Bugs and Gorp

Used with Permission

We are  jumping all over the place this year.  We are still working on the Snacks badge.  This was the third snack we made, which is an energy snack.  While the photo shows only the raisins, M&Ms and peanuts, we added Cheerios for bulk.  Each girl was allowed to add as many (or few) of the ingredients as she wanted, but she was only allowed to use the amount in the recipe.  We used plastic sandwich bags to hold the trail mix,.  Here was our recipe:

3/4 cup Cheerios

2 Tablespoons raisins

2 Tablespoons M&Ms

1/4 cup peanuts

This finishes our Snacks badge for the girls who have come to all the meetings; however we had a very sparsely attended meeting two weeks ago when we made cookies.  That requirement was to make something sweet, and one choice was a holiday treat.  We'll make some sweet no-cook snack for our Christmas party and finish this badge.

We started our Bugs badge.  I got a bunch of books from the library and each girl picked a favorite bug and made a poster.  She drew a picture of the bug and put some facts down like what it eats, where it lives etc.  

My co-leader is into monarch butterflies and she had some caterpillars to show the girls.

The school to which her daughter and most of my girls go has a butterfly garden and not surprisingly they were the favorite bug of many of the girls.

We need to finish Girl Scout Way as well.  We celebrated Juliette Gordon Low's birthday at the poorly attended meeting; I think we'll celebrate more at our Christmas party.  We'll perform the action story for parents.  We start the dance badge next week and will do a dance for our parents at Christmas too.  We may also do skits on the parts of the Girl Scout Law.  Then I'll have three badges to hand out to the girls.  It has been a busy semester!  

Celebrating Juliette Gordon Low's Birthday

Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA, was born on Halloween.  Our troop is working on our Girl Scout Way badge and one of the requirements is to celebrate Juliette Low's birthday. 

To celebrate we made cake mix cookies, and shared them with the Daisies, Cadettes and Seniors who meet at the same time we do in nearby rooms.  While we were waiting for the cookies to bake, we  learned about Juliette by going through this story.  I also read from the Girls' Guide to Girl Scouting and showed them some pictures.  

The cake mix cookies were good, and I think it is a good recipe for young kids because it can easily be made without a mixer (no worries about little fingers!).

Cake Mix Cookies:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Ingredients:

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 box cake mix, any flavor

2 eggs

1 cup mix-ins (chocolate chips, M&Ms, raisins, nuts, etc.

Mix together the eggs and the oil.  Add cake mix, and mix until blended.  Add mix-ins.  Form into 24 balls, place on two cookie sheets.  Bake 9-12 minutes.  

If you are following along, at this time, we have finished three requirements for our Snacks Badge:  we made smoothies, savory snacks and now a sweet snack.  We still have to make an energy snack and we need to talk about the research we did on food additives.  We have also fulfilled three requirements for Girl Scout Way:  We celebrated Juliette Low's birthday, we learned three Girl Scout songs, and we left a place better than we found it (picked up trash on the playground/parking lot).  I'm going to have moms who were Girl Scouts come and talk to the troop about "the good old days" and we are going to do skits about the Girl Scout Law.

At our next meeting, we are going to start our Dancer badge; a dance instructor will be visiting.  We'll get back to the earlier badges when we get time.  I would like to get them finished before Christmas!  We are going to have to push some of them out a little more though because the weather was horrible last night and I only had about half my girls.  

Annual Giving Event: A "Me and My Guy" Tailgate Party

Our council says it has expenses of  over $200.00 per girl.  For that money, our council owns and runs three camps, one of which has a barn full of horses, it recruits and trains leaders and it provides programming.  The council gets its money through cookies, user fees, donations and fundraisers, and Annual Giving.

Our parish hosts Girl Scout troops at all levels and we have over seventy girls among all the troops.  We asked our families to donate when they registered, but few did, so we decided to hold a tailgate party and to charge admission.  While we only had about fifteen girls come, they had a good time and we raised $150.00 toward our service unit goal.

