Daisy Scout Meeting Five

Third week in November 2012



Goal & Badges: We finished up the yellow “Friendly and Helpful” petal and started on the light green “Considerate and Caring” petal. We focused a lot on Charity and sharing this session, beginning several projects.

* * * * * * *

Arrival:                  Gathering- Start Zinni                                                                  Water team garden

4:05                          Daisy Circle- Daisy Promise
                                ‘Round the Daisy Circle with “how I was friendly & helpful”
                                 Review jobs

4:15                          Friend Flower Hunt

4:25                          Finish Zinni

4:35                          Snack and read Zinni’s story
                                 Talk about Project Elf- How could you help?
                                 Talk about Troops

4:50                          Make cards

5:15                          Plan menu as a team

5:30                          Final Daisy Song in Circle

                                 Friendship squeeze

                                 Remind girls to be Considerate and caring and handout homework
                                 Discuss Project Elf with parents

* * * * * * *

Gathering Activity

Girls made stem and leaves for Zinni (would get petals later). This was my bright idea on how to save time later and get things done since we had another big craft project that day. I didn’t like it and we never did this again.


Daisy Circle:

First Girl to chose to be Promise Leader from Kaper chart stood up and led the promise (with us whispering help :)).

We sang “Here we go ‘round the Daisy circle” (see meeting 1) with each girl getting a chance to say how they were “Friendly and Helpful” since the last meeting.

We reviewed the new Kaper Chart we were using and made sure each girl knew her job

Friend Flower Hunt

This was a friend/team building game. I had the petals for Zinni in packets (one for each girl) hidden around the living room. The girls needed to hunt for them with a partner and couldn’t stop holding hands the entire time. The girls went in pairs while the others cheered them on. 



Petal pack hidden in Livingroom



We chose the best behaved girl first, who chose her partner. Once we got to the last girl (we had one absent that day so an uneven number) she got to choose anyone she wanted to go a second time. That really worked out well.

This was a quick and fun activity that the girls really enjoyed.

Zinni the Zinnia

We did this a little differently this week because of the flower hunt and the cards we made later in the meeting. I do prefer to do the flower after the story usually, but this was an easy flower fir the girls to make with no new art techniques. (Though cutting out the flowers for the leader is really time consuming).

My  Zinnia

Supplies:

1. 3-5 light green card stock flowers per girl (Thankfully I find paper cutting relaxing, otherwise you it want to ask for help or see if someone was a cricut machine.)

2. 4-6 medium to dark green leaves per girl (I think I had ones from the craft store that I used for this one. You could cut them out from cardstock or from old fake flowers)

3. 1 green pipe cleaner per girl

4. 2 Googly eyes per girl

5. Elmer’s glue

6. Stapler

7. Red sharpie

8. Real Pictures Zinnias

Steps: (Very much like the ones before)

1. Glue down pipe cleaner and then staple it

2. Glue leaves

3. Glue flowers from biggest to smallest

4. Add googly eyes

5. Draw on face



One of the girl's Zinnis



Snack & Story time

We had the girls divide out the snacks (practicing fair again) and sit down for the Sunny story. They ate while we read and then we discussed the story. We did find snack in the first half hour helped behavior.

Project Elf

Project Elf is an amazing program in Northern Virginia where a troop can adopt a needy family for Christmas. They send you the ages and sizes of everyone in the family as well as their wants and needs. 

We asked for a small family because our troop was small and got a single mom (all she wanted was food awwww!!!!) and a 6 year old daughter. We introduced the service project after reading the story and then coordinated with the mom’s on-line. We collected everything a month later at our Holiday Party. It was really a fantastic experience for all of us. But more on that later.

Patch girls got when turned in presents

Cards for the Troops


We really wanted the girls to make holiday cards for the troops overseas. Obviously, this is caring, but we tied it into considerate (which according to the Daisy Handbook is sharing.

To me, that’s more fair but whatever it’s all good) by adapting an activity they suggested where the girls all working on the same drawing. We did this in two rounds.



One of the girls' cards



For each we had:

1. A blank cardstock, folded in half, for each girl

2. A bin with a different art supply for each girl. Foam stickers, shiny stickers, crayons, markers, colored pencils with stencils, Christmas stamps with red and green ink, winter stamps with blue and white. Etc. (Nothing that couldn’t dry quickly.)

3. Stop watch or timer

Round One

1. Each girl picked a card and we had them each write “Thank You Hero”. (Most of them didn’t spell yet so it was on the chalk board and they still needed help.)

2. We explained the rules, then they were randomly given a supply bin (there was whining, but we kept strong. One particular metallic sharpie was in high demand) and allowed to start decorating.

3. We set a timer for a minute and when it went off they had 10 seconds to finish up and pass their supplies to the right. This continued until everyone had used each supply.



Round Two

Same start with a card they wrote “Thank You Hero” on, but this time the girls could use what ever they wanted to decorate it and when the alarm sounded they had to pass the card instead of the supplies to the left. The round was finished when everyone had decorated a bit of every card.

Later, I glued a small slip of paper on the back that listed the troop number and everyone’s first names.

The cards were bundled together for our next field trip to the Post Office where we would mail the cards to the red cross to distribute over seas.  The program we used was Holiday Mail for Heroes.  The adress is on the website. 

http://www.redcross.org/support/get-involved/holiday-mail-for-heroes


Planning Menu for Field Trip

Our next meeting was to be a field trip to the Post Office. After this, we had a local building where my co-leader worked where we were allowed to meet for lunch and wind-down time before we headed out to a Holiday Parade that the service unit was marching in.

We decided in the spirit of the first few petals that we have everyone bring one item and share it among everyone. To test the waters of girl lead we collectively, as a troop, came up with a menu.
This consisted of sitting in a “circle” (the later into the meetings it got the more circles became clusters) and having the girls call out ideas, then vote between things we thought were appropriate. 

I think the list was something like this:
1. Chicken nuggets (provided by leaders)
2. Chocolate and white milk
3. Grapes
4. Carrots and dip
5. Fruit cheerios
6. Rice crispy treats
7. Sugar cookies


The mom’s later signed up for their Item on Shutterfly (More on the wonders of Shutterfly Share Site later. It revolutionized our troop.)

Final Circle
Friendship squeeze and reminders.

Handouts:
Zinni handout, yellow petal, field trip permission slips and Secret Santa Card.

“Secret Santa Card”

This is another one which I whole heartedly recommend. Each girl was given an envelope addressed (randomly) to another girl in the troop, along with blank cardstock and instructions for mom and dad. The girls were simply supposed to create a card for their sister Daisy, stamp it and bring it to the post office. During the Post Office Trip they were each allowed to cancel and sort their own card. The girls actually got their cards later that afternoon. The girls who missed the field trip simply mailed the card from home.