On my Honor...

Earning the Blue Center of the daisy is the simplest and the girls earned that between our parent meeting and first meeting.

Next is the first petal: 

Honest and Fair (light blue). 

I had some fun with this since we had just been talking about money, earning the Money Counts leaf, and with the elections so close all the girls are aware of political changes, even if they do not understand it.

I segwayed into the Honest and Fair by talking about what each of those words meant to the girls. I then showed them pictures of presidents on my phone (I just googled president's pictures) and asked who those people were.
They recognized George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and some of the other pictures that I pointed out. I told them that we would have a new president soon and we talked about what it meant to be president.

"A President is a person in charge of our country. In your house, who is in charge?"

Then I asked what they would do if they were in charge. There were some pretty silly scenarios that they came up with before I asked,

"How would you be Honest and Fair if you were in charge?"

You can see the backdrop to their
speeches behind my daughter.

With that in mind, as they were discussing I took out a box of fun dress-up accessories: hats, scarves, jewelry, crowns...

In a corner of the room I had set up a little backdrop (fabric on the wall) with a podium (table) so they each could give their "presidential speech" on how they would be honest and fair.

They LOVED this! They got to dress up and be center of attention. I realize that not all girls would like the attention, but that was not a concern for my group. The parents thought it was great too, since it was a good opportunity to record it.

The speeches all started out as "If I was in charge, I would be honest and fair by..."

Fair seemed to be the easier trait to explain since they were able to give an example, like being nice to friends or helping friends resolve a disagreement. I prompted them a little with honesty and asked them what it means, "to tell the truth" and then asked them a question. The question I asked my daughter was whether the candy wrappers I found on the couch this morning were her fault, the other girls had a more generic question like, 'are you excited about your new little sister?' or 'have you ever eaten something without permission?'

We breaked for snack and then play acted out scenarios on how to not be honest and fair, and then what is the right way to be honest and fair with your friends. For example, fighting over the same toy verses sharing willingly. These were also super fun and silly, but the girls know the difference between right and wrong.

We ended the meeting learning Make New Friends.

Kaper Chart

I have a little troop still so created a simple Kaper chart that can grow with my troop.

There are SOOO many great kaper ideas online, it was entertaining looking up so many artistic ideas. I eventually chose this route since I wanted something that would easily store in my file folder between meetings.

I found the cutest girl art on another blog, Snugglebug, that I printed out, let the girls choose one to color, laminated, and glued to clothespins. The girls thought it was super special to have a visual, although they were not sure which one they had decorated. Good thing I put their name on the other side of the pin!

While I looked through google images for ideas and clipart to make it easier to create, I used Macromedia Fireworks to put it together. I like Macromedia for images with pieces, the program makes each piece a separate item which makes editing/adding elements very simple.

There is a bit of glare in this picture, but I used magnets to secure to the white board I brought the meeting to use for discussion. I can also use a large clip to secure to the front of my file folder box.

Overall I am very happy with the results!

Happy Birthday Troop!

The first official meeting had to be special! I wanted the girls to leave so excited for the year, that they asked their parents every day if it was time for girl scouts. So the best way to kick off the year was a birthday party to celebrate the beginning of the troop; kids love birthday parties!

We began the meeting with the flag salute and then went over the promise (we do a little more with
this later to earn our blue center). I then congratulated the daisies on starting their Girl Scout journey by pinning each girl with their insignia tab and pins. The troop purchased the tab and daisy pin and asked the parents to supply the world trefoil pin.

After a little ball game to get to know each other, we went over the Girl Scout promise. I had it in different parts and the girls had to put it in order and then they got to play pin the center on the daisy. I think a couple girls tried to cheat through the bandana.

They made their own ice cream Sundays and after we sang happy birthday to troop 61942, I told the girls about kapers and we talked about the jobs that need to be done at home and during a meeting. When the girls had cleaned up, they colored little Girl Scout clip art that we are going to use for a kaper chart starting next meeting.

Last was PRESENTS!

The parents brought presents for the troop and the troop also had presents for the girls. The daisies sat in a circle with the presents between them. Starting out everyone chose one gift and we played the left/right game, by passing the gift according to the story. Then they went crazy opening the rest of the donated art supplies. The story I used was edited for the girls:

I left my house and was on my way to Lucy Left’s house for our first Girl Scout meeting, but my mom left the directions at home right by the phone! I knew right away that we needed to have the right directions to Lucy Left’s house, so Mom turned left then turned right to go back to my house for the right directions.

Sure enough, there they were, right where I had left them, right next to the phone and left of the picture of my cousins. Finally, we were on the right track. I arrived right on time for opening activities. Everyone arrived and sat right down after the flag solute.

I sat on the left of Lucy Left. The leader got right to work to tell us all about what we would be doing right after snack time then asked for suggestions so we could do things right from the start. There were wonderful ideas right from our own daisies that attended. Nothing was left out. The leader covered what type of meetings we would be having, what patches we could earn that would be just right for our group. She didn’t want anyone to be left out of our activities.

It was chaos! It was hilarious! And by the end of the story the girls were a little more comfortable with left and right.

The girl’s gift was their journal to take to and from meetings and the balloons that were blown up.

In the end it was a successful meeting and produced a very tired leader.