If you are thinking about trying such an event for your service unit (we invited ours but no one came) I have the following suggestions:

1. Find two or three other leaders with whom you can work.  These may be other leaders from your school, or the one you roll your eyes with at service unit meetings.   Try sending an email to other leaders in your service unit--maybe they want more activities for the girls as much as you do.
2. Keep it simple, at least until you've done a couple of these events, and keep the cost low.  If we had a lot of money in this party, we would have been disappointed at the turn-out; as it was, we just enjoyed the fact that everyone had fun,and we raised money.
3. Don't be afraid to take the lead; lots of people are willing to follow, or chime in.  This party was my baby--I emailed the other leaders, tossed out the suggestion and then everyone chimed in with suggestions and additions.  

So what did we do?

Opening

When the girls got there, they could either socialize or we had come Saints and LSU coloring sheets for them.  Once most of the expected girls were there, we did a typical Girl Scout opening with the Pledge of Allegiance and the Girl Scout Promise.  This was followed by us giving directions for making pom-poms. 

Making Pom-Poms

 We had pre-cut cheap plastic black and gold table clothes into squares, and had given each girl two sets of eight squares.  They layered them black, gold, black...and then, when they had the stack squared up, rolled the top down two turns of about an inch each, and then clipped them with clothes pins.  Next, the girls made straight cuts from the bottom toward the rolled top.  Once the whole thing was fringed, the rolled top was then rolled from left to right into  a coil and then sealed with duct tape to make the handle.  

Snack Time

We had planned that snack time came later, but we had the snacks and drinks ready to go and as folks finished their pom-poms, they helped themselves.

Photo Time

One of the leader's husband is a professional photographer.  We had a photo area with a Mike the Tiger cut-out and the girls and dads posed with their pom-poms.  In return, the dad gets the email addresses and can send out promotional stuff with the pictures. 

Cheers!

What are pom-poms used for?  Cheering of course.  One of the moms took the girls outside and taught them a quick cheer.  While they were outside, we talked to the parents about Annual Giving and passed out pledge forms.  Then the girls came back in they performed the cheer.

Outside Games

We then took everyone outside and had some relay races and some free play.  Everyone had the chance to try the teamwork boards.

Cupcakes

After the girls came in and washed up, we had cupcakes for them to decorate.   We had two colors of frosting (purple and gold) and sprinkles and candy corn.  Talk about a sugar high!

Closing

We closed by singing "Make New Friends"

Comments:

As we were planning this party, we hoped that it would be a Service Unit event with dozens of girls there, but it quickly became apparent that we were not even going to have a majority of our girls.  Nevertheless, we wanted something that we could easily scale up or down as RSVPs came in.  The leaders supplied the food, though we could have taken from the troop funds, but we just considered it part of our Annual Giving contribution.  

A Taste of Camping

Today we took our Brownies, Daisies and Juniors to our local Girl Scout camp.  It is about an hour from home so it is a nice place to go for a day trip.  We try to take the younger girls up there in the fall and in the spring for day trips, and we camp either there or at our other council camp in the spring.

We had everyone bring a bag lunch, and troops brought s'more fixings.  We drove up to the camp and allowed the girls to play on the playground for a while before lunch.  We had the older girls lead the younger ones in singing The Adams Family Grace (We thank the Lord for giving, the things we need for living.  The food, the fun, the friendship, the Girl Scout Family)-with da na na nas added in to the tune of the theme song of the Adams Family. 

After lunch we had the girls gather some wood.  We then gathered at the fire circle and built a fire.  I have a speech I've been giving for years.  We talk about the three different kinds of wood (tinder, kindling and fuel) and the fact that fires need air.  We let all the girls add wood to our fire before it is lit.  We then talk abou matches being tools, and only being dangerous if mis-used.  I compare them to pencils--no one wants me to poke them in the eye with a pencil but they use them safely daily.  Each girl gets a chance to light a match, and for the first time ever, the fire actually got lit during this exercise (someone put pine straw on the fire, which I don't usually do until the kids have all had their turn to light a match).  Once everyone had lit a match, we allowed the kids to each add another stick to the fire.  Following that, we got out the roasting forks and marshmallows.  Once we were done with the marshmallows we talked about how to extinguish the fire and everyone got to sprinkle it with water.  

There is a small river that runs through the camp and the girls always love playing in it.  It was in the high 70's this afternoon, and sunny.  The water was a little nippy but the girls didn't seem to mind.  

