Girl Scouts

We’re doing Girl Scouts again this year. Grace is still a Brownie, but we have some girls who have moved up to Juniors, and I’m in charge of them. We went to the rallies held in our area and were able to recruit some girls for our troop, which was nice. Now we have 4 juniors and 5 brownies. The junior badges are more difficult to earn, which they should be, I guess. But just like in school, the girls are reluctant to work on their own or make their own decisions. They want to be told what to do, then they don’t listen.

One of the badges is “Independence.” It’s full of valuable information, but it’s stuff they have to do at home or with their parents. I told them to make a poster as they did the parts that show what they did. Hopefully that will be enough. There’s another on called “Practice with a Purpose,” again, filled with stuff I can’t do for them or with them. I’m not sure how to enforce that one. For some of them, they did a kid’s 1K over Thanksgiving. That works for me.

We’ve started pushing more of the decision-making and planning to the girls. Some of that is good, some is bad. I figured out a kaper chart, but it’s a work in progress. Some jobs require more than one person, and if you’re going to rotate instead of draw every month, that makes it difficult. I guess I’ll make a 1,2,3 spot for those jobs and move them between the spots. But then I’d have to make ANOTHER chart that would change as our troop changes. I’m still working it out.

So far this year, we’ve had our Halloween/Juliette Gordon Low birthday party, Investiture/Bridging/Rededication ceremony, an afternoon of learning camping skills from another troop, our Christmas party at Shangri La and a campover to learn some camping skills.

Ceremony

My fake campfire centerpiece

Grace and her friend Taylor

Halloween/JGL Birthday Party