Cookie University
for Daisies:
Learning Has Never Been So Tasty
Dear Girl Scout Volunteers,
As you may know, the Girl Scout Cookie Sale is the largest girl-led Business & Entrepreneurship program
in the world. Through their cookie sales, Girl Scouts learn the following 5 essential skills that equip them
to succeed in school, work and beyond: Money Management, Decision Making, Goal Setting, People
Skills and Business Ethics. We have developed the Cookie University program as a way for girls to
develop and build on these 5 skills through engaging in fun, hands-on interactive activities centered
around the Cookie Sale and learning from older girls, who have Cookie Sale experience, when possible.
This curriculum is meant to serve as a guide for you to offer the Cookie University program either to your
Daisy troop at your troop meetings or for you, your Borough Program Committee and/or your Service
Unit to organize your own Multi-Troop, Borough-Wide or Service Unit events. Through participating in
this program, Daisies will earn their Count It Up and Talk It Up leaves.
Want some more activities? Refer to the Cookie Business leaves, petals and badges in the Girls Guide to
Girl Scouting and Little Brownie Bakers’ website.
Need additional advice or information? Contact Nicole Weitzner, Coordinator of Younger Girl Programs
at [email protected].
Enjoy!
The Program Department
Girl Scouts of Greater New York
The Five Skills:
1) Goal Setting:
Girls set cookie sales goals and, with their team, create a plan to reach
them. This matters because girls need to know how to set and reach goals
to succeed in school, on the job, and in life.
2) Decision Making:
Girls decide where and when to sell cookies, how to market their sale, and what to
do with their earnings. This matters because girls must make many decisions, big
and small, in their lives. Learning this skill helps them make good ones.
3) Money Management:
Girls develop a budget, take cookie orders, and handle customers’ money. This
matters because girls need to know how to handle money—from their lunch
money to their allowance to (someday) their paycheck.
4)People Skills:
Girls learn how to talk (and listen!) to their customers, as well as learning how to
work as a team with other girls. This matters because it helps them do better in
school (on group projects, on sports teams, and on the
playground) and, later, at work.
5)Business Ethics:
Girls act honestly and responsibly during every step of the cookie sale. This
matters because employers want to hire ethical employees—and the world needs
ethical leaders in every field.
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Sample Cookie
University Learning
Labs
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Learning Lab # 1: Cookie
Connoisseurs
Objective:
Girls learn about the cookie varieties as they play this cookie card matching
game.
Supplies:
1 set of cookie concentration cards for every 3 or 4 girls, 1 cookie flyer
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Instructions:
Announce to the girls: “We have great news: It’s time to get ready to sell Girl Scout cookies!”
Ask them:
• “What do you know about Girl Scout cookies?”
• “Do you have a favorite Girl Scout cookie?”
Share the cookie flyer with the girls and talk about the different cookie names and descriptions.
Then, play the Cookie Concentration Game:
• Mix up the cookie concentration cards and place them face down in a grid pattern on the table or floor.
• The first girl turns face up 2 cards of her choice.
• If they match, she takes these 2 cards and takes another turn.
• If they do not match, she turns them face down, without changing their position in the layout, and then it is the next
player’s turn.
• Play continues until all cards are gone.
• The girl with the most pairs wins the game.
• If you have a large group, you may want to either divide the girls into smaller groups to play or have the girls form
teams that play each other.
Activities taken from Girls’ Guides to Girl Scouting and Little Brownie Bakers
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Learning Lab #2: The Cost of
Cookies
Objective:
Girls learn how much a box of Girl Scout cookies cost and different
combinations of bills and coins that can be used to pay for Girl Scout cookies.
Supplies:
Fake money in bills and coins
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Instructions:
Go over each type of coin and bill together as a group.
Ask the girls how much each coin and bill is.
Ask them how many of each type of coin (pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters) amounts to $1.
Ask them if they know how much a box of Girl Scout cookies cost.
• If they do not, tell them $4.
Ask them how much 2 boxes of Girl Scout cookies would cost if 1 box is $4.
• If they do not know, take them through it (i.e.: “1 box is $4, and another box is $4, so 4 + 4 = what?”).
Tell them that there are a few different combinations of coins and bills that could equal $1, and say: “You are going to work
together in pairs or small groups and come up with as many combinations of coins and bills you can to equal $1!”
Have the girls work in pairs or small groups to do this.
Then, go over each pair’s/group’s combinations and tell them that they would need 4 times the amount of each
combination to pay for a box of Girl Scout cookies.
Activities taken from Girls’ Guides to Girl Scouting and Little Brownie Bakers
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Learning Lab #3: Oh, the Things
We Can Do!
Objective:
Help girls discover their ideas and work as a team to decide on 2 ways to use
the money they earn (a fun and learning goal and a service goal) through their
cookie sales.
