Oct 2013: Requirements for Girl Scout Way, Celebrating Community and Bugs Brownie badges

Happy Halloween!

If it's one thing I've learned as Girl Scout leader, is the girls love a party!  Doesn't matter what it's for, any reason is reason enough! So while we hadn't yet really gotten a lot of badge work done, we simply had to celebrate Halloween.

The thing is.... I remember as a Girl Scout Junior being surprised at  my first Court of Awards with all the badges I had earned.  I knew about the ones that I had worked on, on my own.  But where did all the others come from?  I realized when I first became a leader that even though I was having fun, my leader was still having us learn stuff and complete badges.

That, my friends, is the key to doing this right.

Good leaders manage to teach the girls new ideas and skills while having fun or making it interesting at the same time. So while we had our party, we still managed to complete several requirements. One I forgot the supplies for, but I will share it here because it fits with the theme, and you may be able to use the idea.

We opened with our usual Flag ceremony and then got down to it. In circle time, we talked about Juliette Low's birthday which is Oct 31st, the same as Halloween.  We talked about who she was and little about what was important to her.  We then sang happy birthday and had "cake" which was really cupcakes for simplicity's sake.  This fulfills requirement #2 of the Girl Scout Way badge.

With so many girls, I decided it would be best to break them into teams to do the activities.  (On a side note, I've been following this model since Oct and it has worked VERY well for us.) I didn't just break them into teams, however, I also assigned a girl to be leader.  It was each girl's responsibility to make sure the girls stayed at the correct station at the same time.

I wasn't sure how this would work.  And while some girls are born leaders, there are just as many who are not.  I had to keep reminding team leaders to gather their teams, but that's OK.  You don't build strong women and leaders in a single night.

So for the party, rather than have complete chaos, as I said I planned stations where the teams would rotate.  There were 5 : nail polish, games, trick or treat bags, bracelets and collage.  I made up a schedule ahead of time and gave it to each so when I called time, they could go to the next stations.  Moms helped get the girls to the right place.  There were 4 teams.

Side note:  I did figure out what I would need ahead of time for the party and send out a sign up sheet.  While I would use dues money for the craft stuff, other items I put on the sign up, like music for the party which could also be used for the games.  The parents were responsive and this took a load off of me having to buy and cart all this extra stuff up to the cabin.

Anyway, first station - Nail polish.  I bought a bottle each of purple and bright green insta-dry nail polish. It really does dry in a minute or I would never have considered this.  As I suspected, the girls loved this, I mean, who doesn't love green and purple nails?? Just make sure no one is wearing good clothes or their uniform when trying something like this!

Next, we had games.  We played wrap the mummy and musical chairs.  I don't think I need to say the girls thoroughly got into these:

Next, they decorated trick or treat bags.  The local craft store had blank canvas bags which they turned into trick or treat bags with fabric markers and glitter glue.  Also at this table were "loom"bracelets.  This served as an overflow when girls were waiting to go to another station.  Plus, they really like making these, so I keep a supply on hand for any time I need to keep the girls busy.

Next, the girls worked on a collage poster (3rd requirement for Girl Scout Way)  to use in the Halloween parade they would be marching in the following week (note, this fulfills the 3rd requirement for the Celebrating Community badge)

The last station I had planned but didn't do, was to make spiders out of paper plates. This would have covered the 2nd requirement for the bugs badge.  But we didn't get to it.  I am sure though, how you could see how making a spider craft on Halloween goes together though. I'll cover this in the spring with a butterfly craft instead.

Finally, since this was only our second time meeting at the cabin, I had the girls do a little extra cleaning to the cabin.  There was a lot of leaves and dirt left from the summer, so we decided to leave the place better than we found it - the 4th requirement of the Girl Scout Way badge.

So there you have it - 4 more requirements fulfilled, and a good time had by all!  I hope these ideas are helpful to you!

Sincerely,

Leader Mom in the Making

Meeting #2 Oct 2013 - Girl Scout Way & Celebrating Community Brownie Badges

Hello Girl Scout Moms!

