It's Your Planet, Love It! Journey in a day

I want to preface this post and explain my massive blonde moment.....  I started planning this wonderful journey sleepover for my area.  I had it in my head that I would do this for all ages, and I was going to keep it all within the same journey theme, thinking it would be easier on me.  So, I wrote it down, announced it at our meeting, and posted it in our unit's Facebook page.  And then, after all the plans were made, I realized, one of these journeys is not like the other!  Oops?  Well, it all worked out in the end, because the "out of place" journey ended up being one that multiple troops needed.

It's Your Planet, Love It!  Journeys:
Daisy- Between the Earth and Sky (we did 5 Flowers, 4 Stories, 3 Cheer For Animals)
Brownie- WOW
Junior- Get Moving
Cadettes- Breathe
Seniors- Sow What
Ambassadors- Justice

The above was our basic outline for our journey in a sleepover event (see the link below for my full blueprint).   Overall, it went very well!  Based on our attendance, we had 2 patrols each for the Daisies (we probably should have done 3 or 4 Daisy patrols), Brownies, and Juniors, and we lumped all of the older girls together (since most of their stuff was self guided).  We had every intention of reading passages from the books, but long story short, that didn't happen.  The older girls did their "connect project" first, and then dove into their journey work (since I did it with them, and then at the end of Friday activities, I did the connect project with the Brownies and Juniors).
The other thing we changed up, was our Take Action workshop.  I stopped to realize that our workshop is very similar to the workshop prefacing the Gold and Silver trainings.  So, instead, our older girls had a "mental health" morning, and we just kicked back and did some fun crafts (and, most of them, their Take Action project is their Silver or Gold).


Here are the links for the actual blueprints of our sleepover, which you may find useful!
Journey Sleepover Plans
Journey sleepover, shopping list
These are guides that I used to base our Take Action workshop on (I strongly recommend you read them!)
Challenge and Change, Girl Guide
Challenge and Change, Adult Guide

But, if you need some other journeys, don't worry, you can use this guide to help plan it!
How to plan a journey event

One last note- for our actual event, we charged $15 per girl and $7 per adult, and that included the journey patch or pin, a fun patch, dinner, breakfast, and 2 snacks, and we managed to come in under budget!  My one goof was we ran out of chicken nuggets (maybe that's why I was under!). 

ENJOY!

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!

Brownie Quest..... in less than 24 hours!

Recently I facilitated an adult session on how to plan a journey event/sleepover/camp out.  The heart of the lesson was how to "properly" address earning a journey in a very short period of time.  Someone asked why this was something they should learn.  There are a number of reasons why.  The first one that comes to mind is the fact that for many things (mainly the Bronze, Silver and Gold awards), earning specific journeys are a prerequisite.  Another reason could be that your troop simply does not have the luxury of being able to do all three journeys in two (or in a Cadette's case, three) years- not all of us meet weekly, so there's a lot we have to cram in during our few meetings.  However, this is not a recommended method to earn all of your journeys- this is a "band aid solution" if you need to squeeze in one for whatever reason.  Many of the journeys are designed to go hand in hand with the supplemental badges (in the badge activity sets), so they are great to do during the span of several meetings.  But, going back to those pesky prerequisites, we understand that this needs to be done.

So, what happens you need to squeeze in one more journey?  Have a sleepover!  Or a long day.... or a camping trip (take your pick!).  This is South Georgia in November though, so the weather is very unpredictable, so sleepover it was!  Here's how we did Brownie Quest:

Overview:

Drop off, Friday, 5:15-5:45 PM

Pick up, Saturday, 11:30 AM

Friday:

5:15-5:45 PM, arrivals.  Check in, parents turn in permission slips and scouts receive name tags (name tags color coordinated by patrols)

5:30-6, stragglers check in

6-6:45, Dinner- dinner activity- explain healthy eating habits (why we have no soda or junk food at the sleepover)

7-8:35, Journey activities

                7-7:45 Activity 1/2/3

                7:50-8:35 Activity 2/3/1

                8:40-9:25 Activity 3/1/2

9:25-9:45, clean up from journey activities, set up snack table

9:45-10:00, Late night snacks

10:00-10:30, Clean up, get out sleeping bags

10:30-? movie

?  lights out

Saturday:

7:30 AM, wake up

8:00, breakfast

8:45, clean up breakfast, prepare for Take Action workshop

9:00-11:00, Take Action workshop and planning

11:05, clean up

11:30, depart

Dinner menu/activity: healthy foods and drinks, discuss importance of, ect.

