First meeting of Daisy Troop

First Meeting/Family Meeting

Late September 2012

Goal:  For the girls to meet, get comfortable with us and my house and the structure of the meetings.  For the moms to learn the basic structure of what we’re doing, ask questions, fill out paperwork and pay dues ;)

(Forgive me if these first two sessions don’t fully live up to my OCD promise.  I didn’t start my typed meeting itineraries until Meeting three.)

Gathering:

Girls:  I took the girls into the craft room (yes, I have a craft room to indulge my craft

OCD)

Name Tag Craft: (Takes 15-20 minutes for a five year old if you let them spell their own name and peal their own stickers.)

Supplies:

                            1.      Foam Circles about three inches in diameter in several colors (I cut them out                               of  foam sheets). I cut more circles than the number of girls in case they mess up and so even the last girl their gets to choose a color.  (I’ve learned to make sure there is a lot of pink and purple).

                           2.      Daisy sticker with troop number on it

                           3.      Foam letters

                           4.      Foam flower stickers

                           5.      Foam markers

I wasn't taking pictures of everything back in September so I don't have a finished product, but these are the supplies we used.

Moms: Got to go with my co-leader into the living room to complete paperwork. 

Paperwork is her OCD.  She’s an expert on the stuff.  Thank God, `cause I hate it and the Girl Scouts love it!

I made pretty folders to hold all of the fun paperwork:

Paperwork:

1.      Registration forms for both mom and daughter.  We required both to be registered in our troop so the moms could come to field trips and events.  We (my co-leader) put them in the system ourselves so we knew they’d end up in the right place.  Registration fees were included in Dues.

2.      Health Forms for Mother and Daughter- same reason as above

3.      Permission slips for meetings (`cause the Girl Scouts  love their freaking paperwork)

4.      Know my Daughter” Form- recommend it for a new troop http://www.gscnc.org/files/pdf/leader/c330.pdf

5.      Girl Scout Promise and Girl Scout Law

6.      Info for our first Field Trip

We also had:

7.  A Contact Sheet

8.  A list of the rules and expectations of our troop
(Do you believe that we’re OCD yet?  We were not leaders before, we were not Girl Scouts before, and this is my oldest daughter. We’re just nuts.)

         

Oh and we even made special clipboards for them: (actually my daughter made this one)

Girl Scout Circle: (Girls in the middle, moms on outside)

1.      Taught Girls the Quiet Hand- They did it well the first meeting, but soon they were so comfortable we had to be more creative to get the quiet.  We use things like “Catch a bubble in your mouth,” and “One, Two, Three, Eyes on me.” Works better with this age because remember what everyone says about Daisies… herding cats.  I still recommend teaching them the quiet sign right from the beginning. 

If you don’t know what the quiet sign is… per official GS glossary: “Raising the right hand over the head to signal for attention and quiet at any Girl Scout gathering. When the hand goes up, mouths go quiet, and everyone joins in giving the quiet sign.

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2.      Girl Scout Promise: Just read it to them this time

I wrote it out and my daughter added the art work without my knowledge.

3.      Song:

I'm a Daisy Girl Scout

(Tune of I'm a Little Teapot)

I'm a little Daisy (hands together, at side of face, head tilted)
dressed in blue (hands pick up hem of uniform smock)
I am a Girl Scout (make 3 fingered sign)
you are too (point to neighbor)
When I go to meetings (hands out, palms up)
I sing and shout (hands cup around mouth)
I love being a Daisy Girl Scout (point to heart)

4.      Here We `Round the Daisy Circle- we used this for the first couple meetings until the girls got used to us and talking in a group.  It goes like this:

Take a bunch of fake daisies and pass it around the circle while singing:

      “Here we go `round the Daisy Circle, the Daisy Circle, the Daisy Circle

      Here we go `round the Daisy Circle, we have such fun at meetings”

Where the flowers land is whose turn it is to speak.  In this first meeting the girls had to say their name, their school and their grade (it’s a mixed troop).  You keep going until everyone has had a turn.