Was coaching another mom who is suppose to lead a petal for her daughter's Daisy meeting and it reminded me just how far behind I was in recording our Brownie proceedings.  The good news is that I took the time to plan out several months of meetings at once, and so I have pretty good notes!

So, It's the first meeting in Oct, and we are OUT of my house (yay!!) The cabin is a bit rough - clearly the boys have been meeting there for a long time.  But I think we can slowly start to add more touches to make it more appealing to girls.

But the thing is, it's a good size room.  There's a sink, a bathroom, flags to use for a ceremony and a place to store our troop supplies.  And we control when it's opened with our own key.  No more can the school cancel our meeting because there's no school or because they simply forget to unlock the school for us (which happened on a regular basis last year).

I learned my lesson and did not conduct parent business at the beginning of the meeting.  I did let the girls play duck duck goose at the beginning (big mistake) while waiting for all the girls to get there.  Let me say now, avoid this game at the beginning, save it for the end.  The girls get all worked up and then it takes half the meeting to calm them down again.  I keep falling for this trap and vowed after this to find another solution for the wait of start of meetings.

I had decided that this year I wanted to incorporate the flag ceremony into our meetings.  This meets the 5th requirement for the Celebrating Community badge.So the first half of the meeting was dedicated to teaching the girls what to do.  We just used the basic ceremony found on the National Girl Scout site.   This about what we do.  I have it printed and in a plastic sheet I keep in my Girl Scout binder.  That way, it's always handy.

announcer:  "Girl Scouts, attention." Used to announce that the flag ceremony is to begin.

announcer:   "Color guard, advance." This signals the color guard to advance with the flags, or advance to pick up the flags.

announcer:  "Please join us in saying the Pledge of Allegiance." (all the girls recite as one with their hands over their hearts)

announcer:  "Girl Scouts, recite the promise." The announcer says one line at a time and the girls repeat.

announcer:  "Girl Scouts, recite the law" The announcer says one line at a time and the girls repeat.

announcer:  "Girl Scouts, dismissed." Girls may leave in formation or be at ease where they have been standing.

So that there are no arguments about who "get to do it" we have this as part of our Kaper chart and rotate the girls.  The girls are still young, so we have a "leader" who says one line of the law and then the rest of the girls repeat. I don't have a picture from that first meeting because I was so busy teaching them, but I have one from the following meeting - our Halloween meeting ha ha...

OK, that being done, we went into the second half of the meeting which met the 5th requirement of Girl Scout Way - doing a tradition.  What's more traditional than sit-upons?!

I had learned at one of my trainings that a lot of the troops are making their sit-upons out of decorative duct tape instead of the weaving I did as a young Brownie myself.  Sounded good to me!  What we did:

Supplies:
Roll of brown kraft paper or old grocery bags
1 roll of clear packing tape
rolls of duct tape - at least one per girl easy
quilt batting - Queen size was more than enough for 12 girls
sharpie marker ( to mark their names)
scissors to cut tape


Steps:
1. Lay out the batting and have the girls cut approximately a 11 x 14 rectangle of batting
2. have them lay the batting on the kraft and have them cut a 22 x 14 piece so they can make a "sandwich" of paper/batting/paper.
3. Seal up the ends with the clear tape to make the project easier to handle.  This is a good time to add a name as well.
4.  Have the girls start cutting long strips of colored duct tape to decorate the outside until completely covered.
5) Mark their names on each one with a sharpie, then cover over it with the clear tape.

Remind the girls to seal the entire mat so that water cannot get in and "grow" things.  It was helpful to have some moms on hand to help with the tape just because it's so sticky.  Count on a fair amount of loss with the girls cutting their own tape!

Also, the temptation for the well meaning moms is to do the construction and cutting for the girls. The key phrase I use regularly is "Let the girls learn by doing."  And under my breath just for the mom's ears I follow with "even if it's wrong."

We are suppose to be building strong girls and strong leaders. This will not happen if we do everything for them.  Let girls do these things on their own.  It may not be Pinterest or Facebook worthy, but it will be real, and something they can be proud of

And that's it!  Two of 130 badge requirements  - check!

Sincerely,
Leader Mom in the Making