Patrol activity 1: team games- Brownie Blob, human knot, blind fold tent

Brownie blob- girls stand in a tight circle with arms around each other.  A path is outlined that they have to walk across (path can be marked with masking tape for first try, second try should be “blind”).  However, they have to work as a team so that while walking this path, they never break apart/separate.  The point of this exercise is to highlight basic leadership skills.

Human knot- girls stand in a circle and put their arms/hands in front, into the circle.  They then must grab someone’s hand.  They cannot grab their neighbor’s hands, and they cannot grab the same person’s hands (so they should be holding two different hands).  Once this is done, they then must figure out how to “undo the knot.”  They cannot let go of hands.  The girls can end up standing backwards, sideways, ect. As long they do not let go.  The point of this exercise is to highlight communication skills.

Blind fold tent- girls are broken into smaller teams (recommended 2-4 per team).  One person volunteers to be the “eyes,” while the others will be the “builders.”  The builders will be blindfolded.  The eyes can instruct the builders on what to do, but may not physically participate.  The builders will be given a sheet and 4 chairs that they will have to make into a tent-fort, under the direction of the eyes.  The point of this exercise is to highlight communication and leadership (apply what they learned in the previous two games).

Patrol activity 2: Family circle map, family member’s key roles (expanded into community)

Family circle- this activity, the girls will essentially create a depiction of their immediate family circle.  They will then use personal observations to describe what everyone’s role is.  For example- Mom cooks dinner, Dad mows the lawn, sister sweeps the floors and brother cleans the toilet.  In this example, each family member has a role that is important- without one, the others cannot function.  This will then be brought over into the Saturday activity regarding community mapping (this will essentially set them up to better understand it).

Patrol activity 3: The great elf adventure- adopt an elf and decorate it, discuss needs and wants of the elf.  Discuss clothes for the weather, healthy food options, good sleep habits, good hygiene habits and good study habits.  Relate this all back to the Elf about how you can make the Elf happier by living a good life.

Take Action workshop (for further questions, consult the Challenge to Change workbook- this is what we used)

1: Community mapping- learn about community resources, identify community needs and wants.  Assist girls in mapping out what our community has to offer (ie: library, United Way, state park, ect), and then identifying what each “resource” can potentially “provide” to the community (ie: library has books and research material, United Way has access to volunteers and grants, and the state park has natural resources). 

2: After the community mapping, discuss issues within our community.  Ie: lack of famer’s market, lack of clothing resale stores.  Assist girls in identifying the root of the issues behind these problems.

3: Choose and plan Take Action project based on community needs/issues.

4: Take action- set a date to do together OR give the girls a way to complete it on their own OR leave it to the troops to complete the project on their own.  On a Girl Scout’s honor, they have not completed the badge until they complete the Take Action project. 

***Take Action project will then be completed by the girls, on their honor, after the sleepover (individually or as a troop)

Supplies:

Brownie elf outline copies (from Making Friends) 

Crayons or markers

Large sized construction paper

Scissors (SU storage)

Pens/pencils

Oversized paper pads

Water cooler

Masking tape

Large, top sheets (to be returned)

Food:

Carrots

Celery

Ranch dressing

Ketchup

Chicken nuggets (to be baked)

Orange Juice

Apple Juice

Grape Juice

Milk

Triscuts and/or Wheat Thins

Paper bowls 

Paper plates 

Napkins 

Windex 

Bleach (for cleaning floors and sinks)

Spoons

Paper cups (for backup)

Cheerios

Life

Vanilla yogurt (large)

Strawberry yogurt (large)

Bananas

Apples

Oranges

Granola

Trail mix (late night snack)

I am sure that many of you have questions about the Take Action component.  The Challenge to Change workbook is a great method to assist girls in learning how to properly choose and execute a take action project.  I highly recommend it!  In the end, our group choose to do a project regarding endangered animals in our area.  They want to create a Facebook page (that they will contribute to through us adults), create awareness signs to put out and create educational pamphlets to distribute.  We only just had our sleepover a few says ago, so I can't say yet how well the afterwards of the take action will work out (so far so good though!).  

