Daisy Girl Scout Leaders

[Avonlady1001]

Kelly,


2. During the next cookie sale, I will only accept 2 checks from my parents. I will not collect 50 checks, a couple hundred dollars in cash, and about $15 in change at my meetings. I will collect one check when 50% of the money is due and one check for their balances at the end of the cookie sale. It took so much time at each meeting to count each person’s money and write them a receipt. Then I spent about 45 minutes recounting all of the money and completing the deposit slip the next day before making my deposit. You have to write the account number on EACH check and list EACH check on the back of the deposit slip. It will be much simpler to complete a deposit slip of just 7 checks. It will also eliminate any worries about bad checks.

After dealing w/ this w/ the payments for our Nut Sales, I ordered a cheap stamp online, prob cost $6, and had it say: FOR DEPOSIT ONLY, GIRL SCOUTS OF SUFFOLK COUNTY #123456789 (same as I had to write on each & every check). Then my cookie mom only had to stamp all the checks...As far as I know they Girl Scouts have had their account the same for years, so the stamp should live on for years. If I don't lead anymore, I'll pass it along to the next leader or another troop.

I agree w/ the parent chatter...about 1/2 way thru the year I announced that all business would be conducted at the end of every meeting, not before. It was taking up way too much time to deal w/ all the nonsense & it wasn't fair to the girls. That will definitely be the rule again next year!

The majority of our crafts this year were from Oriental Trading company. They worked great for this age group...every kit came w/ everything they needed & were pretty easy to make. The kids loved them, the parents loved them & that's what's important! I'll be ordering more from there for next year!

Great idea reading during snack!! I think we'll start that!

 

[kelann7]

Great lessons learned!

I like the cross egg carton idea!

I also ordered a few things from Oriental Trading - it was great. The only problem I had was most things come in a dozen to a pack. I had 14 girls. So, I ordered 2 packs, which was nice to have one or two extras, because some things I made a sample of first, so they had something to look at and I knew how to tell them to make it. And I had a few items that were torn or broken or missing and I opened an extra pack. Anyway, I still ended up with leftovers, which I don't want to use again next year, because I don't want the 2nd year girls to get bored doing the same thing again. So, I'm thinking that I'll just hand them down the following year to a new group of Daisies.

I also wish we could have the new books NOW, instead of waiting until September. I'm a planner, I like to plan ahead.

Thanks.
Kelly

 

[amez]

Does anyone have a link or really clear directions for the sewing impaired (me!!) on how to use the Daisy tunic to make a back pack?

Thanks!

 

[kelann7]

Well, I'm done for the summer! We don't meet in the summer. We will start up again in September. I probably will have a parent night at the end of August. I'm actually looking forward to a little break - although I'm anxious to plan for next year.

I don't want this thread to get lost, so occasionally I will post something and I hope others do, too.

One thing I know I need to work on for next year is keeping the girls busy. I find that if we do a craft, some girls finish before others and the ones who finish early start running around and misbehaving. I know I need to keep them busy. I started bringing coloring sheets, but I have one girl who hates to color. I thought about word puzzles (search or crossword) - but most of these are too hard for a Kindergartener who is just learning to read.

Any ideas on fillers for when we finish early and have some time left? Especially if some of the girls finish early and others are still working?

Thanks.

Kelly

 

[Marshay]

Well, I'm done for the summer! We don't meet in the summer. We will start up again in September. I probably will have a parent night at the end of August. I'm actually looking forward to a little break - although I'm anxious to plan for next year.

I don't want this thread to get lost, so occasionally I will post something and I hope others do, too.

One thing I know I need to work on for next year is keeping the girls busy. I find that if we do a craft, some girls finish before others and the ones who finish early start running around and misbehaving. I know I need to keep them busy. I started bringing coloring sheets, but I have one girl who hates to color. I thought about word puzzles (search or crossword) - but most of these are too hard for a Kindergartener who is just learning to read.

Any ideas on fillers for when we finish early and have some time left? Especially if some of the girls finish early and others are still working?

Thanks.

Kelly

Yes, I'll definitely post, too, so we have this again in the fall.

We have 2 more meetings -- one is Father's day cards and finish sewing our Daisy Rag dolls that we made; and the other is an ice cream party.

I'm looking forward to the break too. So glad we don't meet weekly or I'd burn out.

As for crafts ... some suggestions:

1) put a time limit on the crafts for everyone...those who don't finish need to take it home. Don't wait until everyone finishes.

2) if you have another leader or mom available, have them sing songs and play games or puzzles.

3) have girls work on something for a future meeting -- like preparing crafts, coloring in posters, etc. Less work for you to do, too.

