Your Turn to Talk: Comments on Daisy Maker Badges

This is one of a series of posts derived from a survey about the Daisy Maker badges that I promulgated on leader Facebook groups.  I hate it when I take a survey and, after I'm done  honestly answering the questions, feel like my voice has not really been heard because of the way the questions were asked or because of what was asked.  Therefore, I end all my surveys with a "say what you want about this" question.  Here is what people had to say about the Daisy Maker badges.

• We had an expert come and teach the girls how to sew button bracelets, so she also talked a bit about owning a craft/sewing store. They enjoyed designing their own bracelets and chatting with the expert while crafting. We earned this badge with our 1 brownie as well, so some if the requirements were merged with the brownie requirements. Our Jr/Cadettes in the troop did not earn these badges.
• The series felt too repetitive after the second one. That’s why we didn’t do the third one.
• I've been a Daisy leader for 40 years and always keep in mind that the badges are guides for introducing concepts.
• Attention span for talk after school is limited we did most of the talking while girls hands were busy
• The biggest issue with this series is that they got rid of everything else. If a troop wants to learn about ANY art form they have to cram it into one of these. Also, the booklets and requirements in general are problematic. There is always a gap between what they say is the requirement, what the pamphlet has on the peripheries, and what is actually important to learning. For example- Yes, there are vocabulary words in the booklets, but no none of the requirements say the girls need to learn them
• The discussion point for the age of Daisies are a bit much on these badges. Their attention span is short and they don’t always have a response. I don’t want to spend our meetings talking at them like it’s school so we cover the big ideas pretty quickly and move on to hands on.
• We used real building materials (wood, nails, screws) whenever possible for our crafts.
• We implemented the discussions as we built. We tied into our animals journey.

Thanks to everyone who participated in my survey.  Come back soon to read what Brownie and Junior leaders have to say.  If you click on the Maker Badge Survey label below you will be able to read other posts in this series.