Overall, though, the sleepover was a success!  The girls had a blast and they got to earn a journey!  

How to do a journey in a day!

Confession time- when I have blonde moments, they are pretty massive (and usually a tad embarrassing).  I will be the first to preach about how much I love Google Drive, yet this blondie forgot to use it for you all!

So, with that being said, I finally uploaded some files that many of you have emailed me about (please, keep emailing away!  I love helping you and your girls out!).

First file, my original plans from our Daisy-Brownie sleepover (not included were the pages we read during the sleepover)
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2L6gPq7RdP1b0F0X2M4aTY1LVE/edit?usp=sharing
Not listed- I took the Brownies and the Daisy and split them up in to two patrols each (so four patrols total), and we told them that once they transplant their take action, to please rinse and recycle their plastic bottles.

Second file, a little how-to guide that you may find useful
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2L6gPq7RdP1X0QxWkVVZEJiNEE/edit?usp=sharing
Not listed- sample kaper chart (for those who don't know what a kaper chart is, it's like assigned "chores" during GS events.  We used in ours things like help set up for breakfast, clean up after snack, clean bathrooms, mop).

In addition, check what resources your council may have.  For example, I found on my council's website a handy form that can help you budget for any event and a helpful checklist to help you keep track of needs (mainly GS required things, ie: adult to girl ratio, extra insurance for specific activities, and more).  And of course, Google!  I'm not the only leader blogging out there.  So many other awesome leaders have shared their own resources with us (that's what Girl Scouting is all about, sharing!).

Hope that helps!

Meetings 22-32

Boy did I manage to get behind in blogging!  The new scout year is just around the corner and I haven't finished blogging about this year, oops!  I'd hate to leave you all hanging, so you're about to get the Cambell's version. But fear not, I promise not to leave out important details!

Meeting 22
Today we continued on with our journey, Between the Earth and Sky.  Since we started our Blue Bucket of words activity, this was the first meeting where I did not have to remind the girls that were writing down positive words to stick in the bucket (spoiler alert: they wrote down a few funny things).  Once we read and discussed the latest chapter, we headed back out to our "old" garden to get some work started on it.  It was great being back in the garden!

Meeting 23
Today's meeting was very much last week's meeting.  The biggest difference was that our garden time was more aimed at getting out some nasty stuff we found.  Ok, time for a pet peeve of mine- so called "weed prevention" tarp.  Let's get real for just a moment here.  The stuff does not work and most of them can actually pollute the soil, which in turn can pollute the overall environment.  We happened to find this in the garden (we had finally gone deep enough to find this plastic ickyness).  So the majority of the day was spent ripping it all out.  It was a good lesson for the girls though.

Meeting 24
GIRL SCOUT BIRTHDAY!  Fact- on March 12, 2013, GSUSA turned 101 years old!  Crazy, right?!  Well, the even crazier part was what did today- a whole lotta relaxing!  No, really, we had a meeting where we kicked back and just relaxed.  Of course we had some cake first, and then we watched Brave (it's Girl Scouts, you have to throw in those good female role models wherever you can, right?).

Meeting 25
Today was much like 22 and 23- wrote out blue bucket words, read a chapter in our journey, discussed it, and worked on out garden.  I know, boring, but the girls really enjoy getting out there and getting dirty.

Meeting 26
Earth Hour (not to be confused with Earth Day) happens every year on March 29.  During Earth Hour, people, even whole towns and cities, pledge to "power down" for one hour (this usually begins around 8 or 8 :30 PM).  By power down, I mean go off the grid, as in turn off anything and everything electronic, or anything that uses electricity to charge its batteries.  Earth Hour may only be one simple hour observed every year, but it's a precursor to something much bigger!  As such, with Earth Hour just a few days away, we all talked about it and pledged to power down.  Most of the girls are already in bed that late at night, so with it being a Saturday, we decided to observe it as a troop earlier in the day.  It was a challenge, but most of the girls made it happen.  We discussed what we do while not using electricity.  We could read a book, play outside, play a card or board game, or even take a nap.  This discussion was also part of us working on the Global Action award (which is similar to the Global Action Theme badge from WAGGGS).  BUT, the even bigger picture here, we, as a troop, took the Forever Green pledge and committed to help the environment.  But, more on our project next year!