4) have an overall "big project" that the girls can work on little by little. Maybe it's a larger craft ... maybe it's making cards for senior citizens for Christmas or Valentines, etc.

5) Have a large roll of paper where the girls can trace their bodies and then they start coloring and decorating.

6) Give them a camera (or have them bring their own) and have them take photos of the girls/leaders, etc.

HTH!!

 

[Shanna-like-Banana]

Our council is strick about checks for cookies, and products

We are not allowed to have checks written to parents and then have parents write one check to the troop or council.

That could turn into a financial nightmare if parents got stuck with bounced checks, or troops got stuck with bounced check for parents.

Our check get written directly to the council, and require a phone # and dr lic #. We tell the parents if they are not willing to ask for those things on the check, then to ask for cash.

We all recieve deposit slips to the councils cookie account and we deposit the checks directly to the council bank account and they are responsible for following up with bounced checks.

Also our girls are very well versed in the payment policies, when the take the orders they know the rules too. They tell the customers up front cash or checks written this way with this info. Plus its pretty hard to say no to a child who is asking that info.

We have over 8000+ girls in our council and about 1500 in our service unit not a single red flag this year

I agree with the stamp. We went to vistaprint.com and got a free one for our own troops bank account

 

[raestr]

I have gleaned some meager information about the Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting. From what I understand, the Guides will all include the set of Legacy badges and the Financial Literacy and Cookie Business Badges. I am disappointed in this because I thought I would be able to purchase the Financial Literacy and Cookie Business Leaves for my Daisies this coming year. My daisies have earned all of their petals. They do not need to buy the Guide which includes another full set of petals. The Guides are suppose to be discounted this first year and will cost about $17, so I assume the cost next year will be around $24. $17 is alot to pay when all you really want are 4 leaf badges.

I would like to ask everyone on the board with Daisies to ask your councils to request that the Financial Literacy and Cookie Business leaves be sold separately this first year to accomodate Daisies who have already purchased a full set of petals. I would like for them to be able to earn the leaves, but I can't justify asking my parents to purchase the Guides.

As for girls finishing crafts early, you may want to buy a Dot-to-Dot and/or a Mazes book for your girls and make copies for them to do if they finish their craft early. School Zone has several Mazes and Dot-to-Dot books. I have purchased them at Walgreens and Toys-R-Us. We do them while waiting for everyone to show up.

Rae

 

[Marshay]

I have gleaned some meager information about the Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting. From what I understand, the Guides will all include the set of Legacy badges and the Financial Literacy and Cookie Business Badges. I am disappointed in this because I thought I would be able to purchase the Financial Literacy and Cookie Business Leaves for my Daisies this coming year. My daisies have earned all of their petals. They do not need to buy the Guide which includes another full set of petals. The Guides are suppose to be discounted this first year and will cost about $17, so I assume the cost next year will be around $24. $17 is alot to pay when all you really want are 4 leaf badges.

I would like to ask everyone on the board with Daisies to ask your councils to request that the Financial Literacy and Cookie Business leaves be sold separately this first year to accomodate Daisies who have already purchased a full set of petals. I would like for them to be able to earn the leaves, but I can't justify asking my parents to purchase the Guides.

As for girls finishing crafts early, you may want to buy a Dot-to-Dot and/or a Mazes book for your girls and make copies for them to do if they finish their craft early. School Zone has several Mazes and Dot-to-Dot books. I have purchased them at Walgreens and Toys-R-Us. We do them while waiting for everyone to show up.

Rae

thanks for this info! I was on a conference call to learn about the new Girls Guide and they never mentioned anything about not being able to earn the leaves separately.

I was going to incorporate them into our meetings as separate so I will definitely raise this at our SU meeting on Tuesday.

We, too, are almost complete (saving 2 petals for next year) and have no interest in buying the petals all over again. We are also NOT going to do the new journey/girl's guide book for next year, esp since it only comes out in mid-September. We can't wait that long to plan everything.

We will do it as Brownies which both my co-leader and even our SU leaders agree is better. This way the Brownies can really choose and start to lead more and the guide will have one year under its belt -- so hopefully, we'll learn from others and/or be able to understand it more.

We have 2 more meetings and then we are done. I'll be glad for the break!

Marsha

 

[kelann7]

OK, I'm confused now. I thought the Girl Guide was a BOOK that explained what to do to earn badges and stuff - the petals and badges are sold separately. I, too, was hoping that the leaves could be bought separately, since I have girls that have earned all of the petals. I cannot see them NOT being available separately. I guess we need to just wait and see when it comes out in September.

