How Far Is Too Far: Adapting GSUSA Programming to Meet the Needs of Your Girls

I've heard it said that sometimes your greatest strength can also be your greatest weakness. I get many of my ideas for posts on this blog by reading the Facebook groups in which I promote it.  I write posts to address questions that are frequently asked, or to address thoughts that run through my mind as I read the groups.  This post addresses thoughts that run through my mind.

A great strength of the Girl Scout program is the ability of leaders to adapt it to meet the needs of your girls.  There are very few "musts" and not even a lot of "shoulds".  In the current program, badges have five requirements (except Daisies have three) and those requirements are quite vague, at least on the Brownie level.  While the badge inserts in the Girls' Guide to Girl Scouting say "Every step has three choices.  Do ONE choice to complete each step. Inspired?  Do more", which sounds to me like you are supposed to choose an activity from the badge packet, evidently people are now being told that the "requirements" are the short phrases on the front of the pack and/or on the Badge Explorer, not the listed activities.  That belief is carried through on VTK, which offers activities which are not on the inserts, and which, in fact, sometimes  has plans that don't even meet the short requirements (e.g. the First Aid badge has a requirement to talk to someone who treats injured people, and the VTK plan for the badge does not include doing so). So, what do you HAVE to do to earn a badge?

What Is the Snacks Badge About?

You all are probably tired of reading about my troop and the Snacks badge, but I find the different points of focus that are possible with the same badge to be interesting.   This is the third time I've led a troop through the Snacks badge, and like most intelligent people, I've repeated what worked and found a new option for what did not.  If you click on the Snacks label below you will bring up a list of my past posts on the Snacks badge.

According to Badge Explorer, the requirements for the Snacks badge are:Make great snacks for yourself and your friends.   

• Find out about different types of snacks (the badge insert says "Jump into the world of snacks")
• Make a savory snack 
• Try a sweet snack  
• Snack for energy 
• Slurp a snack    

When you've earned this badge, you'll know how to make yummy snacks for your family and friends.

Respect Myself and Others and Snacks

This week my Daisies got the first of the five petals they will earn this year (my routine is five petals per year)--Respect Myself and Others.  My Brownies are still working on the Snacks badge and this week we made our sweet snack--Cookies.  We also did a coloring sheet on the Food Pyramid and talked about healthy and unhealthy snacks.

As the girls came in they sat down and colored two sheets.  One was a place mat showing proper table setting; the other dealt with the food pyramid and healthy food.

Once everyone was there, we headed to the restroom to wash hands before we started.  Then, after the Pledge and Promise I talked to the girls about respect and how it meant treating people like they are important.  I tied this into our archdiocesan Safe Environment curriculum by telling the girls that if they respect themselves they tell a trusted adult if someone hurts them or tries to hurt them, and while not specifically mentioning sexual abuse I did tell them that some adults do choose to hurt kids, and will sometimes threaten to hurt them more if they tell, and that anyone an adult tries to get them to keep secrets, unless it is a fun secret like a surprise party, they need to tell someone.  If we respect others, we don't bully them and we tell adults if another child is a bully/being bullied.  I also talked about healthy food, exercise, cleanliness etc as being ways we take care of ourselves and respect ourselves.

Potter and Snacks, Part 2

I generally take more than one meeting to earn badges, and it is not uncommon for me to be in the middle of more than one at a time, depending on which badge it is.  Right now we are working on Potter and Snacks for my Brownies and will give my Daisies fun patches for pottery and cooking.

Our first two meetings were pretty much repeats since a line of bad weather kept several girls home for the first meeting, at which we made pinch pots and trail mix.  At the second meeting we used different ingredients and made more tail mix.  We made coil pots and clay animals and talked about scoring, wedging, and shaping clay and how our air dry clay was different from the bisque ware we painted over the summer.  We also talked about ways clay pottery is used in everyday life.  This was a repeat of a discussion we had at the pottery place this summer (1 girl wasn't there).

Sometimes Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

"My troop is going to ________; which Badge or Journey could we earn?"  This question, or one very similar, is one of those most frequently asked on leader Facebook pages.  If it is worth doing, surely the girls can earn something by doing it, right?

Last week my troop did something that was very worthwhile and which earned them...nothing (ok I did buy a fun patch, but no Badge or Journey requirements were ticked, as least that I know).  What did we do?  We had a pajama party.

At our first meeting I asked the girls for some ideas of things they wanted to do this year.  I have first grade Daisies and third grade Brownies, and they all attend different schools.  One of my Daisies said "a sleepover" and all the girls quickly jumped on that bandwagon.  I told them that we couldn't do that--the council won't let us have events at people's houses and the church won't let me have a sleepover on campus.  However, I told them we could do a pajama party--everything they would do at a sleepover, except they would go home to sleep.