Daisy Girl Scout Leaders

[raestr]

I haven't had good luck with the girls doing things at home either. Last year, the girls were to make thank you cards for the State Trooper who visited up for the Respect Authority petal, and only 2 girls brought the cards back.

But, I partially understand. My 8 year old boys are working on their Wolf cub requirements and they HAVE to keep a chore cart for a MONTH! And they have to do a healthy habits chart for 2 weeks (chart how many times they wash their hands each day, how many hours of sleep they get each night, how many glasses of water they drink each day, etc.). We did the healthy habits one over the summer and we did the chore chart in September. If they don't do the charts, they don't earn their Wolf Cub patch. The charts are a pain. I have 4 kids and it was just something else for ME to keep up with. So, I try not to ask my Girl Scouts to do things at home. I do ask them to read their Flower Garden chapters, but if they don't, it's no big deal because I go over at the meetings.

I will say my Daisies LOVE the Journey books! They are so exicited about them. I can see where older girls may not like them, but the little girls really get into them.

Rae

 

[Suellen]

We are lucky ~ we have a great group of involved moms. Almost every mom comes to every field trip we have (at their own expense ~ cuz we can only pay for so much!) and we have also had four of the moms volunteer to do all the training in case we need a trained adult to step in for one of the leaders at any event or meeting. How great is that??

We are also having to turn girls down from our troop as we are currently over our safety wise limit (but with other trained adults we are good to keep taking girls) but 14 6 year olds is a handful and we won't be accepting more.

Our local shop is out of all GGTGS books except the Daisy level! It is crazy popular here.

We also have a super full calendar of fun activities for the girls.

Out local recreation department is doing two halloween events and our YMCA is doing one too. So I told all the girls I will be at all three and if they find me I'll hand them a halloween patch. These kids will do anything for a patch!

Did everyone do a rededication? We have one new girl this year and I'm not sure how to handle the investiture? We made it a big party for all the parents last year... but with one girl it seems silly!

 

[Marshay]

We are lucky ~ we have a great group of involved moms. Almost every mom comes to every field trip we have (at their own expense ~ cuz we can only pay for so much!) and we have also had four of the moms volunteer to do all the training in case we need a trained adult to step in for one of the leaders at any event or meeting. How great is that??

We are also having to turn girls down from our troop as we are currently over our safety wise limit (but with other trained adults we are good to keep taking girls) but 14 6 year olds is a handful and we won't be accepting more.

Our local shop is out of all GGTGS books except the Daisy level! It is crazy popular here.

We also have a super full calendar of fun activities for the girls.

Out local recreation department is doing two halloween events and our YMCA is doing one too. So I told all the girls I will be at all three and if they find me I'll hand them a halloween patch. These kids will do anything for a patch!

Did everyone do a rededication? We have one new girl this year and I'm not sure how to handle the investiture? We made it a big party for all the parents last year... but with one girl it seems silly!

We have 6 girls and 5 of the moms come to all the meetings which is nice. All 5 moms are trained and I've asked the 6th mom to take the volunteer training, too.

We have homework every week (I assign pages from our "About a Girl" book) and then we come back to our Daisy Circle at the beginning of the meeting and each girl talks about 1 or 2 pages from her homework.

We had 5 rededications and 1 investiture and as I previously posted, we just did a brief ceremony -- the girls said the promise and walked through a tunnel of our arms. Then got picture with mom in new uniform. We had patches for all girls -- either investiture or rededication.

 

[raestr]

We have 6 girls this year. We had 2 rededications and 4 investitures. Everyone got a patch (either rededication or investiture). We said the Pledge of Allegience, the Promise, and the Girl Scout Law. We didn't walk under the bridge of arms, but we did the Girl Scout Handshake with each girl and presented her patch. They also received their Journey Background patch at the Investiture Ceremony and they earned their light blue petal for learning about being Honest and Fair. We played Daisy Says (instead of Simon says) and read Lupe's story from the Girls Guide.

One of parents made daisy cookies and brought lemonade. It was nice, but pretty simple.

Rae

 

[acomasdiaz]

So, do the girls do the petals or just the journeys now? I'm a little confused?

 

[Marshay]

So, do the girls do the petals or just the journeys now? I'm a little confused?

It's up to you.