Kelly

 

[raestr]

Kelly,

Check out this link:

http://www.girlscouts-gateway.org/volunteer_resources/the_girls_guide_to_girl_scouting/

Here is some information that I've found. Watch the Brownie Elf video about the Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting. It states in the video that all of the Legacy, Financial Literacy, and Cookie Business badeges come with the Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting. If you click on the links for Daisy, Brownie, etc. below the video link, you will pull up a page listing all of the new badges available for a particular level of Girl Scouting. A representative with my council showed me the "What Daisies Do" page and said everything on the right side of the page comes with the Guide, meaning the petals and the leaves. For Brownies, everything under the Girl's Guide on the right-hand side comes with the Guide. The Journey Awards and Additional Badge sets are sold seperately, but they are sold as sets. I really don't like that you have to buy all 5 badges in a set at one time. It's a waste of money if the girls don't earn all 5 of the additional badges. Plus, how do you present the badges if the girls/parents already have them at home? Do you just say, "Go home and add X badge?"

I really hope we get some training for this new program. Hopefully, good training.

BTW, I'm not part of the Gateway Council, they just happen to have the most useful information about the Girl's Guide in one place.

Rae

 

[LisaNJ25]

thanks for this info! I was on a conference call to learn about the new Girls Guide and they never mentioned anything about not being able to earn the leaves separately.

I was going to incorporate them into our meetings as separate so I will definitely raise this at our SU meeting on Tuesday.

We, too, are almost complete (saving 2 petals for next year) and have no interest in buying the petals all over again. We are also NOT going to do the new journey/girl's guide book for next year, esp since it only comes out in mid-September. We can't wait that long to plan everything.

We will do it as Brownies which both my co-leader and even our SU leaders agree is better. This way the Brownies can really choose and start to lead more and the guide will have one year under its belt -- so hopefully, we'll learn from others and/or be able to understand it more.

We have 2 more meetings and then we are done. I'll be glad for the break!

Marsha

Is their a 4th Journey coming out? I know the 3rd one is out already.

My daisies are bridging up Friday. Along with the brownie vests I got the third journey to start the year off until we get the new badge books.

 

[raestr]

I found an updated link with information on the Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting. I don't know why all of the councils don't seem to have the same information.

http://www.gswpa.org/files/journeys-&-outcomes/keeping-you-posted-on-the-new-gsle.pdf

Rae

 

[Marshay]

I found an updated link with information on the Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting. I don't know why all of the councils don't seem to have the same information.

http://www.gswpa.org/files/journeys-&-outcomes/keeping-you-posted-on-the-new-gsle.pdf

Rae

Thank you!! That's the first time I got a name for the leaves and saw a picture of them!!

 

[raestr]

Marshay,

This link will show you what is included in the Girl's Guide for Daisies:

http://www.girlscouts-gateway.org/images/uploads/Daisies.pdf

This video link is helpful too. It features the Brownie Elf, but the video is about the whole program:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXpQZAkNJb4

Rae

 

[Suellen]

I know I am late to the show... again. LOL! Real life just keeps getting too busy... I'm sure you all know the drill ~ GS's, ballet, swim practice, soccer, school end of year functions, recitals, camp open houses... etc.

Some things I've found works for our girls:

Coloring sheets as the girls arrive. Usually to have to do with our "theme" for the night. I.E. the meeting we talked about being responsible had pictures of girls helping clean up around the house, brushing teeth, feeding pets.. etc. The girls knew when they got to the meeting that this was what they should do until we were ready to start the meeting.

Parent Volunteer/Snack Mom at each meeting. The girl whose mom brought the snack gets to help setup/cleanup for/from snack. They LOVE to help pass out drinks and snacks and take great pride in how clean it is after snack. Plus having an extra set of hands around (snack mom) is AWESOME! They are usually the person who helps the early craft finishers focus on the next task at hand. My girls are all AWESOME and will almost always offer to help someone who is not working so quickly.

Layout the Cookie Mom Expectations before signing someone up. Our cookie mom ONLY wanted to collect the cookies from the cupboard and distribute them. So we were stuck dealing with everything else.

Parent HANDBOOK!! Over the summer I plan to work on a parent handbook for our parents. I'll include things like the address and hours of the GS Store, sample patches they can earn with their girls that DON'T require us to buy them, permission slips for all our field trips for the year, what girls should bring to each event, contact information for all the parents (permission granted of course) the rules and regulations of cookie/nut sales, and accounting of where our money went this year, how to earn the family star patch (this may be regional) .... and more that I think of over the summer.

