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!
Thanks for listing your ideas! I'm emailing you right now. :)
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