Daisies, Year 2, Meeting 21

Confession time- I am jealous of everyone who gets to spend Thinking Day at any of the World Centers.  After seeing this year's celebration photos online, I felt a little bummed that I wasn't around. BUT, in a few years, I figure I can get sneaky and convince the girls to save for a trip during Thinking Day (I know, I'm terrible!).

Sticking with the theme, and having little party shakers, I downloaded a bunch of music from this year's focus countries for the girls to listen too.  We basically had a listening party before we prepared for our Thinking Day feast.  Everyone brought in foods from a country they had relatives/ancestors from.  But before we could eat, we had to sing a song we had been working on for literally the past 6 months:

It's a hard song, but hey guess what, MY DAISIES SANG IT!!!!!  We sang this song during our opening at Girl's World Forum with the fabulous Melinda Caroll.  I knew it would be a challenge, but I brought it back for the girls and they learned it.  They knew it so well that instead of having us call out the first line, they called it out and had their families repeat it!

Before we ate, our new girls received their WAGGGS pins.  It took everything in me not to cry! I'm so proud of them all though.  It was something they will remember for a long time, and because I promised I wouldn't make them sing Babala Gumbala again until next year (they have made sure I remembered every week before we sang a song).  As for that food, we tasted foods from Egypt, Turkey, Poland, Sweeden and a few others I have already forgotten (sorry!).  No surprise, they all came back for seconds.

Though the focus countries for next year's Thinking Day have not yet been announced, I can tell you that the focus MDG is number 8, promote global partnerships.  It is the last of the MDG's for us to cover, and I can't wait!

Daisies, Year 2, Meeting 20

Even though this week's meeting involved zero glitter, it still haunted us.  Glitter on my GS bags, glitter still on the floors, glitter everywhere.  I am never working with glitter again, and this time I mean it!

Today was a bit low key.  We read chapter 2 of Between the Earth and Sky and tied it into a field trip we were about to take.  With cookie season in full swing, and the girls working so hard, they deserved a break. Our schools had a 5 day weekend during President's Day.  We used that Tuesday off for a fun day out with the animals.  But, we had to establish ground rules because we most certainly were not going to act like animals in front of the animals.  And what a perfect opportunity to sneak in another money lesson!  We talked more about our goals and what we want to do with our cookie profits.  Disney is a very real goal for next year, but this year's tangible goal can have many fun things to do around it.  When we went to zoo, the girls were given an option- have a snow cone or ride on the train.  We couldn't afford to do both (they were the same cost).  So they all had to vote, BUT, the hitch was that they all had to agree.  No surprise, they choose snow cones.

It was a good lesson though.  Cookie booths had only just begun, but showing them that if they don't meet all of their set goals, they will have to pick and choose which activities they want to do.  I can let you on this much (because I am writing this after cookie season ended)- the girls knew that just for their basic goals, everyone needed to sell 150 boxes of cookies.  I can proudly say that my Daisies averaged 267 boxes per girl!  And our top earners sold over 600 a piece!  So yes, they earned enough to visit the birthplace, have lunch at Paula Deen's and more!

Daisies, Year 2, Meeting 19

As I write this post, cookie season is long over (thank GOODNESS!).  Cookie season this year was exceptionally stressful, but it was well worth it.

Last year we used a lot of cookie based recipes on our booth posters.  The girls loved that, so I made sure to print those out before today's meeting.  Being a little more than a week away from cookie booths, and just days before cookie delivery, we used today's meeting to prep all of our booth posters.  I'm that crazy leader who lets the girls dictate what they want to use for their materials.  Long story short, so much glitter everywhere!  And that glitter followed us around for all of cookie season.   Anyway, the girls made 2 tri-fold poster and 4 hand held signs. We ran out of time to do our cookies from home donation jars, but they told me what they wanted I did that once I got home (again, all the glitter, oh my goodness!).  Everything looked cute, but if I can, next year, I fully intend on discouraging the glitter (though knowing these girls, they will insist on more glitter).