Flowers we use.  Many lost from frequent use.

This can take a while.  The girl’s loved it, but we had to stop and just go around the circle half way through the year.

5.      We had the girl’s try on vests (we had bought one small and one extra small) to see what size they were.  Yes, we bought and ironed and pinned the girls starting vests.  `Cause we’re OCD and didn’t trust the mom’s to have them all ri-I mean the same.  Cost was included in dues.

6.      We let them look at the journey books and Daisy Handbooks and gave them the option of buying them.  5/8 girl’s got the Handbook.  In the end, we decided all the girls needed the journey books and I still believe that.  In fact, I wish I’d made them all get the Handbooks.  I wasted a lot of ink on color photocopying. 

Daisy Handbook.  $22.50 at the Girl Scout Store

     

Journey Book $7 at the Girl Sout Store

I should make this clear, it seems like a lot of people aren’t using the Handbook.  We used either the handbook or the journey book in every single meeting.  Don’t fight it.  Just buy it!

Welcome to the Daisy Flower Garden Journey

          If you’ve ever read this journey you’ll have noticed that it’s an introduction to the Garden where all the Flower Stories from the Handbook take place.  So, the way we structured this year was to weave the petals and the journey together over the course of the year.  Mostly we concentrated on the journey at the beginning and then took it back up in early Spring.

For example: handbook

This is the first story packet for Lupe the Lupine

Journey book:

Introduction of Lupe and many of the Flowers in Chapter 4 of the Journey book

            The Mini-Garden- this is a key part of the garden journey

The book recommends growing basil and lettuce leaves.  This sounded crazy boring and in my yard I have several of the flowers featured in the Daisy Flower garden so….

While my co-leader continued with the moms, I took the girls outside into my garden.  I showed them the marigold, zinnia, roses, Gerber daisies and morning glories.  The girls had a blast!  I let each pick a flower for their mom (I cut them with pruning shears).  Then we gathered seeds from the marigolds, daisies, and zinnias (in later September they are abundant.)

Marigolds from my yard

Zinnia (not the Green from the story, but still) from my garden

After the mom’s got flowers (big mom points here) we spread the seeds out on cookie sheets to dry in the sun.

          When they were done with the seeds I gave them a few minutes to decorate our mini-
          garden  container with stickers.

Closing Circle-

            By this point we had gone over the allotted hour and the moms were getting restless (the girls could have stayed all night), so we gathered them for a quick circle, sang the daisy song again and told them we’d see them in two weeks.

A post note on choosing your troop (ok a couple notes on choosing your troop):

1.  We chose a small group; I can’t imagine doing more than 10 girls at this age.  Many a leader never returns after dealing with 20 daisies.  And I think the girls get a better, more intimate experience.  Just do what you feel comfortable with.  Don't let anyone pressure you into taking more than you are comfortable with.  You can always add more next year. 

2.  Besides our two, we took girls off the waiting list. This may be scary at first, especially if the girls are in your house, but it turned out great for us.  And it felt very true to the girl scout way, “Make New Friends” and all that.
 

3.  We took girls from several different school- this way there were no cliques and we didn’t have to deal with school drama.  We had one pair of girls who just happened to be in the same class and they fought all the time about what was going on in school.  And they’re only 7!!  Diversity, you'll be thankful for it.  And the girl’s will have second group of friends to turn to if drama happens at school as they get older.

4.  Set expectations right away.  We sent out a very long, very OCD email setting troop expectations when we offered a spot in our troop to each girl.  Half of them turned us down, but the moms who agreed knew what kind crazy they were getting into.  Because of that our attendance was excellent, we always had a chaperone, no one balked when we ask for anything, and the girls attend a ton of field trips.  And our troop rocks!  (Not narcissistic just full of troop spirit! :))