We sent a lot of tired girls home tonight!

Working on the Snacks Badge

We had two items on the agenda this week:  we were tie-dyeing t-shirts to wear at our day at camp, and we were working on our snacks badge.  You can see the instructions for the t-shirts here.  I have a very crafty co-leader; I would never try a project like that.  Here is how one came out:

We started the meeting with the pledge and promise.  I had the girls count off by fours and sent one group outside with my co-leader to make t-shirst.  I drafted an extra mom so the other three groups all had adults with them.  I had tables set up with solid and liquid measuring cups, measuring spoons, pitchers of water, and bowls of sugar.  Each table also had a 13X9 cake pan, a knife and a cutting board.  I gave the leaders scripts to follow to talk about the difference between the measuring cups.  Each girl got to measure the amount of sugar she was asked for (1/2 cup, 1/4 cup or 1/3 cup) and we talked about how many of each it would take to make one cup.  We measured more sugar with the measuring spoons and then water in the liquid measuring cup.  Again, each girl got to pour and measure.

About the time we were fininshed measuring, the first group came inside.  We sent group 2 outside, and group one took their place at the table to learn about measuring.  The other groups started on their savory snacks.  We made Ants on a Log and Spiders.

Ants on a Log.

Slice celery into portions about as long as your finger. Fill the hollow with cream cheese, peanut butter or some other thick sticky substance.  Place raisins across the top.



Spiders

2 Ritz Crackers
4 Pretzels
2 raisins
Cream Cheese, peanut butter or some other sticky substance.

Spread the cream cheese on both crackers.  Break the pretzels in half to make eight legs.  Put the legs on either side of one cracker.  Top with the other cracker.  Put a little cheese on the raisins and use it to stick them on the cracker like eyes.

We continued to rotate girls out until they all finished both snacks and shirts.

Since I have a girl with a peanut allergy I did not use peanut butter; I think the kids would have liked the snacks better if I had.  Still, most of them did eat their snacks.  

We have now had three meetings.  We have planned the year, and we have finished two of five requirments for the Snacks Badge. We have also finished two of the five requirements for Girl Scout Way.  Next meeting we are celebrating Juliette Gordon Low's Birthday.  We'll have a party that includes cookies we are going to make, and we will hopefully hear from some adults who were Girl Scouts when they were kids.  We may or may not finish Girl Scout Way next meeting.

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Girl Scout Ways and Snacks

Used with Permission

The first two badges our troop is going to earn are the Brownie Girl Scout Ways badge and the Snacks badge.  The Snacks badge requires making four differnent snacks, so we will spread it out over four different meetings. While not necessarily part of the badge requirements, I'm going to teach the girls to read a recipe and measure ingredients as well as the meaning of some common cooking terms.  Our first activity was to make smoothies.  Here is the recipe we used:

1 ripe bannana
1 cup plain or vanilla yogurt
2 cups frozen strawberries
1/2 cup orange juice
1 teaspoon of honey

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until frothy

I arranged for us to have one blender per four or five girls, and I put two blenders on a table with a leader supervising both groups at once.

Here is the outline of our meeting:
Coloring sheet with Girl Scout Promise
Opening flag ceremony with Girl Scout Promise and Girl Scout Law
Learn two songs as part of Girl Scout Ways badge:  Make New Friends and Brownie Smile
Girl Scout Ways:  Leave a place better than you found it.  We went outside and picked up trash.  I gave each girl a plastic grocery bag to use as a glove and I held one for the trash they picked up.
Wash up; use restroom if necessary
Make Smoothies and talk about how we could change the recipe.  Drink them.
Closing with friendship circle.

This meeting met one requirement for the Snacks badge and two for Girl Scout Ways.

How to Run a Meeting

One thing that really frustrated me as a new leader many moons ago was that I got so little guidance in how to plan and run a meeting.  Our trainer kept saying "girl planning" but the process she described sounded like it would take so long that we would never do anything.  She passed out a guide to the first six meetings, which ended with an investiture.  I'm sure the plan was based on us meeting weekly, whereas that troop met once a month.  