Supplies:
Sticky notes (2 different colors), Markers, Paper cups, Goal poster (from Little
Brownie Bakers website, or you can make your own), Cookie cut-outs
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Instructions:
Warm-up activity:
To prepare, write the following phrases on the beach ball: Greet your customer, Share your goals, Ask customer if
she would like to buy cookies, Recommend your favorite cookie, Suggest cookies as gifts, Say goodbye to your
customer.
Invite girls to stand in a circle, and explain that this game gives them a chance to practice some of the things they
will say to their customers. Read the phrases on the ball out loud.
Instruct girls that when they catch the ball, they must “freeze” their thumbs on the ball in exactly that spot.
Throw the ball to a girl. The girl locates the phrase closest to one of her thumbs, then demonstrates that part of her
sales “pitch.”
She then throws the ball to another girl, who does the same.
Continue until all the girls have had at least 1 chance to practice, and all the topics have been covered.
To prepare for the main activity:
Based on the interests of the girls, come up with some ideas for exciting activities they can do with their cookie
proceeds. Write these on 1 color of sticky notes.
Now think of ideas for service activities girls can do with their cookie proceeds. Write these on a different color of
sticky notes.
Hide all the notes around the meeting area (be sure there are enough for every girl to find at least one).
Activities taken from Girls’ Guides to Girl Scouting and Little Brownie Bakers
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Instructions Cont’d:
Engage in a discussion with the girls.
Ask the girls:
• “Why do we sell Girl Scout cookies?”
o Likely response: “Because it’s fun, people like them, they taste good, etc.”
o Tell them: “We also sell Girl Scout cookies to earn money.”
Ask:
• “Why would we want to earn money?”
o If they do not include the following in their answers, tell them that “in addition to helping us to pay for fun
things we do together, the Cookie Program helps all the Girl Scouts in our area and helps run camps and
other programs.”
Hold up 2 fingers, and say, “With our Cookie Program money, we will do something fun together and do something to help
make the world a better place. The great news is that YOU get to decide what we will do!”
Tell them, “Now we’re going to have an idea hunt. It’s a game that will help everyone work together to decide which 2 goals
we will choose.”
Girls play the game, hunting for the hidden sticky notes with suggestions for activities they may enjoy doing with their cookie
money.
When a girl finds one, she should return to the circle. If all girls have returned to the circle and there are still many notes
that have not been found, you may have another round.
Have the girls sit in a circle, and arrange all the paper cups (have 1 paper cup per sticky note).
As you go around the circle and read and discuss each girl’s note, ask her to stick it on a paper cup on the floor in the center
of the circle, categorizing by color.
• Point out that 1 color has ideas for fun things they can do, while the other color has ideas for ways they can make the
world a better place.
Ask the girls, “Do you have any additional ideas?”
• If so, enthusiastically add these to the collection.
Ask the girls, “Which ideas do you like best? Are there any that you don’t like?”
Activities taken from Girls’ Guides to Girl Scouting and Little Brownie Bakers
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Instructions Cont’d:
Tell the girls they will use the cookie cut-outs to vote for their favorite ideas, after which you will make a colorful cookie
graph to show the results.
Help the girls narrow their choices and choose both an activity goal and a service goal by using voting or consensus.
Hand each girl 6 cookie cut-outs to use for voting.
Invite each girl to vote for her 3 favorite fun ideas and her 3 favorite service ideas by dropping a cookie cut-out in each
paper cup labeled with her favorite options.
Together, count the votes from each paper cup and record the results on the cookie graph.
Move the winning sticky notes to the goal poster, or record the winning ideas there.
Explain to the girls that they will be selling Girl Scout cookies so that they can reach these 2 goals.
Congratulate them on their teamwork! Explain that in the next Learning Lab, they will figure out how many cookies
they need to sell to reach these goals.
If there is still time, have the girls create a big poster showing how they would like to help others with some of the
money. They can put up the poster at their cookie booth and talk to customers about it.
Activities taken from Girls’ Guides to Girl Scouting and Little Brownie Bakers
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Learning Lab # 4: Go for the Goal!
Objective:
Girls come up with their goal of the number of boxes of cookies they hope to sell in
order to be able to do both their fun activity and their service activity and create a
way to keep track of this goal.
Supplies:
CD jewel case (1 per girl), Goal tracker template, Garden of goals template
(optional), Crayons/colored pencils/markers, Ribbon (15 inches per girl),
Scissors, Glue or tape
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Instructions:
To prepare for the activity:
Print 1 garden of goals template for each girl (choose either option 1 or 2) and trim around the edges.
Print 1 or 2 goal tracker templates for each girl, and trim around the edges.
Cut ribbon in 15 inch lengths (1 piece per girl). You may wish to pre-attach a ribbon to the back of each CD
case.
For option 1, trim the construction paper or card stock to fit into the CD case cover.