SU Thinking Day Event

So, if Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus, then Founder's Day (Juliette Gordon Low's birthday) is like Girl Scout Christmas.  With that being said, Thinking Day is to Girl Scouts what Purim is to the Jews (well, not really, but it was the closest analogy I could think of).  Thinking Day is a special Girl Scout holiday where all of us Girl Scouts and Girl Guides pause to remember and celebrate our Scouting/Guiding sisters world wide.

This year our focus countries were Venezuela (that we helped represent), Ireland, Jordan, Pakistan and Malawi.  Seeing as how we are in the middle of the Millennium Challenge, we have also added in the aspect for a focus MDG the past few years.  This year was the twin theme of MDG 4 and 5, reduce infant mortality and improve maternal health.  To make it easier on the troops, we split up the responsibilities   Take for example us and Venezuela.  My troop created the board/presentation.  Another troop made SWAPS and a third troop made food from Venezuela.  A few of the larger troops did all of it for one country or MDG, but most of us teamed up.  It went over fairly well.  We also had a station where the girls could make friendship bracelets to donate to the Sangam's store where they sell them to make money for programs.  We had so many activities, but the best part was in the end, we fulfilled the requirements to earn the WAGGGS Thinking Day patch which the girls can put on the front of their uniform!

Daisies, Year 2, Meeting 18

So much to do, so little time to do it!  Looking at today's meeting in black and white, you would think it was boring, but it was far from it!

Thinking Day falls in the middle of our cookie season.  So we held our SU Thinking Day event at the beginning of February.  Our troop was tasked with creating a board about Venezuela.  So it gave us the chance to learn about this country. Venezuela is such a beautiful country with a very rich and interesting history.  Like last year, I printed out several maps and a bunch of pictures.  We talked about what everything was and learned about the country.  Once that was done, I handed them over to the girls and let them go nuts with a board, some glue and a few markers.  It turned out really well.  Once they were done, I added the Venezuelan flag and national flower on the side of the board to stick out a little.  They did an amazing job!

Daisies, Year 2, Meeting 17

When the journeys were introduced, I was out of the loop of Girl Scouting.  When I finally got back in the loop and learned about them, I was honestly a little jealous that we didn't have them when I was scout!

Today we began our final Daisy journey, Between the Earth and Sky.  This is such a neat journey because it centers around a trip the flower friends take.  We purposely planned to do this journey right now because the girls are in the middle of cookie season.  They did the basic planning work for their cookie reward/end of the year trip, but since we don't have cookies in hand yet, it's a little hard for them to grasp what exactly it is they are working towards.  Listening to this story was exactly the boost they needed to keep them on track for their final goal (which as I write this months later, we are currently days away from our trip!).

The leader's guide and guidebook has several great activities that fit in with what we are doing.  The first one is really neat.  The leader's guide calls it the big blue bucket of words.  The original lesson intrigued me, but we changed it up a little.  But, first things first- our official club house. We were getting ready to talk about feelings and emotions.  This is touchy with any age group.  So we created Daisy's club house.  Daisy's club house has a few rules- this is a safe space, so anything we talk about stays in the club house.  We won't talk about it outside of our meetings because we want to trust each other (something we will build upon over the years).  After we had that established, we asked the girls, what are negative words that you have heard that can be hurtful?  I won't repeat them, but they came up with some very good answers.  We wrote them all down on the chalk board.  We took a good look at them and then erased them from our vocabulary.  We all promised that we would never use these hurtful words again, in and our of meetings.  With those sad words still in our heads, we then began talking about happy words, or as we named our own blue bucket of words, Words of Affirmation.  We all took a slip of paper and secretly wrote a happy word down, but we didn't read them.  We all folded it up and stuck it in the bucket.

I read my word out loud though, and this was the only time I did this.  I had a very good reason too.  We hadn't been out to work in our garden in a while.  Even though we walk past it every week when we walk to our meeting spot, sometimes we forget to look left.  The garden was our responsibility, and had gathered some weeds of the past few weeks.  It had also been trampled in one part.  We were very honest with the girls about it, but did not want it to dampen their spirits.  So my word of the week was perseverance.  Though it may seem like such a small word, when put into the context of our garden and take action project, it was such a big, positive word that lifted everyone's spirits.

