Girl Scout Ideas - November Edition

I've worked with Girl Scouts for nearly two decades (it really doesn't feel like that long!) and one of the things I loved most about having a Girl Scout troop was our holiday and seasonal activities. The ideas I share in these monthly posts are from a New Leader Booklet that was shared with me when I started leading Girl Scout troops in the early 2000s. Since our council (and as far as I know any other) no longer shares this information, I want to make it accessible on the internet. Enjoy!

Have an Investiture Ceremony. If you find your self putting it off because it's too complicated - it is too complicated! A few pointers and Girl Scout lore: 

• Girls shouldn't wear their uniforms until they are invested.
• Girls should attend four meetings before they are invested (or it could be their fourth meeting).
• Pin the pin upside down. When a girl does her first "good turn" then it can be turned right side up. 

After the ceremony, the girls could serve refreshments to their families (a good turn!) and invite their siblings to play some Girl Scout games they have learned.

Make pine-cone turkeys.

Have a food drive, or cook food for someone in need.

Make edible collages. Smear honey on a paper plate, then add food items such as raisins, cereal, peanuts, coconut, etc. to make pictures. Enjoy and eat!

Have an overnight at a Scout House or Scout Camp. Contact your council to reserve a Scout House or Camp. Some fun ideas to do at your overnight:

• Decorate pillow cases with fabric markers and let girls autograph each other's pillow case and outline a hand print.
• Get glow-in-the-dark necklaces to play with at bedtime and to serve as nightlights.
• Be sure to let the girls cook their own food!
• Make shadow puppets to play with after dark by using stencils to trace shapes onto heavy construction paper and tape onto Popsicle sticks.

Make cranberry relish with an old fashioned food grinder and the recipe on the back of a package of whole cranberries. Put in small jar (originally we used baby food jars, but now I shop for food safe small jars at the craft store) and perhaps decorate with a ribbon and circle of fall print fabric to five as gifts to families for Thanksgiving dinner.

Visit an elder-care, or a convalescent or children's hospital. Or. deliver groceries to someone in need.

Have a kidnap breakfast. Arrange ahead of time to have the families keep the girls in bed or at least in their pajamas, but don't tell the girls! You arrive (in your pajamas) at the homes of the girls and wake them up. As you have picked up more girls, bring the crowd with you into the bedrooms. Go to a restaurant, a Scout House, or someone's home for breakfast. They'll never forget this one!

Make tree decorations for the birds. String fruit loops or cheerios, cut up fruit, and popcorn or make ornaments by spreading old break with lard and cutting it with cookie cutters. Tint the lard with a bit of food coloring if you wish. You could also make suet bags with squares cut from plastic onion bags tied with yarn. Mix a spoonful of suet with birdseed and place in the center of the square before you tie it up.

Make a troop quilt. Have each girl decorate a square with fabric pens and hopefully participate in sewing the squares together. Remember to leave a few squares empty for future troop members.

Learn about Kaper Charts and use them at your meetings.

Find out about boats and ships (especially the Mayflower). Sing a few sea chanteys.

Bring a pet to visit an elder care home or plant some bulbs at a park or other public place or at a convalescent home.

Learn how to make baskets or do weaving.

To the best of my knowledge, this booklet originated in the San Francisco area (the original specified places in that area along with including a San Fran phone number.) The ideas I have shared are not my own, though I have modified a few to include more updated information. 

International Day of the Girl

Today is International Day of the Girl and our club is celebrating in some wonderful ways. First, we have a phenomenal staff member who is going to share his views on respect and courtesy for all genders and basically encouraging gentlemanly behavior. 

Then we're showing a video from the Day of the Girl website discussing girls in STEM careers, and exploring some ways we can encourage girls to feel more accepted in the world of STEM.

