Catching up!

Hello everyone in Girl Scout land!

I want to apologize to everyone for falling (very) behind on my blog!  I blame it on the newest Girl Scout in my house (though in her defense, she's a cute little 8 month old).   Many of you have sent emails or comments in that I have not yet (still) responded to, and I am very sorry!  Eventually I will get to them all.  I am hoping this post will make up for it.  I am trying to upload everything I have that has been requested.  I've got some of the journey plans I've done and other events (as I upload them, I will update this post).

How to plan a journey
Brownie Quest
Brownie World of Girls and Daisy 5 Flowers, 4 Stories 3 Cheers for Animals
Sample Cookie sleepover
Challenge and Change- Adult Guide
Challenge and Change- Girl Guide
Challenge and Change- Girl planner

I promise I will work on getting the rest of my year blogged (that is after I came back from "maternity leave."  My little GS arrived just before Christmas!).  And, too all you leaders gearing up for the "new year,"  GOOD LUCK!

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!

Games Go Global Badge!

This past summer, my daughter and I were glued to the TV during the Olympics.  It just wasn't possible for us to watch everything, but we tried to watch pieces of every event.  Some of my daughter's comments were just too funny.  For example, while watching fencing, she asked why were the people trying to poke each other with sticks?  She then said if they did, can't they loose a spleen and die?  Then, while watching men's diving (and before she knew what a Speedo was), she said, EW MOM!  Why are they wearing underwear to go in the pool?  That's so gross!

Today, the Daisies got to earn the badge from WAGGGS, Games Go Global.  The basis of this badge is to bring out the Olympic and team spirit, and we did exactly that!  The badge is divided into three categories- stadium (physical/athletic activities), temple (mental challenges) and theater (arts based activities).  Like the Olympics, there are three levels the girls can earn- bronze, silver and gold.  The number of activities you do determines which level of the badge you earn.  For Daisies, they are only required to do four events to earn the gold, so we went for the gold!

So, what's an Olympic themed event with out an opening ceremony?  Before we could do that though, we needed our torches!  By using construction paper and tissue paper, the girls made their own version of the Olympic torch.  No two torches were alike!  We had some stickers and markers out for them to dress them up.  We grabbed our new torches, the American flag, the Girl Scout flag and the 100th anniversary flag and held our opening ceremony.  We played the Olympic theme song and marched around a baseball field at a local park.

With our first event out of the way, we began our stretches.  We learned that it's always a good idea to do some simple stretches so you don't hurt yourself.  Once we were done stretching, we did the orange pass.  To do this, the girls had to pass an orange around the circle, without using their hands (they used their chins). It took a couple drops, but eventually they got it.

Our next event was a listening activity. We read a chapter from a Girl Scout book (a fictional one) and asked the girls questions. The book happened to take place in Savannah, so we were able to ask a few "trick" questions that we knew some of them might know the answers too.  It was also a nice chance to sit down and get out of the sun for a little bit.

The next event, I thought, was very fun.  My awesome Co and I prepared some bags with random materials in it (construction paper, ribbons, some ribbon tutus, tulle, and more).  The girls were split into two teams, and had 20 minutes to create a costume using only what was in the bag (or use the bag too).  They were permitted to use the crafts box as well (which had markers, scissors, glue sticks and masking tape).  They made one team costume and had to choose a model for each.  We played some runway music and let the costume models strike a pose!  We then had all the girls give us their best runway walk (it was SUPER cute!).

We redid the groups and prepared for the relay race.  This one was a little tricky because the girls had never seen or done one, but eventually they got it.  We used our mini Girl Scout flags instead of batons (it was way more fun that way).

Our last event was a real brain teaser.  We made cards based on the Olympics and played memory with them.  The cards each had a purpose.  We used the 2012 torches, the Olympic rings, the 2012 mascot, the Fab 5 (the USA women's gymnastics team), one of the female athletes from Saudi Arabia (they only sent 2 this year) and a few others that were centered around the theme.  We split up in two teams to work on this as a group and learned about each card as we matched them up along the way.

Like the real Olympics, all good things must sadly come to an end.  We grabbed our torches and headed back onto the field.  But, before we had our closing ceremony, we awarded our medals (patches).  Everyone also got a nice little ribbon that said great job on it.  With our shiny "medals" around our necks, we had one last parade, and "extinguished" our flames.

All of the girls had a blast!  The one downside was the heat (we live in South Georgia, we're lucky if we get 5 days of winter), but we had our water bottles on hand, and shade nearby, so it wasn't terrible.  Coming up next, our investiture and rededication ceremony!