Make a Girl Scout Daisy Time Capsule for Thirds Day 3.3.33

*This post contains affiliate links.

Did you know that on 3/3/33 your Daisy troop will be 11th or 12th grade Ambassador Scouts? 

I have a fun way for your troop to celebrate now and then again later!

This Girl Scout Daisy Time Capsule Meeting for Thirds Day 3.3.33 is one where your troop will create a special box of memories to be opened when they are teenagers. March 3, 2033 takes place on a Thursday, so it will be Thirds Day! It is another special numerical palindrome that your scouts will get to celebrate.

Available on Teachers Pay Teachers

Included in this resource are:

• A list of activities you can do with your troop to prepare your time capsule
• Ideas to make your time capsule
• Two "All About me" pages
• A Troop Signature page
• A letter to their Future Ambassador Scout page

This is fun to do now and something to look forward to later!

10 Twos Day Activities for In Person and Virtual Meetings

Did you know that this year we have a once in a lifetime numerical palindrome to celebrate? Here are 10 Twos Day activities you can do with your troop in person or virtually.

*This post contains affiliate links.

If you have been a Girl Scout leader for any length of time, then you are familiar with the three Girl Scout holidays that are celebrated. On February 22nd of each year, scouts around the world celebrate World Thinking Day.

This scouting year, leaders have another opportunity to celebrate on February 22nd…it is Twos Day!

What is Twos Day?

On Tuesday, February 22, 2022, the date written numerically is 2/22/22.

If you have a Girl Scout meeting around that time, you can celebrate this once in a lifetime numerical palindrome.

(For those of you not able to meet around that date, you can celebrate 2/2/22, which falls on a Wednesday).

10 Fun Twos Day Activities

Available on Teachers Pay Teachers

In my Teachers Pay Teachers store, I just created a new product to help both teachers and leaders celebrate Twos Day. For leaders, it is cookie season, and life is busy and can be a bit chaotic with sales. Planning a meeting is just one more thing for you to do, and you may not have the time or energy to create something. You may also want to do something that is not related to Girl Scout cookies.

In this resource, there are crafts, games, movement and community service activities. You can do them in person or virtually. If you are doing this virtually, make sure to leave ample time for families to pick up supplies, whether from you or from the store.

This resource is for kindergarten through fifth grade, Daisies through Juniors.

You can find it here on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Please be sure to follow me on TpT so you can receive updates as to when new products are posted.

Are you planning to celebrate Twos Day? If so, what are you doing?

5 Easy Virtual Girl Scout Halloween Meeting Ideas

Halloween is around the corner. You can have a fun virtual meeting with your troop that is easy to plan with these Halloween games and craft kits.

I just wrote a blog post over at my all level Girl Scout blog on how to host a virtual Halloween meeting. 

You can read it here.

Starting the New Scouting Year in a Pandemic

Hi fellow leaders! It has been an insanely long time since I have written a post on this blog. Between running my school virtually and a personal health crisis in my family, updating this blog went to the backburner. In fact, on my main Girl Scout blog, I wrote one post in May and did not write another until mid-August.

Photo created by the author on Canva

Leaders of all levels are facing something that none of us has ever dealt with before...starting the new scouting year during a pandemic. For established leaders, it was difficult enough hanging on to the girls that they had. Many tried, and there was uneven success. Distance scouting is not for everyone, and with parents worried about working from home and deaing with their children's school work, adding anything else to the pile was too much. As the principal of a supplementary Hebrew School, we had students disappear. Even with my close relationships with the families, they told me that they were on overload with the sudden closing of school. No coercing on my part could get them to change their minds.

So here we are...some of you are back to school and some of you have another week to go. A few of you are brand new leaders and some of you have a year under your belt.

For those of you who are new, here is my advice to you:

Take it Easy on Yourself

Recruit your girls, see how you can meet (in person or virtually), and then start your meetings. Do not worry about having a large number of girls; having enough to establish a troop is all that you need.

Work Only on the Petals

The focus of the first Girl Scout Daisy year should be learning the Girl Scout Law and what each petal represents. In the past, Daisies were only one year-kindergarten-and that was all they did. It was a gentle way to introduce youngsters to Girl Scouting. Yes, there are many badges available that the girls can earn, but the point of Daisies is to establish the scouting foundation. You can do a badge, of course, it should not be the primary focus.

I created this calendar of meetings from September to December for you to follow so that your troop can easily earn some badges to start the year. This blog post is for Daisy Meetings January to May. I will be updating them in the future.

No Fundraising

In the past, Daisies were not allowed to fundraise. It personally drives me insane to see ne leaders worrying about the nut and magaizne sale when they only met with their troop once! Cookies are a whole different matter, and I feel that first year leaders should just back off and do it their second year. Dues and creativity can go a long way. 

