Daisy Scout Meeting Eleven

Third week in March  2013

Goal and Badges:        

            Work on the Magenta Petal, "Respect Authority" and continue to work on the Daisy Garden Journey.

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Daisy Scout Meeting March 15

Arrival:                Gathering- 1.  Geranium leaves

                                  2.  Draw team garden in book
                                            3.  Safety Test

4:05                      Daisy Circle- Daisy Promise
                     Hello in Spanish

                                                   Daisy song
                                    Garden Song
                                    Explain Day
                                               Tea Party Invite

4:10                      Garden craft 

4:25                      Garden Scamper

4:35                       Snack and read Gerri’s story

                              Discuss authority

                             What happens if no rules

                             What are meeting rules

4:50                        Make Gerri or

                             Thank you cards (Bank and Police)

5:00                       (Switch)  Make Gerri or

                      Thank you cards (Tae Kwon Do and Fire department)

5:10                       Mother May I

5:25                      Closing Circle

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Gathering Activities

Geranium Leaves

Geraniums have those beautiful bi-color leaves, so the first thing the girls did was paint those (details in Geri section)

Draw Team Garden

Now that everyone had a chance t take home the team garden and it was growing well, we had the girls turn to pages 44 and 45 of the Daisy Flower Garden Book and draw how the garden looked now and how they think it will look in a few months.

Drawing in Journey book.  If you can read it you may notice my daughter reversed the now and future garden pictures.

Safety Test
We built in time for any of the girls who hadn't done the safety test to do it.  We only had one girl who had froze  during the phone number part.  I pulled her aside during the gathering activities and she was able to earn her pin fairly easily.

Daisy Circle:

The Promise Leader led the Promise and then we went around the circle saying what they enjoyed most about the Field Trip we went on last time we met.  We sang the "Planting Song" we had learned the meeting before and the "Amazing Daisy" song.

We also started something from Garden Journey Handbook, saying hello in a different language each week.  This week everyone said hello in Spanish like Cora, one of the Garden Girls from the Journey Book.  First we asked if anyone knew how to say hello in Spanish, quite a few did (they all grew up with Dora and Diego).  After those girls demonstrated, we went around the circle and everyone said "Hola!".

From Journey Handbook

Tea Party Invitation

For our upcoming work on the Violet "Sister to Every Girl Scout" Petal we decided to host a Mother-Daughter Tea Party and invite another troop to join us in the interest of "Sisterhood."  We decided to invite one of our girls' older sister's Brownie troop.  The party was a month away, but we wanted to give the other troop plenty of time to plan so we worked on the invitation this week.

At this point in the meeting, we explained to the girls about the party and what we were going to do.  Then I had a card with a flier type invitation glued on the inside (the email version of the invite), then I had tea party stickers and cutouts for them to glue on the front of the card.  They all took turns signing the inside.  At the end of the meeting the girl whose sister's troop it was brought home the invitation so that  her sister could present it to her troop.

Flier Invite

Garden Craft:

We were running late so we skipped the Garden Craft.  I had been intermittently putting this project on the schedule since the very first meeting, but it was always the first thing cut. I had 9 pouches left over from a garden magnet craft that I had gotten from Oriental Trading on clearance two years ago.   I think we finally got to it on the second to last meeting, but even then they only did half and brought the rest home to finish.  The girls never really enjoyed the prepackaged crafts much.  They preferred things that they are able to be more creative with.    

Garden Scamper

On page 53 of the Garden Journey Handbook is a game called the Garden Scamper.  After thinking long and hard about how we would make this work for our 8 girls we came up with a sort of Duck Duck Goose version of the game.

Page 53 of Adult Journey Handbook

We had the girls sit in our Daisy Circle (without the parachute underneath, too slippery) with the two leaders in the circle as well.  We told the girls to think of animals they find in the garden (frog, squirrel, deer, butterfly, bird, etc...).  Then the person who was "it" (I started) walked around the back of the circle and picked one of the girls and an animal.  The girl who was picked then had to move around the circle pretending to be that animal.  After one lap she would get to be "it" and picked a new girl with a new animal.  We repeated this until every girl got to be "it."

At first, the girls were very put out that they would have to pretend to be the animal someone else chose and not the animal they chose.  They protested (some rather loudly).  When I saw this I realized it was a better game then I thought.  It teaches flexibility, rule following, and team work.   We were very firm in that they had to be the animal chosen for them.  That was the game.  With a little firm nudging the game went smoothly after the initial few minutes.  The girls who didn't like their animal were a little less enthusiastic in their acting, but they did it.  Occasionally, I or my co-leader showed them an idea for how to act like that animal which resulted in much hilarity and ice being broken.

I think all the girls really enjoyed the game and as a sort of "reward" for following the rules at the end we let all the girls pretend to be an animal of their choice in a big mishmash of loud and happy garden creatures.

Pretending to be a butterfly

Snack and Story Time

As usual, we had the girls sit back down on the floor and the two Snack Helpers handed out snack.  My co-leader began reading Gerri's Story: Playing by the Rules, our "Respect Authority" story, while I was setting up the next two activities.