We decided to skip the Journeys both 1st year and now this year, too. The journeys can help you with ideas to earn your petals but they also supplement the lessons with lots of other stuff -- gardening, animals, etc.

My co-leader and I already had a ton of ideas and field trips that we wanted to do both to earn our petals and to learn new skills (sewing, cooking, gardening, etiquette and origami) plus we did community service projects (homeless, seniors - 2x, police) and by the time you throw in some fun events (cheer/tumbling, fashion, game night, ice cream party, tea party, easter egg hunt, etc), we already had our entire year booked up.

I'd recommend looking at the book at your local store, service unit or maybe even on-line and then thinking about what things you want to do.

You may find the Journeys are great -- or they may not work for you.

 

[acomasdiaz]

I think we'll just skip the journeys and focus on the petals for this year. Don't want to out too much on them at one time.

 

[LoveMyBeautifulGift]

Never Mind...changed it to a bulleted sheet w/ way less information...

 

[alphie1991]

New Daisy troop leader here with first meeting on 11/4. This has been a great and VERY helpful thread to read through. Before finding it, I had done a lot of google searching and found great information, including what sounds like a great year of meeting plans earning petals and using the Daisy Garden book. If the previous posters who wrote about a parent handbook see this and wouldn't mind letting me see what you came up with, I would appreciate it. I did put together a FAQ for parents since we are a new troop starting up. Had parents meeting Saturday, seemed to go well. I hope it is a fun year, looking forward to it.

 

[TyTysMommy]

But, I partially understand. My 8 year old boys are working on their Wolf cub requirements and they HAVE to keep a chore cart for a MONTH! And they have to do a healthy habits chart for 2 weeks (chart how many times they wash their hands each day, how many hours of sleep they get each night, how many glasses of water they drink each day, etc.). We did the healthy habits one over the summer and we did the chore chart in September. If they don't do the charts, they don't earn their Wolf Cub patch. The charts are a pain. I have 4 kids and it was just something else for ME to keep up with. So, I try not to ask my Girl Scouts to do things at home. I do ask them to read their Flower Garden chapters, but if they don't, it's no big deal because I go over at the meetings.

My son is in Cub Scouts in the Wolf year. Oh my goodness, I am so glad I am not a Cub Scout leader. They put so much more work into it and are much faster paced than the Girl Scouts. My son has a state trooper for a leader and wow does he demand a lot from these 7 year-olds. At their second week of meeting they had to plan a healthy meal at home, cook/prepare it (with parental supervision of course), and clean up afterwards. The following week they planned a BBQ at home. Their third week of meetings they went on a camping trip 2 hours from home. And they just finished up the 2-week healthy habits chart. I am thankful to have my son in Cub Scouts. He is learning to be respectful and responsible real quickly. I have noticed a huge change in his attitude after being in Cub Scouts a little over a month. I think I would die if I had to plan this much for my group of girls.

 

[Familyof4lovesDW]

So, do the girls do the petals or just the journeys now? I'm a little confused?

The way I understand it if if you do the journeys and the petals are incorporated into the journeys (and for Brownies their triads are incorporated into their journeys), etc. When you do the journeys you are working on parts of the girls scout law, so you can earn petals as you do it. We did this last year and it worked really well.

If you are going to do a journey I would suggest the Garden Journey. It seems to be easier than Earth and Sky. We are doing the animal journey and it is really fun. There is a special patch in the new book that the girls will get for completing all three journeys.

There is also another patch in the new book about fire safety or something like that, that I am going to incorporate into our firehouse visit.

So is anyone selling nuts? We are so we can get more per box for cookie sales.

 

[acomasdiaz]

The way I understand it if if you do the journeys and the petals are incorporated into the journeys (and for Brownies their triads are incorporated into their journeys), etc. When you do the journeys you are working on parts of the girls scout law, so you can earn petals as you do it. We did this last year and it worked really well.

If you are going to do a journey I would suggest the Garden Journey. It seems to be easier than Earth and Sky. We are doing the animal journey and it is really fun. There is a special patch in the new book that the girls will get for completing all three journeys.

There is also another patch in the new book about fire safety or something like that, that I am going to incorporate into our firehouse visit.

So is anyone selling nuts? We are so we can get more per box for cookie sales.

I'll have to look closer at the journeys then...

We couldn't sell the nuts this year since we became a troop just recently. Our first meeting isn't even until tomorrow.