Finally (my favorite part) we're announcing a new partnership. For several years we've had a partnership with Boy Scouts; each month they prepare for us a kit of supplies and bring it out to our site and a few times a year the Boy Scout council representative will come out and do projects with our kids (all of our kids - not just the boys). Things like the pinewood derby and rain gutter regatta have been favorites. They also invite us out to a day of camp each summer and all of our kids go have a great time. BUT, it's still Boy Scouts. Our girls know that they don't have their own program and it's been something I've wanted to remedy since I started working at the club. I'm so excited to announce that we have a pilot partnership with Girl Scouts. We will have our own troop here at the club and while the council representative will come out and visit from time to time, the council staffers won't be the ones responsible for weekly programming. I'll be facilitating a multi-level troop within our club and we are the very first club in our council to have this program available for our girls. To day I'm excited is an understatement. 

How have you celebrated the International Day of the Girl? Does your organization have a partnership with other groups? Has it worked well for you or have you learned something valuable from the experience? Let me know!

World Post Day

According to the Universal Postal Union's website, the purpose of Universal Post Day is to "bring awareness to the Post's role in the everyday lives of people and businesses, as well as its contribution to global social and economic development". This holiday seemed like an open invitation to showcase a Career Exploration into a postal career. An easy way to accomplish this could be to have a mail carrier or post master visit your group and discuss their career. Another idea could be to take your group to the local post office for a tour. 

You could also put together a project that shows just how amazing our mail service is. We've got a project in the works to start a pen pal club with a group I met at a recent conference. When we send them our package, I'm adding tracking service to it so that our kids can see how far their package travels each day on it's way to our new friends. Some learning activities involved with this are going to be using technology to determine the distance between our club and theirs and to find out how long it would take to travel if we drove the club bus, took a flight on an airplane, or walked. Then we'll compare how long it takes our package to arrive at it's destination.

Have you had a Career Exploration with someone working in the Postal Service? Have you had experiences with having a group pen pal exchange? Let me know!

Character Counts - Blue Shirt Day

One primary program focus at the club is character development. We implement several programs that teach and encourage character development. I my opinion, one of the most important character development topics we cover is anti-bullying. We have done the Bully Busters project (Service Recipe Guide 01) through Million Members, Million Hours of Service over the summer and we will be pulling that out again for Blue Shirt Day including creating our own bulletin boards showcasing our BGCA Bully Busters Club.

So, you might ask what exactly Blue Shirt Day is (because I know I was when I first heard about it). Blue Shirt Day is part of the Stomp Out Bullying campaign. You can utilize some great resources included in the toolkit to get meaningful dialog started with your kids. 

There are a wide range of statics involving bullying, but one of the most impactful I have found is that in a poll of kids, 49% in grades 4-12 have reported feeling that they have been bullied in school within the last month. Nearly half of our kids are saying that they are being bullied - NEARLY HALF! This is staggering - every day kids are taking their own lives because of the stresses they feel from bullying. This problem is a national crisis and it will take everyone working together to have the most impact in the lives of our youth.

In our club, we will be encouraging all of our members to wear blue to show their support. It's a small step that will show a large visual impact. If you would like to take part in Blue Shirt Day, some additional ideas could include things like having a mental health professional visit with your kids (which could be a wonderful Career Launch activity as well) as well as incorporating some anti bullying skits. You can find loads of examples on youtube for kids to watch and if you want to expand the activity have them work in groups and write their own skits.

Is your group recognizing Blue Shirt Day? What are you doing in your groups to fight bullying? Let me know!

October Fun for Little Learners

Little learners require special activities designed for little hands and developing minds. One of my previous life experiences was teaching preschool (my first class was a group of 10 little boys and that was a bit of a culture shock for me). Our club doesn't have little ones (membership starts at 6) but I know there are a lot out there who do take PreK so I wanted to share some ideas of activities that can be done with the club or as family projects.

Clipping Tubes - Cut cardboard tubes into 2-inch lengths. Have your child use spring-type clothespins to clip the tubes together to make simple designs. You can also ask your child to clip specific numbers of tubes together.

Torn-Paper Pumpkin - Give your child a small paper plate and a piece of orange construction paper. Let you child tear the orange paper into small pieces and glue the pieces all over the paper plate. Then let your child glue on a green construction paper stem to complete the pumpkin.