The team will want to decide their Cookie Season goals either before or during this activity.
Give each girl a copy of the garden of goals template and some writing and coloring supplies.
Discuss with the girls:
“When you think of the money we will need to do the 2 activities we have chosen, how many boxes of
cookies do you think we need to sell?”
Tell them that the number they come up with is called their goal.
Tell them that they can also set a savings goal, which means a goal for how much money they hope to have
left over after doing their 2 activities.
Add that with their savings, they can spend it for other things they want to do or have.
Together, come up with a sales goal and a savings goal for the number of boxes of cookies they hope to
sell for each.
Activities taken from Girls’ Guides to Girl Scouting and Little Brownie Bakers
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Instructions Cont’d:
Next, have the girls make their garden of goals door hangers.
Invite girls to write one of their goals inside each flower (in addition to the other 2 goals they came up with as a troop,
each girl can also come up with her own personal cookie box goal of how many cookie boxes she would like to sell).
Girls can write their “helping others” goals inside the helping hands flower, their “fun and learning goal” inside the
smiley face flower and their “personal selling goal” inside the cookie flower.
Invite girls to color and decorate their flower garden.
If using template option 1, allow girls to select a colorful piece of construction paper and then glue their flower garden
to the colored paper.
If using template option 2, guide girls as they cut apart their flowers, using the dotted line as a guide and then glue their
flowers on their garden.
Give each girl a CD case and a ribbon. If the ribbon is not already attached to the CD case, assist girls in attaching the
ribbon to the back of the case with tape.
Show girls how to slide their finished flower garden into the cover of the CD case.
Allow girls to place one tracker in the CD holder on the right of the open case and place the other on the back of the
flower garden cover.
Use scotch tape or school glue to hold them in place if desired.
At home, the garden of goals door hanger becomes a great goal reminder and tracker that also involves families.
Girls will want to share their goals with their families and talk about plans that will help them reach those goals.
Suggest girls hang their craft on their bedroom door handle.
Show girls how to use the trackers inside the CD to help them track and achieve their goals. Invite them to color in 1
section for each box of cookies they sell. Once a row of five is filled in, they can go to the next row. Older Girl Scout
Daisies may enjoy practicing to count by 5s to total up the rows they have colored in.
Activities taken from Girls’ Guides to Girl Scouting and Little Brownie Bakers
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Learning Lab #5: Thank you,
Customers!
Objective:
Girls learn the importance of thanking their customers and think of
creative ways to express their thanks in cards/postcards to customers.
Supplies:
Enough paper, thicker paper if doing postcards or thank you card
templates for each girl to make 2-3 thank you cards/postcards,
Markers/crayons/colored pencils, Stickers, Other decorative crafty
items
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Instructions:
Girls make thank you cards/postcards to thank their customers.
Ask the girls what kinds of things they could include on their thank you cards/postcards, in
addition to saying thank you. They might mention the following things, and if not, mention
them in addition to their ideas:
• The types of trips the money will help them go on.
• The types of activities/projects the money will help them do.
• The types of things the money will help them improve in their communities.
Tell the girls that they could write these things or draw them or both.
Suggest that girls make more of either the same or different thank you cards/postcards at
their troop meetings to give away to customers during their cookie sales.
If there is still time, have girls present the cards/postcards they have made to the rest of the
group.
Activities taken from Girls’ Guides to Girl Scouting and Little Brownie Bakers
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Learning Lab #6: Smart Cookies
Objective:
Girls learn how to interact with and answer customers’ questions, so they feel
empowered to deal with the questions they are asked.
Supplies:
Table, Several boxes of Girl Scout cookies
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Instructions:
Girls take turns role-playing as cookie sellers, with older girls or adults acting as their customers.
Split the Daisies into 2 groups (explain that 1 group will first do the role-play, while the other group observes;
then, they will switch).
Have the girls acting as cookie sellers stand behind the table, while the girls observing sit on the floor.
Older girls or adults take turns going up to the table and acting as customers. They ask the Daisies questions,
such as:
• Which is your favorite type of cookie?
• What will you do with the money you earn?
After each group has a turn at both selling and observing, have the Daisies share how they think each group did
well and how they could improve.
Then, the older girls or adults also let the Daisies know what they think they did well on and what they could
improve on.
Activities taken from Girls’ Guides to Girl Scouting and Little Brownie Bakers
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Additional Resources:
•Little Brownie website
•GSUSA website
•Oriental Trading Company website to order materials (i.e.:
graduation caps, etc.)
•Diploma Template
•Flyer Template
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Evaluation :
Have girls complete the evaluation survey (which we will
be posting on our website soon) upon completion of
Cookie University and send to:
Girl Scouts of Greater New York, 43 West 23rd St., 6th
Floor, New York, NY, 10010.
Attn: Program Department
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