The irony of it all was that the girls were paying absolutely no attention.  I don't think I had ever seen them act more disrespectful.  They were talking to each other, whining about their snacks, and rolling around on the floor.   One of them may have been trying to stand on her head.  (To be fair it was the Friday before Spring Break).

When my co-leader got to the end of the story not a single one knew what it was about. They were being so rude that I came over and interrupted, giving them a very firm talking to (borderline yelling) about their behavior especially during a story about Respecting Authority!  I was harsher than usual and they stared at me through wide eyes.  

After asking them to tell us who was in authority here (me and my co-leader) I told them we were going to try this again and this time I would tap them on the head if they were being disrespectful.  This time the girls sat and payed attention beautifully, very proud when I passed them by without a tap.  Several girls received light taps and shaped up quickly.

At the end, they received a lot of praise for doing it right this time and we were able to have a really nice discussion about the story, meeting rules, why we have rules, and respect.

Recommended Questions from Handbook

Thinking back, I couldn't have come up with a better lesson on Respecting Authority, though I have no idea how you would recreate it.

Make Gerri the Geranium (Half the girls)

Gerri the Geranium wasn't too hard to make.  We used a bit of paint to make it two toned and a little more fun.  (Everything more fun with paint.)

My Gerri

Supplies:

1.  Pictures of real geraniums.

2.  Green construction paper.
3.  Geranium leaves template in three different sized leaves.

I used a picture of a leaf as my template

4.  Green and blank tempera washable paint.
5.  Circular sponge paint brush.

Circle sponge brush

6.  Magenta card stock .
7.  Petal templates.

8. Violet tempera washable paint.
9.  Green sharpie.
10.  Glue.
11.  Stapler.
12.  Googly eyes.
13.  Red card stock (a small scrap is enough).
14.  Small paper plates.
15. Green pipe-cleaners.

Pre-meeting Prep:
1.  Use geranium leaf template to cut out several sizes of geranium leaves from green construction paper.  I made the template from printing out a picture of a leaf, gluing it onto an old manila folder, and cutting it out.
2.  Cut out five magenta petals per girl (and maybe a few extras just in case) from card stock.
3.  Cut out tiny lips (because you can't draw on paint) of red paper.
4.  Cut pipe-cleaners into 3/4 length.
5.  Lay out at each girls spot a paper plate with their name on it and several leaves.  In the center lay out 2-3 paper plates with green and black paint mixed to make a dark green and sponge brushes (luckily I had a full set of sponge shape brushes including four 1/2 inch circle brushes)

Gathering
1.  As the girls come in and take their seats, show them how to dab the paint onto the center of the leaves.
2.  When they are finished set them aside for later.  Make sure to wash out the brushes thoroughly so you can use them later for the center of the flower.

Later in meeting:

1.  After splitting girls into two groups, have them get their garden poster and begin gluing down a pip-cleaner stem. (At this point my girls were all complaining that their wasn't enough room for the new flower.  I would assure them that flower gardens were crowded).
2.  Go around and staple down the stems as the girls pass around pictures of real geraniums.

3.  Show the girls how to overlap and glue on their petals at the top of their stems.
4.  Have the girls glue on their leaves and use the green sharpie to attach the leaves to the stem.
5.  Use light purple paint (on a paper plate) and the newly cleaned circle sponge brushes to paint Gerri's face.
6.  Place eyes and lips on flower, glue most likely not necessary.  The paint seals them on.

One of the girl's Gerri's

Thank You Cards  (Half the Girls)

The other half of the girls went with my co-leader to make Thank You Cards (a sign of respect to those who helped us).  We had four cards to do:  Fire Department, Police Department, Tae Kwon Do Studio and the Bank.  We randomly divided the cards into two for each group of four girls.  Then my co-lead would ask the girls to dictate what they wanted to say on each card and write it down.  After that was done they divided the group of four into groups of two, who then used markers and stickers to decorate the front of their own card. Once all four cards were finished (and the Gerris were done) we had the girls go around and sign all four cards.

Mother, May I?

The best game to teach respectful speech and manners (in my opinion) was likely played by your parents and possibly their parents.  I certainly played "Mother, May I?" when I was little. 

Rules are simple.  Kids line up a good distance away from the person playing "Mother" (in this case me). "Mother" calls out the name of one of the kids and gives them a certain number of a certain type of steps forward.  For example:  1 giant step, 5 baby steps, 2 backwards steps, 2 hops, 3 crawls, 1 leap, 3 spinning steps, 6 itty bitty ballerina steps...etc.  Let your imagination go wild.  Before they can move forward, the kid needs to remember to say, "Mother, may I?"  To which "Mother" responds, "Yes, you may,"  and the child proceeds forward.  If the child starts to move without saying "Mother May I?" it's back to the starting line for them.

We had our girls pack up and put on their coats and shoes.  Then we played this game in the front yard until (and while) the parents arrived.  It must have still been chilly out, because I have a vivid memory of the girls leaping across the yard bundled up in their winter coats.  It was a fun way to end the meeting.  Just today my daughter was trying to persuade her brother to play Mother, May I? with her.

Closing Circle: 

Yeah ... the girls were picked up from the front yard.  We skipped this part.

Homework/Handouts:

The girls had the usual handout for "Respecting Authority."