We finished out the meeting doing some role playing and learning how to properly deal with play ground bullies.  Everyone was asked to act out some scenarios.  They did a great job and learned how to handle things without getting in trouble, getting peoples feelings hurt and where to go for help.

Daisies, Year 2, Meeting 16

Can I take a moment here to yet again recognize the awesome power of Girl Scouting/Guiding?  Seriously, thanks to my awesome "sisters" literally all over the world, today's meeting was a great success!  AND, today's meeting was extra special because we had two very special guests who came to visit all the way from New Jersey!

We started out the meeting reading our answered questions.  We heard back from ladies in India, Ohio, Australia and more!  The girls loved hearing about everyone from all over.  We did have Heather and her sister there, which was wonderful, but I did desperately wish to have a guest who was from another country. The girls learned about hearing about scouts and guides from all over.

I haven't done one of these in a while, but our next activity was definitely a "lesson learned" activity.  There's a neat little activity that teaches about water sanitation, that we did.  The lesson learned today..... yeah the Daisies weren't really "ready" for it just yet, BUT, with a bit of help, they did well.

So, the water exercise.  To set this up, you'll need a bottle of water with a little bit of dirt mixed in. You'll also need a charcoal filter (which you can get at a pet supplies store), a funnel, a measuring cup, cotton balls, coffee filters, baking soda, salt peter and a plain sponge.  If you Google this, you can find other ways to do this.  The key is figuring out the "easiest" or best way to teaching this to whichever age group you have.  This took up literally the rest of our meeting and we barely finished it.  The girls had fun though!

National Girl Scout Cookie Day!

In 1988, I joined Girl Scouts as a precious little Daisy.  Though I had a few years where I was in and out (thank you college travels and high school extra curriculars), somehow, I always ended up back in Scouting.  So here I am, all these years later, still involved in scouting as a leader and a volunteer.

I'm going to get very personal with you right now, but for a good reason.  I am 29, my husband 28.  He is active duty military, so isn't exactly rolling in the dough.  I work part time from home (but let's be honest, I'm not really making much money as well).  But, we own our own home (a nice one), we each have a car (good cars too), and hey guess what- we have NO debt!  We also have several investments and plenty of money in savings.  I admit, we do owe part of this to my husband's penny pinching ways, but I also owe a large part of this too...... GIRL SCOUT COOKIES!

Hear me out though, will you, please?

Goal Setting:

A lot of troops (traditionally speaking) have very ambitious goals!  We want to go to Savannah, Disney (Land and world), we want to go to NYC, England, India and more!  But, all these things cost money, so we need to learn.....

Money Management:

This plays a huge part into our goals, but ultimately, it's very important.  Money is tight in this day and age!  We have to learn about the profits we'll be making, how much things cost, so that plays right back into goals to learn how much we need to sell.  But that even then plays into.....

Business Ethics:
I think the word Ethics speaks for itself.  As Girl Scouts, we promise to live by the Girl Scout law, which in itself is like a code of ethics for Scouts.  All of us Scouts are selling cookies for whatever goal(s) we set.  We learn that we need to respect each other, but at the same time we're supporting each other!  We can't be selfish and hog all the cookies (though what happens with cookies in your house is out of our hands), we all still need to sell them.  But, selling cookies is so important.....

Money management, business ethics, decision making, people skills, and more!

I have a great story about people skills that you all can relate to.....

My precious little Daisy, my daughter, spent the first half of last year's cookie season talking to my butt.  We knocked on neighbors doors, people she KNOWS, yet she still talked to my rear end.  Even one of my closest friend's, whom we have known for years, she asked them to buy cookies while talking to my behind.  Seriously, my bum has never been talked to that much!  And then, booth sales started.  I secretly dreaded it because I was scared she would spend all the the booths talking to my dairy air again.  Much to surprise though, she didn't!  She began to get over her stage fright.  By the end of booth and cookie season, I thought, yay we're finally over the hump!  Now here we are, a year later.  The friends that I mentioned have since moved, so we got on Skype so Leah could ask them to buy cookies.  What did she do you ask?  She hid from the camera and took a good 15 minutes to ask them to buy cookies.  There it was, that secret dread again, as I thought oh boy, I better wear some comfy jeans as we go door to door because my toushy is going to get spoken to again!  The next day, it was bright and shiny out, so we put on our uniforms and hit the streets!  And guess what, SHE DIDN'T TALK TO MY FANNY!  Seriously, y'all have no clue how relieved I was!!!  We start booths here next week, so hopefully she'll do beautifully!