Meeting 27
Guess what we did today?  We finished up Between the Earth and Sky.  To celebrate, we held a classroom vacation!  Between the Earth and Sky depicted our favorite flower friends taking a fun trip around the country, many of the destinations being places most of us had not yet been to.  So help bring their journey to life, I helped the girls out by pulling up a bunch of photos of where they went.  We then reflected on the journey and the many lessons we took from it.  We finished up the day by finishing our garden.  Knowing that we may not meet at this school again next year, we planted several lovely perennials (grasses and flowers) so the school would have something lovely.

Meeting 28
Today was not Earth Day, but it was just a few days before.  Like our meeting before Earth Hour, we talked about the meeting and more things we can do to help the environment.  Ok, so, uhm here's there thing..... though I am not a natural blonde anymore, I still tend to have massive blonde moments, and don't remember what activity we did next.  In my old meeting planner I had written down "recycling activity," but I'm sure we did more than that (this is also what I get for being so behind on blogging!).

Meeting 29
For today's meeting, we invited Emily Post, figuratively that is.  We had a manners lesson that started with all of us wearing skirts or dresses (me too!).  We learned about proper manners seeing as how we would be soon be visiting some important places in Savannah (our end of the year trip!).  We did have some really good blackmail leverage for the girls though.  They had asked that for their trip, we have lunch at The Lady and Sons (Paula Deen's restaurant in Savannah).  We just happened to mention to them that occasionally she was actually in the restaurant.  So, if they were acting up and using poor manners, it would embarrass Miss Paula to bits!  Ok, so the chances of her actually being there when we were, were slim, BUT, it was a good motivator for them to pay attention.  They learned the basics and more- chew with your mouth closed, don't talk with food in your mouth, use your silverware, and more I have forgotten by now.  However, the fun part came next- our semi annual "blind" taste test.  The one where I tell them I know exactly what each and every one of you are allergic too, and this ain't it, so you have to try it!  As usual, my kid ate everything without question, while the rest were a little iffy.  I was nice this time and got a few "normal" things this time. One of them was dried, candied strawberries,which was a hit.  The fun one though was my cupcakes.  It was chocolate based, but it also had in it coconut and zucchini.  Yes, I got my girls to eat a GREEN VEGETABLE!  Yes, I do have a bit of an evil streak in me.  I really do love sneaking in these taste tests because it gives the girls to broaden their culinary pallets.

Meeting 30
Remember our top secret project from last year?  We did one again this year, only better!  Well, not really better so much as it was different.  Random useless trivia for the day- one of the very few things our illustrious founder, Juliette Gordon Low, could not do was sew.  Hey, guess what my Daisies now know how to do?  SEW!  Ok, now I'm just bragging, but seriously, we taught them how to sew today so they could make small pillows as a part of their Mother's Day gifts.  That pretty much took up all of the meeting!

Next up is our end or year trip, but that I will make a separate blog for because it was AWESOME!

Meeting 31
The first part of today's meeting was spent finishing our pillows.  All the girls had left to do was stuff them and sew up the enclosure.  After that, we made some cute pinwheel looking flowers with toilet paper rolls that we attached to some mason jars.  The jars were used to make bath salts (epsom salt, a little baking soda and a few drops of essential oils of their choosing).  We finished that off with some pretty ribbon and tada!  All of their Mom's loved it!

Meeting 32
Today was not only our last meeting of the year, but it was our last meeting as Daisies!  We did two things today.  The first was a quick rehearsal for our bridging.  I purposely had put off learning the Brownie Smile song until the end of the year just so they could sing it at our bridging.  After that we did something very important- we planned out next year.  I put everything on a table for the girls (journeys, badges, supplemental badges) and told them to take some time and read it over.  After that, we spent a few minutes voting on what all they wanted to do, and so now we have our year one Brownie plan!

Bridging
Our bridging wasn't anything grand, but it was special.  Our girls began all in their Daisy tunics, and for one last time, we sang the Daisy song (after the pledge and promise of course).  One by one, the girls took off their tunics and crossed our bridge where they received their Brownie vest and bridging certificate.  Once all of the girls had crossed, they gathered up to sing the Brownie smile song!

That's me and my new little Brownie! (And a preggo trying desperately not to bawl her eyes out!)

