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For leaders who are just starting this badge I would suggest you look at Agent of Change and see how you can incorporate Step#1 & #3 (fit nicely). I did have to stretch this out and finish it a few months after we initial started it (b/c it was kind of complicated). I really try to not give homework and make all the badges fun!. This one was a challenge but in the end we got it done :)
1st Awards Ceremony by Slidely Slideshow
This is my third year as a Girl Scout leader and I still find Awards Ceremony to be a great way to celebrate the girls and interact with the parents (yes its more work). I believe I am the only leader in my Service Unit that does this but I really feel it is a great way to share with the families what we do. This video highlights Aug-Dec and the girls received their awards from last 3 months. Looking at the video I realize how much we have done thus far.
Inside Government Badge Girl Scout Juniors learned all about what goes on inside City Hall. We discussed what active citizens do, what roles people play, how issues get resolved, how laws are passed and how people work together in community.
This year I am really trying to focus on doing badges outside of meetings and in my community. You might notice a lot more of my post are on location (Yoga studio/Stay Fit). It really is a lot more fun for me and a lot richer experience for the girls. Often times I will invite/include other Juniors troops to participate (3 Junior troops attended this event). I hope you got some great ideas of ways to bring this badge to life with your troop.
I was trying to think of a fun way for Juniors to earn the Junior Aide Award (3 hours of working with younger scouts). So I invited 3 other Junior troops (who also need to earn Junior Aide) to join us. We hosted a 3hr workshop from 5:30-8:30pm. We invited 20 Brownies to come (charged them $8ea) and each hour they switched and went to a new station. At the end of the event they completed 3 badges (painting, sense, home scientist). This was a really fun way to accomplish this leadership award. Very rich experience for the Juniors leading it and tons of fun for the Brownies. Side note after we completed this I did learn the new Junior Aide awards "suggest" a Journey. So perhaps tweaking the event to make sure it aligned with that suggestion.
Finally able to attend this awesome event. We did learn a few things and come away with a few ideas on how to improve our experience next time. We left town too late and arrive in dark to set up our tent (no fun). We missed most of the Friday night activities on the Boardwalk (movie on beach and games). We will plan better next time. Saturday morning we had a blast riding all the rides and eating lunch on the beach. This was an amazing weekend adventure and we hope it make it a yearly tradition.
Tonight was a SWAPS marathon....yeek! it was crazy and the girls loved it! We are going to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and the girls needed 24 SWAPS (optional). In addition our Service Unit puts on Campfire event each Fall, also a SWAPS option. So I added this meeting just to do SWAPS. To off set the supply cost each girl paid $5 and the goal was for each girl to leave with 50 SWAPS (that was an ambitious goal). We did not get all 50 completed (one craft was a total flop). But each girl did complete the 25 needed for Boardwalk and a bag of extra SWAPS. The extras will be useful for future events.
I am always looking for ways to make these badge fun! So I read through the badge and thought we have a super cool Yoga Studio in town maybe they would want to host a session for the Girl Scouts. To make it more attractive I invited several other Juniors troops to join us. This allowed them to fill the room and me to get cost down to just $5 per girl. I ended up inviting 4 other Junior troops (close to 40 girls). We completed #1 Start Moving, #2 Keep your body fueled, #3 Know how to stress less #4 Get the truth about health, #5 Help your family stay fit (this step the girls did at home). I met with the yoga owner and listed out the steps and she had the teacher cover those at the end of the yoga. It was so awesome!
We are continuing to work on Agent of Change Journey. I decide to weave in Playing the past badge (it fit well into section on great leaders & great teams). I am big on offering an opening craft. That allows me time to get set up and gives the girls something to work on as they arrive. This craft was super easy I took paper plates (pre-cut) girls colored, added gems and glitter (note to self skip the glitter big mess).
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Troop 209Welcome to our blog. I thought I would start a blog to help stay organized. I also love reading other girl scout leaders blog and I thought I could share what works for our troop, hope its helpful! Categories |