But hey, guess what, this is Girl Scouts,and we love earning badges!  Every level of scouting has special badges for us to earn that relate back to our cookie sales and financial skills.  For those of you who follow my blog know that last year my Daisies earned the Financial Literacy leaves.  They learned very basic money skills. We learned the basics about money, and then we planned a shopping list for the farmer's market when we needed food for another badge.  This year we took our basic knowledge of money and set some troop goals and budgeted for a big trip, which then translated to how much cookies cost, how much profit we make, so how many boxes do we need to sell to achieve our goals.

What else does cookies teach us you ask?  Selflessness.  Though this is something you can't really "teach," you can lead by example.  Many of us have programs in our councils that allow us to donate cookies to our military (quick story- a few years ago during a deployment, my husband remembers an entire palate of cookies being to delivered to where he was at the time).  I told the girls in my troop that I will buy one box of cookies from every scout who shows up at my door (and I have!).  What I did not tell them was that when they come to deliver and I pay for them, I will be donating them back to send off.  I'm hoping that leading by example, they might understand what it means to be selfless.

Oh, but yet there's more to learn.  COOKING SKILLS!  No really.  There are a lot of great recipes out there that use cookies (ok, so they may not be the most healthy things you can eat, but cooking with something fun gets their foot in the door!).  Both the bakers we use have awesome recipes already on their websites:

http://littlebrowniebakers.com/cookies/mmmmm-try-girl-scout-cookies-in-recipes/
http://www.abcsmartcookies.com/recipes

I have tried many of these recipes and can tell you that they are amazing!  They also serve as great marketing tools at cookie booths.  Oh hey, that's yet another thing the girls are learning about, marketing their "business!"

My awesome Daisies just made their booth materials this past week (sorry, I'm behind on posting about my meetings).  I know it's not the best picture, so I'll tell you all about their marketing materials!  They have several recipes featured, they are promoting donating cookies to the military and how selling cookies helps them out.  We haven't finished our goals poster yet (why we're selling them), but it's already off to a good start.



So now, I ask you, what DOESN'T Girl Scout cookies teach our scouts?!  There's so much I haven't mentioned yet!  The learning is literally endless.  Even as an adult, I'm still learning through cookies!

Oh hey, by the way, Girl Scouts are proud members of the 21st century, we've got apps!
For Android phones:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gsa.gscookiefinder
For iPhones:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/girl-scout-cookie-finder/id593932097?mt=8

Hey, did you know that some of the most successful women in the world were once Girl Scouts?  Hilary and Chelsea Clinton, Katie Couric, Dakota Fanning, Taylor Swift, Serena Williams, Mary Tyler Moore, Abigail Breslin, Gwenyth Paltrow, Lisa Ling, Mariah Carey, Sandra Day O'Connor, Barbara Walters, Sally Ride, Martha Stewart, Lucille Ball, Susan Lucci, Sheryl Crow, Laura Bush, Gloria Steinem..... impressive list, and that doesn't even begin to cover it!  Girl Scout cookies is the LARGEST Girl-led business in the world!  And really, the girls are running it.  Me, the adult, I'm just here to dot the I's and cross the T's (and lift a few heavy boxes).  The girls really do all the hard work and a good portion of the planning.

I felt bad having to tell the girls that according to policy, we couldn't go to Disney just yet (too far), BUT, next year, if they still want to, we'll go when they're Brownies.  I promised them that as their leader, I am open to anything (within reason of course).  My troop is full of ambitious girls, but trust me when I say they are not alone!  Because of scouting, I have literally been around the world.  Because of scouting, I have met some of the most amazing people.  Because of scouting (and my parents), I learned so of the most valuable lessons.......

Because of Girl Scout Cookies, I am where I am today.


So there you have it, Girl Scouting at it's finest..... all because of cookies!

