Time to Cook

 

Because of Covid, last year we met either outside or virtually.  Its funny, even though the numbers are far higher now than they were last year, I'm a lot less worried about it.  The kids have all had the chance to be vaccinated and we know that for the most part, the kids aren't the ones in danger from this virus.  Now that the weather has turned cold, we have moved inside and so we have been working on the cooking badges--Snacks for Brownies and Simple Meals for Juniors.

VTK Has Changed--For the Better

Last year I wrote a post talking about VTK, using the Brownie First Aid badge as an example.  I found plenty of problems with it, but liked the badge activities that I found more practical than some in the badge inserts.  While I could see that scripts could be helpful for new leaders, I found the plans overly wordy and I found it difficult to correlate some of the activities with the badge requirements.

I've been planning meetings for this year and I have gotten the feeling that VTK has changed some, and tonight when I looked at the Brownie First Aid Badge I realized that there had been significant changes to at least this badge plan, and my feeling is, to others as well.  

I wrote extensively about the Snacks Badge last year, including a post comparing the badge insert with VTK. I found that the VTK plans were more focused on teaching nutrition than on teaching cooking, and in fact, had the girls doing very little cooking and seemed to me to carry activities that were more likely to result in trash than in snacks.  I just looked at it, and it too has undergone a significant revision.  

Savory Snacks, Knives, and JGL

Some of you will be glad to know that we finished our Snacks badge at our most recent meeting.  As I read the instructions for the Snacks badge, girls are supposed to make four different snacks.  We had a bad storm the night of our first meeting so several girls were absent.  Because of that, we repeated the energy snack requirement. In total, we spent part of five meetings working on the Snacks badge.

This week we made Ants on a Log and Spiders. Ants on a Log is celery sliced in 2-3 inch chunks and filled with peanut butter, cream cheese or some other sticky substance.  On top of that go the "ants", raisins. Spiders are two Ritz Crackers, stuck together with peanut butter etc. with four stick pretzels broken in half stuck in as legs.  Raisin eyes can be added.

After we did the Pledge, Promise and Law I sat the girls down and talked to them about using knives and knife safety, particularly passing knives handle first and waiting for the recipient to say "thank you".  I had large kitchen knives and cutting boards for the girls to use to cut up the celery.  I gave each girl a full rib of celery to cut into three or more pieces.  Since we don't have any peanut allergies, we used peanut butter to fill the logs.  Surprisingly to me, many of the girls didn't want the raisins. 

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).

Potter and Snacks

My troop is Daisies and Brownies and most of the Brownies have been with me for three years, the Daisies for one, though I picked up a couple of new girls this year.

Over the summer I send out a survey to the Brownies and asked them to let me know which badges or journeys interested them.  Pottery and Snacks were two that got a lot of votes.  During the summer, our cookie event was a trip to a pottery painting place and all the girls enjoyed it, so I thought it would be a good way to start the year.

Though I have Daisies and Brownies, I try to keep the whole group doing the same thing.  If you review my posts from last year, you can see how I related a lot of Brownie badges to Daisy petals.  Well, try as I might I couldn't figure out how to relate these badges to un-done petals or Daisy badges, so my Daisies will get fun patches, and my Brownies, badges.

While I was having my initial parent meeting I had play doh (from my supply stash) on the table for the girls.  I also gave them some coffee stirrers and told them to make me something.  Once I was done with the parents, I had each girl grab a ball of play doh and I showed them how to make a pinch pot.  They all tried it with the play doh.  I then collected the play doh and passed out air dry clay (bought at JoAnn's with a 50% off coupon) and the girls made pinch pots which I then put away to dry (we have a Girl Scout storage room at church).  After sending the girls to wash, and clearing the tables, it was time to work on the Snacks badge.

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.  

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.

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.