We had an extremely successful year two.  Something that I am extremely proud to say is that 100% of my girls are registered and will be returning next year.  Sadly though, one girl had to move, so she will be in a new troop in a new state next year (we will miss her dearly!).  I can't wait for next year!  The girls planned out a REALLY fun year!

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 11

I feel the need to start out this blog by saying I absolutely love the Daisy journey Welcome to the Daisy Flower Garden!  It is the perfect "first thing" for Daisies to do because it introduces them to the world of Girl Scouts.  I think it was so beautifully done and I am so glad we got a chance to do it this year, especially with all of the new girls we had.

Sadly though, we finished up this journey today.  We learned so much from it though, especially with our Take Action project.  The garden is far from done though, and we plan to keep it up as long as we meet at this school.  There was one thing that we did differently to finish this journey.  The end of the story, we see the girls write a letter to future girl scouts.  There is also an activity for us to do that as well.  We will not be doing that activity until the end of our year, and we will be giving it to a new Daisy troop next year.  I thought it would be a great thing for them to do to finish out their year and help them bridge.

Our next item on the agenda was the cookie business leaf.  Earlier this year, the girls decided that they wanted to visit Juliette Gordon Low's house for their end of the year party, so today was a chance to talk about that.  Visiting the house is not free, so the girls need to earn some money to do this!  We looked up how much it would cost per girl (the fee for the program they want to do, their lunch, and patches), how much we earned per box (which isn't that much) and translated it to how many boxes everyone needs to sell.  We also talked about other things we wanted money for, like paying for next year's registration, Brownie uniforms, journey books and more.  In the end, we were able to come up with our goal and make a more concrete list of how we want to spend that money.  It's a great lesson for the girls on basic budgeting, saving and earning money.

Next week we'll be working on a really great project!

Sleepover! AKA, how to do a journey in a day....

The Girl Scout curriculum was carefully designed to go hand in hand with the school curriculum (Common Core Standards).  For example, the financial literacy leaves for the Daisies.  Right about the time we began the first leaf, our girls had already completed learning the basics about money in school.  We then took that concept and expanded upon it.  In other words, that means that each level in scouting is going to be different than the other since it corresponds with school work.  That also means that planning a joint sleepover with a journey is a little tricky, but totally doable with the right planning (good thing I'm a planner!).

The three Daisy journeys introduce the girls to scouting, teach the girls about the basics of traveling, and teach the girls about the importance of caring for animals (and themselves and others).  The three brownie journeys teach the girls about planning and doing a take action project, how to enjoy and conserve water, and how to engage in the world around them through stories and imagination.  In other words, these six journeys are so different!  First step for me was to read (and re-read) all of the Daisy and Brownie journeys.  I also got the leader guides to see if this was even doable.  The leader guides were another must on the reading list.  Those things are often a lifesaver when planning your meetings!  They have so many wonderful ideas, which was great to build upon my planning for this sleepover.

After reading everything, there were a few things that I saw.  The first one was that there were several elements of the journeys that really needed to be done over time, in a troop setting.  Some of the journeys advocate doing a take action project, which is something that really can't be done overnight.  Another aspect is the portions that literally take the scouts on journeys (field trips/outings/camping).  I started comparing the journeys within their categories.  By doing that, I discovered similarities in the It's Your Story- Tell it! aspect.

The three main elements of 5 Flowers, 4 Stories, 3 Cheers for Animals! include caring for animals and yourself (respect myself and others), how to do this, and how to advocate in caring for animals.  The four main elements of A World of Girls are interpreting clues in stories, empowering the girls, advocating for each other and how to reach people all over.  I don't know about you, but once I started with that outline, I thought my head was going to burst.... but it didn't.

The actual logistics of our sleepover were very well planned out ahead of time.  We had a group of older girls who came out to help run this too (and they rocked it!).  The girls were divided into four patrols- two of Brownies, two of Daisies.  Each patrol had a few adults with them, and the older girls manned the journey stations.  Four activities (two Daisy, two Brownie) were done Friday evening, and the remaining four were done Saturday morning.

To start out our sleepover. everyone made terrariums out of recycled bottles.  We told them that once their seeds have sprouted enough, they need to ask an adult to help them transplant it somewhere, then recycle the bottle.  That took care of the Take Action component.  It's not something big and extravagant,  but with 60+ girls there, if only half of them remember to do it, that little bit can make a big difference!

