craft-ready cardboard tubes on Amazon.