2015 Thinking Day – Bengal Tiger Tail Swap

Our service unit always puts on a Thinking Day event, and I’m sure yours is similar.  We’ve done countries a million times, so for the past few years, we’ve had variations on Thinking Day.  For example, last year we highlighted countries’ holidays.  Each troop can pick one (or two – or three!) different ones to present.

Last year, a girl asked our SU program coordinator if we could present animals for this year’s Thinking Day.  Sure, why not!  Girl led, baby!  So animals it was.

To keep more of our girls engaged and not running all around the gym, our troop’s Brownies picked koalas, and our Juniors picked white bengal tigers.  Each presentation is required to hand out a swap or some kind of token that has something to do with your topic.

One of our girls came up with the idea of making a tiger out of white and black pipe cleaners, so I suggested that we just do the tail since a whole tiger would take some time, and we had to make 200 of them!  Here’s how we made them:

First, we took one black and one white pipe cleaner each.  (The ones I bought were pretty long, so we cut them in half).  We used one larger sized safety pin (size 2, I think) and wrapped a label in half that I had printed out on standard address labels around one side of the safety pin.  One side said “White Bengal Tiger” and the other “GS Troop 2562 Thinking Day 2015.”

Next, we pulled the two pipe cleaners halfway through the hole opposite from where the pin opens.  I’m sure there’s a name for that part, but I have no idea what it is.  Anyway, we twisted one end together to make it easier to thread the two pipe cleaners through at the same time.

Next, we twisted both pipe cleaners together randomly and then twisted the ends together pretty tightly.  Fold over the end so that the pipe cleaners don’t poke someone, and they are less likely to come apart.  There’s your tiger tail!  They were a big hit, and it took about 20 to 25 minutes for 12 girls plus two leaders to make 200 of them.