The Daisies were asked to bring a used (empty and cleaned) milk or juice container (the quart size) to make a bird feeder.  Before doing this, they read a passage from the journey book.  On Friday evening, they then got to do a fun activity of making pipe cleaner crafts.  It really didn't have anything to do with the journey, but they did learn to make flower rings, and it was fun.

For the Brownies, we created a "storybook" theme.  We asked the brownies to bring with them an empty cereal box.  On Friday evening, they created their journal.  We gave them a lot of freedom with it, since it's their journal.  The only requirement was that they put several pieces of construction paper in it, and the copies of GS mad libs we made, and decorated it anyway their hearts desired. Next, they read a passage from the journey book and created positivity "globes."  It started out like our Mother's day vases (plastic bottles decoupaged with tissue paper).  Before they finished, they all took small scraps of paper and wrote encouraging words/phrases on them and stored them in the bottles.

It's time for a lesson learned.  After we cleaned up from Friday's activities, we had snack time.  I bought ice cream for the girls.  I thought this would be a good idea because they would get so excited, gobble it up, and then be tired.  Yeah, no.  They were all a little wound up.  We played a movie before bedtime thinking that would calm them down too, but when it was over, at least 90% of them were still up (and it was after 11 when the movie finished!).  I am never serving ice cream at a sleep over ever again!

Saturday morning started out with a bang!  It was something fun, but was also some creative juice to fill the Brownies heads for what they would be doing next.  We gave the girls crazy hair!  They had the choice of getting Cindyloo Whoo hair (Whooville hair) or Pipi Longstocking braids.  The end results were incredible.  I was afraid I would have angry parents calling me later, but I didn't, thank goodness.  The girls hair did give us some great photos though!

Saturday morning, the Daisies learned some basic first aide skills after reading a journey passage.  This didn't take up the entire time slot we had planned, but the smart cookies that they are, the older girls took the groups and used the rest of the time to play games.  Then, the Daisies read another passage from the journey and learned some basic yoga and origami.

The Brownies used their journals all of Saturday morning.  In the first station, they read a passage from the journey, and then paired off to work on the mad libs.  They had six total, and the girls came up with some very funny stories!  For the next activity, the girls were asked to write/draw some comic strips based on what we did at the sleepover, and anything else they wanted to do based on Girl Scouting.  I didn't see all of them, but the girls came up with some awesome stuff.

So, how long did this take you ask?  We arrived for setup at 4 PM, and the girls started coming at 5, with dinner at 6, and activities starting at 7.  Lights out were at 11 PM.  Breakfast on Saturday was at 8 AM, with activities starting by 9 AM, finished up by 11 AM, and then we all cleaned up, telling the parents that pickup was at 11:30 AM.  So yes, you read that correctly- we did two separate journeys in less than 24 hours and did some fun stuff.  It's completely doable, really!  I'm doing this again in the spring for the journeys, so I will tell you all about it then!



If any of you want my plans for this sleepover (and I have it all typed out in details/times), please feel free to email me at troop30426(at)gmail(dot)com and I will be more than happy to send them!  I know that journeys take up a lot of time that we don't always have, and the girls just love sleepovers!

Daisies, Year 2, Meeting 6

Community service is a term that is loosely used by people when they do good deeds.  For example, running a donation drive could be considered community service.  In Girl Scouting, a Take Action project is  like community service, but the difference is that it is a sustainable project that can benefit many people.

Today was the first day that we got out into the garden to really work on it.  We had our spot, but before we could do anything, we had to clear out the area.  So, we all put on our gloves and began working on that.  The spot choose was once an actual garden, but over time it was let go and became overgrown with weeds. We didn't quite finish today, but we did get a good amount done.

Over the past couple weeks, this project has been incorporated with our journey, Welcome to the Daisy Flower Garden.  I just want to point out that it was the girls choice to do this garden (though the selfish side of me wants to do it too!), but their work each week has coincided with the story of the journey.  For those of you who are not familiar with this journey- four friends stumble upon this garden one day, and "unlock its secret."  As the garden begins to spruce itself up, so have my girls with their own garden.  I can't wait to see how this comes out!