Girl Scout Way and Sister to Every Girl Scout

My plans for this meeting changed the weekend before the meeting.  I had planned to continue work on Girl Scout Way, and start Making Friends for Brownies.  For Daisies I had planned to do the "Friendly and Helpful" petal.  However, over the weekend a troop of Girl Scouts in Wisconsin was doing a roadside cleanup when they were hit by a drunk driver.  Three girls and a leader were killed.  I decided to change the petal to "Be a sister to every Girl Scout".

As the girls came in I had cards for them to color--From the Bayou State to the Badger State  Our thoughts and prayers are with you in this time of sorrow.


During our opening, we said the Pledge of Allegiance and the Girl Scout Promise and then sang the Girl Scout Law.  I had the girls sit down and then I reminded them that part of the Girl Scout Law was that we were sisters to every Girl Scout and that meant we were sisters to Girl Scouts in other troops, and in other states and even in other countries.  I told them about the girls in Wisconsin and how we made cards for them.  The cards had a pelican (our state bird) on the front and a badger on the inside so we mentioned that the pelican was our state bird and the badger was their animal.  I also said that we were sisters not only to girls who were Girl Scouts now but to those who had been Girl Scouts in the past.

Next, we played "Hey me too" which I found on Girl Scouts River Valley's plan for Making Friends, and I pointed out that if we were sisters it would be nice if we knew things about each other (about half my troop is new this year).

We then moved on to making a troop banner.  I passed out blank paper dolls, markers, yarn and glue.  The girls were to make a paperdoll of themselves, glue it to a piece of construction paper and then we glued the construction paper to a roll of paper to make a mural. The girls had a ball with this.

For our closing, I had asked moms who had been Girl Scouts to come and tell us about their experiences, with bonus points for pictures or uniforms.  Our supply room has a copy of the handbook I used in the early '70s so I showed them what my uniform looked like.  One mom had her sash and her cookie order forms.  Another said she'd been a Girl Scout for almost 30 years (Brownies through Seniors and lifetime member) and she taught the girls "G for Generosity" (and I didn't even ask her to) so that finished the three songs we need to learn for Girl Scout Way.

So, in this meeting we fulfilled Girl Scout Way #1 by learning our third song.  We shared sisterhood (GS Way #3) by making the banner, by making the cards for our Wisconsin sisters and by learning about our older sisters.  Listening to Girl Scout alumnae also met requirement #5 to share Girl Scout traditions.  Our game met requirement #1 of Making Friends.

If you are keeping score, our troop has now had 5 meetings and has finished:

• Daisies:  Promise Center and Sister to Every Girl Scout.  Also Birdbath Award.  
• Brownies:  Pets Badge, 1 requirement from Making Friends and 4 requirements for Girl Scout Way.  

Next time I'm going to try separating the Brownies and Daisies.  I want to get the Brownies involved in picking the badges and Journeys for the rest of the year.  The Daisies need to do a Red Robin project to teach others about animal care.