 

[Marshay]

My son is in Cub Scouts in the Wolf year. Oh my goodness, I am so glad I am not a Cub Scout leader. They put so much more work into it and are much faster paced than the Girl Scouts. My son has a state trooper for a leader and wow does he demand a lot from these 7 year-olds. At their second week of meeting they had to plan a healthy meal at home, cook/prepare it (with parental supervision of course), and clean up afterwards. The following week they planned a BBQ at home. Their third week of meetings they went on a camping trip 2 hours from home. And they just finished up the 2-week healthy habits chart. I am thankful to have my son in Cub Scouts. He is learning to be respectful and responsible real quickly. I have noticed a huge change in his attitude after being in Cub Scouts a little over a month. I think I would die if I had to plan this much for my group of girls.

Wow -- that is a lot of work for them -- both the kids and the leaders!

So is anyone selling nuts? We are so we can get more per box for cookie sales.

We decided not to sell the nuts/magazines. I personally hate selling anything but we will try the cookies this year and see how it goes. It will also earn us the leaves this year to add to our tunics.

We had a cookie mom all lined up but she hasn't come to any of our meetings, doesn't answer emails ... it's not looking too good. I really don't want to take on cookie mom AND leader...

 

[alphie1991]

Mine hasn't come into the Council shop yet. I thought I read somewhere that the Guide comes with patches -- specifically the petals the daisies earn when learning about the GS Law, and the leaves they can earn. Has anyone received their book yet? And, if so, did the book come with the petals? Did it come with the leaves? If not, do you know where I can buy the leaves (already know I can get the petals from the Council store).

 

[Familyof4lovesDW]

Mine hasn't come into the Council shop yet. I thought I read somewhere that the Guide comes with patches -- specifically the petals the daisies earn when learning about the GS Law, and the leaves they can earn. Has anyone received their book yet? And, if so, did the book come with the petals? Did it come with the leaves? If not, do you know where I can buy the leaves (already know I can get the petals from the Council store).

The only thing you get is the book. The petals here are around $7 for the whole pack and each journey patch is $5. Leaves and Financial patches are $1.50 each. I found them online at girlscoutshop.com, under program, then daisies. You can probably order them from council as well. Our council has the book as well as the girl scout shop.

The safety award was the one I was talking about in my last post I am going to do with the magenta respect authority petal.

We sold a little over 100 boxes of nut products ( I have 6 girls). I am curious to see what they choose to do with their money.

 

[raestr]

Wow! that is great on the nut sale! We didn't meet our minimum sales requirements for selling the nuts to get the cookie bonus. Oh well.

Personnaly, I would hang on to your nut proceeds until after the cookie sale. In order to get your cookie bonus, you have to turn in half of your outstanding money on specific dates. I would keep some of you proceeds to make sure you had the required amounts on the specifc dates for the council, just in case some of your parents don't turn in their money on time. We only meet twice a month, so collecting the money in time for the required dates is going to be tricky, JMHO.

Rae

 

[skw444]

I'm so glad the Fall Products is almost over. The delivery of the nuts/candy was delivered to my house for our whole service unit. We spent 4 hours Friday night sorting it all out for all the troops. We have close to 900 girls in our SU, so lots of nuts/candy! Our troop did good, selling 149 nuts/candy. With the magazine sales, our troop made a profit of $203...a good start for the year.

 

[acomasdiaz]

What did you all do for the investiture ceremony? Trying to decide what to do?

In FL, the council did something for all of the troops. Here it is up to the individual troop.

 

[Marshay]

What did you all do for the investiture ceremony? Trying to decide what to do?

In FL, the council did something for all of the troops. Here it is up to the individual troop.

We kept it simple and just did a getting to know your game, then had everyone practice the promise, say it individually (we sing it to the tune of Old McDonald), walk under everyone's arms, get a picture with their mom next to an American Flag and had a snack. Oh, we also made a troop flag and had everyone trace their hand on felt, decorate it and then glue onto the flag.

 

[acomasdiaz]

We kept it simple and just did a getting to know your game, then had everyone practice the promise, say it individually (we sing it to the tune of Old McDonald), walk under everyone's arms, get a picture with their mom next to an American Flag and had a snack. Oh, we also made a troop flag and had everyone trace their hand on felt, decorate it and then glue onto the flag.

Did you invite family to it?