Daisies, Year 2, Meeting 15

Our first meeting back of the new year, yay!  It really stunk being laid up for so long (Mr. Appendix, you will not be missed!), so getting back to Scouts was exactly what the doctor ordered!  Well, not really, he actually ordered me to take it easy, but puh-lease!  Me, take it easy?  If you could hear me laugh, you would have just heard me snort.

The first thing we did today was to help us out with our next meeting.  We were going to begin working on the GAT (global action theme) badge from WAGGGS.  One of the suggested activities was to invite a woman from another country to share her experiences of what it was like growing up/living there.  I personally do not know of any one who currently lives near us, so my solution to the plan was to reach out to the wonderful ladies I met over the summer at Girl's World Forum (and to all those who helped, again, thank you, y'all are AMAZING, as usual!).   I asked the girls to come up with questions for me to email out to everyone.  They came up with some awesome questions!

Where did you live growing up?
What was is like there?
Where do you currently live?
What is it like there?
What special food/foods did you eat growing up?
What is it like being a Girl Guide/Scout in your country?
What is your favorite thing about Girl Guiding/Scouting?
What is a special song or game you sing/play in your country?
If you could visit any place in the world, where would it be and why?
What has been your favorite Guiding/Scouting memory and why?
What was your favorite badge that you earned?

Ok, confession time..... I came up with that last question.  I have an ulterior motive though (you'll see in May why!).

The biggest part of our meeting was beginning work on Responsible For What I Say and Do.  We read Mari's story and discussed ways that we can be responsible.  So, what's a good solution for doing this?  A chore chart!  It's a very simple chart (brush your teeth, make your bed, clean your room, take a bath/shower and a few more along those lines).  We did leave a few blank spots in case parents wanted to add a specific chore, but, the girls have to be diligent every month and every day and do their chores.  At the end of the month, we'll give them a chart for the next month.  BUT, there's another hitch to our plan.  After this, we made money banks.  We took some old jars and covered them with cute paper and decorated them.  We asked the parents to help the girls earn money for their chores, but, it can only be change!  We told the girls that this money they are earning will help them pay for their pins and patches at our end of the year trip to Savannah.  We had to stress that they couldn't ask for more than a quarter per chore (our trip isn't until  May, so this is a great way to help teach them the importance of goal setting and saving money).  Oh, and in case you haven't figure it out, this activity also goes back to our financial literacy leaves we earned last year, so this was a great review!

Daisies Year 2, Meeting 14

Just a few days after meeting 13, my appendix decided it was high time to become a nuisance and burst.  Therefore, what should have been our end of the year meeting ended up being canceled. So instead, I will share with you all what we would have done in case anyone needs any ideas on meetings.

With Christmas around the corner, and the girls being restless to do something downright fun, we thought today would be a great opportunity for that.  But, this being our troop meeting, I couldn't just have a simple fun day, so of course I had to tie in the fun with something Girl Scouty- considerate and caring!  Our plan for the meeting was to read Zinni's story first, and then let the girls make Christmas presents for their family and friends.

It's no secret that we as troops are often hard up for money, so when we do crafting activities, we have to think outside of the box for ways to do amazing things with spending little or no money.  Thankfully, places like Pinterest, Stumbleupon, Crafster and more have great ideas for projects you can do with recycled materials.  Our first idea was to make little table ornaments with toilet paper rolls.  You can either decorate it with construction paper and pipe cleaners, or color them, whichever floats your boat!  Our next idea was to let the girls make whatever they want to make with popsicle sticks.  The most common one I've seen done is reindeer, but you can also make things like stars, Christmas trees, snowmen, toy soldiers and more.  The girls at least had options on what they could do.  Our last option, if we had enough time, was finger printed snowmen on an ornament.  The principle is that you take a simple bulb ornament (a plastic one) and let the girls dip their fingers in white paint.  They then make a whole finger print around the ornament.  Once it's dry, you can decorate with sharpies to give your snowmen the final touches.

We were planning on finishing up our meeting with a patch ceremony.  All of our new girls earned their blue center, plus we had a few journeys, petals and a lot of fun patches to hand out.  I'm a little bummed we had to skip out, but we're having another patch ceremony in the Spring (so we can have all the pomp and circumstance then).