Since that didn't work, I turned to my memories of my Girl Scout days, and to the "Try-It" badge book that was the program at that time.  Girls earned Try-Its by completing four activities, each of which took about fifteen minutes.  Well, that made planning easy.

Girls of Brownie age need you to give them something to do, or they are going to find something to do, probably something you don't want them to do.  Also, they are high-energy creatures at this age.  They are not going to just sit around and talk to friends.  You need a routine and a plan.

When I had troops that met after school, the first thing we would do is go out to the playground for snack and free play.  Then we would play a game that counted for a Try-It requirement before heading inside.  Once we got inside, we would complete the activites of the day (usually 3-4 Try-It requirements) before closing with a flag ceremony, Girl Scout Promise and Friendship Circle.  

Now that we meet in the evening, I have girls straggling in from ten minutes early to ten minutes late. When they come in, I always have some "bell work" for them to do--an activity they can do with little to no supervision that may or may not be connected to the other things we are doing that night.  Basically I am talking about coloring sheets, word searches or similar things.  That way I can greet girls, talk to parents or finish preparing the big activities of the evening.  Between five and ten minutes after the meeting starts, we put up the crayons and move to the flag for our flag ceremony and opening.  At that time I will do any necessary teaching or large group instruction.  I will talk about what we are doing that night and why we are doing it.  We then move into the meat of the meeting, and generally speaking I try to have a least two and maybe three activities for this part of the meeting.  Finally, we have snack and social time, followed by a closing friendship circle.  

Girl Scouts River Valleys has very good meeting plans available on their website and I've heard that other councils are in the process of putting up more realistic plans than those shown in the Journey Handbooks.  

What to Do?

Whether you are an experienced leader or just dipping your foot in the pond for the first time, you need to get a plan of what you want to accomplish in a year.  Since Girl Scouts is supposed to be "girl led", you should have them at least pick from a menu of options.

I'll be upfront here and say that I don't like Journeys.  I think they are long, convaluted and don't really accomplish the goals set for them.  On the other hand, I do like badges.  

Our first real meeting was a planning meeting.  I asked them if they wanted to go camping, and if they wanted to go to our local camp for a day outing.  Of course they did (which was a good thing since I had already made reservations for the day trip).  Next, I gave each girl a badge insert from my Girls Guide to Girl Scouting.  I only passed out those I thought we could earn during the course of a meeting, leaving out those that would be earned at camp, or at home.  I had each girl tell the group about "her" badge and whether she thought it would be fun to earn.  Next, we voted yes or no on each badge, and then had everyone pick her favorite of the ones left.  I used the top choices to plan the year, adding in Girl Scout Ways, the cookie and financial literacy awards and a religious award.  

Which badges did my girls pick?  Snacks, Painting, Bugs, Dancing, Fair Play and Letterboxing.  I'll let you know here how we do with them.  They are pretty much the same badges my last Brownie troop picked. 

Recruitment

My troop is based at my Catholic parish in suburban New Orleans.   Our parish is blessed with long-term committed Girl Scout leaders who did not leave the program when their daughters did so we know we can commit to having troops at every level.  Every year we go into the parish school and the neighborhood public school to speak to the girls and to invite them to a recruitment meeting.  We also send flyers home inviting the girls and their parents to the meeting.  Since we meet in the evening, we are open to girls from any school.

At our recruitment night we picked up five new girls for the Brownie troop, in addition to the girls who were first grade Daisies last year.  Two more new girls came to our first meeting.  Our council's membership person knows we will take anyone they send to us, so I suspect I'll end up with a few more girls before the year is over.

If you are going to start a troop you need a place to meet, girls and a co-leader.  If you are doing this for your daughter, her best friend's mom is a good starting place for a co-leader.  As far as meeting places, try your school, your church, a community center or playground or stores that offer classes.  I was in JoAnn's fabric shop and mentioned that I was buying for Girl Scouts (some businesses will give discounts) and was asked if I wanted to use their classroom for a meeting place.  In my experience, if you are able to meet at school after school, you will have the most participation from the girls, but will have a hard time getting help because so many parents work. Also, you will lose the girls when they leave that school.   If you are trying to build a long-term program where girls can move from level to level, a church or community center makes a better base of operations.