Girl Scouts Spring 2018
Girl Scouts Spring 2018!
Serenity still adores Girl Scouts. It has turned out to be such a great activity for her. She just loves exploring nature and thinking up ways to help the earth. It’s also fun for both of us to get to spend more time with the girls at school. She set big goals for cookie sales again this year and went beyond them! She wanted to sell 375 boxes to earn the adorable stuffed turtle but ended up with nearly 500 boxes! Once again, she kept selling until the troop was sold out of cookies, which is such a relief to me! She has honed her business plan, selling in the neighborhood, putting up a booth in Papa’s yard, and going to most of the booths the troop does as well.
We earned lots of badges this spring, including the Cabin Camper badge! Yes, we finally went camping as Girl Scouts. I had to do a Troop Camper training session early in April, which I was sort of dreading and nervous about. But, I managed to light fires without catching anything on fire that wasn’t supposed to be, and I learned SO much! The campfire evening we had was a wonderful experience, one I wanted the girls to get to enjoy as well. And going on a hike with real naturalists was amazing! We dissected animal scat, found the site of an owl massacre, located a den, hoof prints, all sorts of amazing things I wouldn’t have known to look for. It definitely inspired me to want to find ways for the girls to have these experiences too. And taking them camping was absolutely worth every minute! I set up a Kaper chart so every girl got a chance to learn to build a fire and light it. I was a little nervous, because lighting the first fire took half my matches and most of the tinder I’d brought! But we managed to light two more the next day. Packing more tinder is definitely on my list, and more than one box of matches! The girls also cooked meals over the fires, and they each got a chance to prep food. The third job was hostessing. That involved setting up the dish washing station, setting the table, and making nature centerpieces. I was a little concerned about the nature centerpieces. The girls aren’t supposed to pick things, so I had no idea what this would end up as. But they were amazingly creative! One group found a single bright red leaf and turned it into a campfire with twigs and an interesting twisted stick. Serenity and Kenzi made a bird’s next! They found a piece of bark that was shaped like a bird, and then found little rocks and twigs to make a nest for it! It was really beautiful, but very hard not to want to take it home with us.
The girls loved the campfire. I asked each of them to learn a song and take turns leading the songs. The only girl scout song we really knew before the campout was Make New Friends, so this added a LOT to our repertoire! And it was hilarious and fun!
Planning the food was a challenge for me. I asked the girls what they wanted to eat, which was maybe a mistake, but this is supposed to be girl led. There was nothing they all wanted to eat! They agreed only on breakfast foods, so we made French toast in foil packets for breakfast with bacon, scrambled eggs in foil packs for Friday dinner, and for the last lunch we really only ate S’mores since we were too full after the French toast to be hungry for the grilled sandwiches we’d planned. The French Toast packets were yummy. It was challenging to know when they were done and not burn things though!
We also earned the World Of Girls Journey this semester. My favorite part of this was the All About Me collages that the girls made. I printed lots of empowering words and adjectives, and they painted canvases and added paper cutouts to make stories about themselves. They were beautiful and fun! We also learned about France for World Thinking Day. We painted like Monet =) My favorite =)
Hour of Code
French soda and treats for World Thinking Day =) Abby and Serenity loved drawing paper doll dresses and learning about French Fashion Design.
Kayla’s mom came to teach us about the Eastern Tribe of Cherokee, which they belong to. It was wonderful hearing some of their stories, and Kayla showed us some of her dancing regalia. I wish we could go see her dance!
Serenity and Abby also did the Brownie Quest Journey. For their Take Action project, they collected coats, hats and gloves to deliver to the homeless. They chose that project because the first week of cookie sales were COLD! They decided if they were cold just selling cookies for a few hours, that they needed to do something to help others who are cold all the time. It was great work!
The girls have now bridged to Juniors! It’s hard to believe they are growing up so fast! They spent the last meeting prioritizing which badges they want to work on the most and planning for the next year. Ashley, Lorelai’s mom and my co-leader, has big plans for everyone to go for the Gold Award! Hopefully lots more Girl Scout fun to come!
