2.22 Leaping in the Leap Year

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Program Connections:
  • Key to STEM
    • 6. Reach for the Stars!

KeytoSTEM

  • Key to Active Living
    • 2. Outdoor Action

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  • Key to Active Living Interest badge: Go For It!

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Gathering Activity (in their circles)

Opening

  • Circle Songs
  • Brownie Song

Discussion

  • What is a “Leap Year”?
  • A leap year is a year in which one extra day has been inserted at the end of February. A leap year consists of 366 days, whereas other years, called common years, have 365 days.
  • Years which are evenly divisible by 4, such as 2004 and 2008, 2012 are leap years. However, there are some exceptions in century years. A century year, that is, a year which ends in two zeroes 1800, 1900, 2000, etc., is not a leap year unless it is also evenly divisible by 400. The next century leap year will be 2400. When do you think the next leap year will be? (2016)
  • Why do we have leap years?
  • The time it actually takes for the Earth to travel around the sun is 365.24219 days, but our calendar is either 365 days (for a “common” year) or 366 days (for a “leap” year). If we did not have leap years, our seasons would “drift” - every year we would lose about 6 hours. After 100 years, our calendar would be about 24 days ahead of the season - over time our summers and winters would be reversed!
  • Do leap years have anything to do with frogs?
  • No! But frogs leap! And frogs are fun. So we’re going to have a frog meeting!

Games

  • The Long Leap
  • Have the girls run and jump from a pre-marked line on the floor or grass. Write their names on frog stickers taped to popsicle sticks to use as flags to mark where they land. Indoors you can stick the popsicle sticks into plasticine or playdough to help them stand up.
  • The High Leap
  • Find out who can leap the highest by taping a large picture of a tree (created using a roll of newsprint paper) onto a wall. Give each girl a frog sticker to jump up and stick to the tree as high as she can.
  • The Lily Pad Leap
  • Cut out lily pad shapes from green construction paper and create a trail for the girls to follow - leap from lily pad to lily pad to get to the end of the course.
  • The Flying Leap
  • Using clipart frogs, have the girls hold on to the edges of a bed sheet or parachute. Have them gently flutter the sheet up and down to make the frogs hop around. On cue, have the girls fly the frogs high in the air to leap off of the sheet, then race to collect as many frogs as they can.

Craft

Songs

Brownie Closing