Ghostly Family - On a sheet of white paper, help your child trace around your family's hands. Cut out the shapes. Have your child turn the hand shapes into ghosts by turning the hand shapes upside down and using black crayons to draw eyes on the palms of the hands. Glue the ghosts onto a large sheet of black construction paper so that they appear to be floating in the night sky. Which ghost is the smallest? Which is the largest?

Trick or Treat Container - Cut the top off a plastic gallon milk jug, leaving the handle attached to the bottom. Cut out shapes from construction paper and help your child glue them onto the jug to create a funny or scary face. Glue pieces of yarn around the top edge of the jug for hair.

News for Everyone - Share the newspaper with your child. Read the comics and captions under interesting pictures. Point to letters that are in your child's name. Look for numerals in the advertisement pages.

Measuring a Pumpkin - Set out a pumpkin. Let your child cut off a length of yarn that he or she thinks will fit around the pumpkin. Have your child try wrapping the yarn around the pumpkin to see how well it fits. Measure and cut off a piece of yarn that fits around the pumpkin exactly. Let your child compare his or her yarn to the piece that fits the pumpkin exactly. Ask "Is your yarn piece longer or shorter?"

Journals - Spend some quality time with your child by setting aside some time each day or week to write in a journal together. Just staple several sheets of paper together to make a journal and have your child dictate something for you to write. Try offering a topic each time such as "What did you do last night? What makes you happy? What is your favorite game?"

What is Litter? - Set out various pieces of litter (soda can, gum wrapper, plastic bag, paper, etc.) and nature objects (leaf, branch, rock, etc.). Ask your child to point to the objects that are litter. How does your child know that the objects are litter? What should be done with them? Hide some litter around the room, and let your child search for it and put it in a garbage bag.

Marble Fun - Tie several marbles in the toe of a large sock. Have your child fell the sock and try to guess how many marbles are inside. Take out the marbles and count them. Take turns placing marbles in the sock and guessing.

Jack-O'-Lantern Flashlight - From orange construction paper, cut a circle to cover the end of a flashlight. Cut jack-o'-lantern features out of the circle. Tape the circle to the end of the flashlight. Darken the room, play music, and let your child use the flashlight to shine jack-o'-lanterns on everything while dancing around the room.

Tennis Ball Carry - Place a large spoon and a basket filled with tennis balls at one end of the room and an empty basket at the other end. Let your child balance a tennis ball on the spoon, walking carefully across the room, and put the ball in the other basket.

Sniffy Name - Place a sheet of construction paper inside a box lid. Help your child print his or her name by squeezing glue onto the paper. Then let your child sprinkle fruit flavored gelatin powder on the glue and tap the excess into the box lid. After the glue dries, let your child let everyone sniff his or her name.

Does your site have PreK or are you a PreK care provider? Do you have an awesome October project idea? Let me know!

Balloons Around the World Day - Calendar Connection

Part of my job has me always on the lookout for fun and interesting holidays that our kids may not have heard of but would enjoy celebrating. In my search for interesting October holidays (not that we don't already have a full calendar for October, but hey, who doesn't love a good holiday?) I discovered this lovely little nugget over at punchbowl - Balloons Around the World Day. Now, If you know me you know that these simple air-filled tubes of rubber have a special place in my heart. You see, my amazing husband is a balloon bender. He has come to visit our club and share this with our kids on a few occasions (which the club kids absolutely love).

How could I not know that there was a holiday to celebrate balloon bending? Shouldn't every good balloon bender's wife know about these things? We definitely won't be missing out on celebrating this again. Now, if you're looking to do some fun balloon bending things with your own kids (and you don't just have your own awesome Balloon man), you can show your kids all kinds of cool youtube videos highlighting this art form. If you want to try your hand at balloon bending, the Balloon Man highly recommends only using Qualatex balloons for best results (no, that's not a marketing ploy, that really is the only brand he will use).

Have you celebrated Balloons Around the World day with your kids? Do you have a fantastic holiday that you haven't seen featured here? Let me know!