We only have our bee to earn for the Daisy Garden Journey ~ but only earned two of our petals. So we will be working on the rest of the petals and another Journey next year.

We had our year end party last night. It was great and I actually got some good feed back from the parents. We had about 35 people ~ served Pizza, fruit salad, veggie plate, drinks, desserts... etc. Then we had patches and membership pins for each of the girls in a snack sandwich bag. Each girl was called up and given their patches with why they got each one. The girls loved it! We also bought an extra "fun" patch for each girl (Way to Go, Extra Effort, Girl Scouts Rule) and through the party asked each of the girls a question about Juliette Low ~ if they answered correctly they got to pick a patch. If they didn't know... I'd tell them the answer and ask a second question. They all got the second one right (if they missed the first). They LOVED this and kept coming up to me to see if they could "go again!" LOL!

I think I'll implement a patch system for each meeting throughout the year. I'll keep a stash of generic type patches and randomly ask questions about what we've learned. Answer right ~ get a fun new patch!

So far on the calendar for next year we've planned:

apple picking
Corn Maze/Hayride/Pumpkin Picking
Police Station Visit
Juliette Low Birthday Party
Food Bank Project

Hmmmm.... I've written a book! Sorry!!

One last thing....

So is anyone interested in swapping addresses and having the girls swap pictures and letters? We could use this towards be a Sister to Every Girl Scout.

 

[tamarr44]

I just join this site yesterday, I'm a 1st Grade Daisy Girl Scout Leader in Ohio. I would love to exchange addresses with whom ever is interested. I would love for my girls to be pen pals with Girl Scouts from other locations.

We have planned out our year from the 2011-2012 school year. Some of the things we will be doing are:
Cold Stone Creamery
Senior Center Caroling
Toys for Tots
Krispy Kreme Donut

I need to set dates on a few others.

Look forward to sharing ideas with all of you!!

 

[Marshay]

SueEllen -- great idea about getting all the permission slips done in advance! I think I will do that too. Much easier to do all at once than at each meeting.


My co-leader and I are now trying to decide what we want to do for SWAPS for next year. I think we'll try to do a little felt Daisy Girl.

Has anyone else done Swaps? If you look on-line there are TONS of ideas and some really, really cute ones to do.

 

[Marshay]

National Girl Scouts ROCK THE MALL -- Sat., June 9, 2012 on the Mall in Washington, DC.

It's in celebration of 100 years of Girl Scouts. A huge singalong, speakers, activities, etc.

We plan to go since we're only an hour away!

http://www.gscnc.org/singalong.html

 

[TinaLala]

I can't believe the year is over already!! My Brownies bridged to Juniors this year and it was so sad - I've known these girls since they were Daisies!!

I'm hearing that some councils aren't even going to have enough of the girl guide books for each leader!!! I've decided to focus on the journey and sprinkle a few badges in based on what they pick. This way we can look at the new guide around January after I've gotten a handle on it!!

Trainers have having trouble because nationals are saying not to training the new stuff but wait until Sept - which I think is crazy!!

I just don't like that they are forcing us to do the Journey!

SUELLEN - I hear you about the parent handbook. I read about someone else having one on another forum and I got right to work on ours. It's about 8 pages, but I'm glad I have it! I made sure to put a part about inappropriate behavior for Scouts and Leaders and to provide parents with the number of our SUM and council field director for any issues. They're kind of tricky to make, but worth it!!

 

[Marshay]

Hi all!

I am a the parent of a Girl Scout in New Orleans. I am contacting scout volunteers to share information about an idea for a Girl Scout fundraiser. It is through Usborne Books. They offer a "Reach for the Stars" reading marathon fund-raiser. Basically, kids collect pledges for each book they read during a set period of time, say $1.00 from Aunt Mary for each book they read during two weeks. The troop keeps 30% of the total pledges. The other 70% goes towards Usborne books of our choice -- which the girls can keep, donate to their school or another organization, or a combination of the two. As a Usborne consultant, I organize the event, handle all of the paperwork, etc.

A troop at my daughter's school did it last year, and it went beautifully. They chose to do it as a service project and gave $875 in books to the school library!

Anyone wanting more details should get in touch. You don't have to be in the New Orleans area - we can run the program anywhere in the U.S. Let me know if any troops out there are interested in this unique program!

Warm regards,

Tonya Jordan-Cayula
GS Volunteer, Troop 40234

My Service Unit may be interested in something like this...what would I need to do as a Troop Leader ... and what would I need to do to represent this project to our entire SU?

Also, is this only for Daisies? What levels would it be appropriate for?

Thanks!

Marsha