For those leaders who are starting their second year, here is my advice for you.

Be Grateful

Did you lose some girls due to the pandemic? Most troops did. It can be very disheartening to lose a girl, and you need to remember not to take it personally. Even with no pandemic, you are going to lose girls for a variety of reasons. enjoy those who reregistered and move on.

I wrote this blog post about leaders losing their mojo and how to get it back. It has some advice on how to launch the year with your best foot forward.

Do you have any tips to share as you being the new scouting year?

Thanksgiving Craft Kits for Daisy Girl Scouts

*This post contains affiliate links.

As you wrap up your Girl Scout Founder's Day celebrations and head into the busy holiday season, we enter a time where we focus on what we are thankful for. As the leader, you will want to be focusing on both the fun part of the season, as well as helping others who may not be as fortunate.

Photo from Pixabay

Of course, you are also more than likely very busy with your own celebrations and preparations. One way to make your Thanksgiving meeting plans go more smoothly is with ready made Thanksgiving craft kits. Most of these are individually packaged and ready to use. Combine these with making cards for the holiday and reading a Thanksgiving story, you have an easy meeting with very little prep work necessary.

Here are some fun Thanksgiving craft kits for you to do with your troop.

Available on Amazon

Available on Amazon

   Available on Amazon

Fun and Easy Thanksgiving Meeting Idea for Daisy Scouts

*This post contains affiliate links.

Updated October 2019

It is that time of year when all of the weeks turn into a blur because the holidays are coming fast and furious! As a leader, you have so many obligations outside of Girl Scout that all you want to do is figure out how to have a meeting and make it easy on yourself.

Image created on Canva

This is where Thanksgiving craft kits come in handy. You can make this meeting more of a festive atmosphere than a badge/petal meeting.

The children learn about the holiday in school, so they have some knowledge about it. Here is a simple meeting format.

Discuss the meaning of Thanksgiving and what the children are thankful for. Then have them do one of the following crafts.




Once the craft is over, you can sing some Thanksgiving songs together. You can find them here at DLTK You can also find more songs here at Everything Preschool.

Don't forget to have a Thanksgiving coloring page in case you finish faster than you thought you would!

3 Summer Meeting Ideas for Girl Scout Daisies

I have been a teacher since 1987. In my younger days, July and August were a time for me to do temp work and tutor children. When our children arrived, these two months were for us to hang out and play.

Photo from Pixabay and edited by the author in Canva

After decades as an educator, as soon as the calendar changes to June, my mind and body begin to unwind. While I am very busy with my synagogue volunteer work and my family obligations, summer meetings were something that, until last summer, I did not do.

When my troop was younger, I needed a break (you can read about the pros and cons of summer meetings in this blog post). With only three Girl Scout Seniors left in my troop, and all with busy high school schedules, summer meetings are a time for us to catch up, go on field trips, and do a required Journey for the Gold Award. Meetings over the school year are tough to schedule.

For leaders of younger scouts, you do not need to have a meeting if you do not want to. If you do meet, here is a blog post with three fun ideas for a summer Girl Scout meeting.

Need some more ideas? Here are a few.

Go Fruit Picking

Photo from Pixabay

If you live near a farm that has a Pick Your Own fruit, you can schedule that for one morning of fun (it's cooler in the early hours of the day).

Pizza Party

Photo from Pixabay

Invite the girls over to your house for a pizza party! You can buy premade dough or pie crusts and the girls can make their own pizzas with the toppings you provide. Place each on foil with the child's name in Sharpie so that the girls get their own pizza creation.

Did you know that you could put pizza on the grill? Place the pies on foil pans and put on the grill. DELICIOUS and no need to heat your oven!

Or you can have the girls make solar ovens and then cook their pizza! There are many ways to do this...just search and find which method would work best for you.

In your backyard, play some games and just enjoy being together. No agenda necessary!

No Bake Party

There are tons of delicious no bake recipes for kids. The girls can have a good time learning basic kitchen skills and eating what they have made.

You can have them decorate chef hats or aprons as a craft.

What will your troop be doing this summer?

A Calendar of Meetings for Second Year Daisy Scouts from January to May

*This post contains affiliate links.

Updated October 2019

With school once again in session, it is time to plan and prepare for the next season of Daisy meetings that will prepare your troop to bridge to Brownie Girl Scouts in just a few short months.

Photo from Canva

As a leader who has never been fond of the Journeys program, you will not find any plans for them here. With cookie season, World Thinking Day, Girl Scout Week, field trips and bridging, not to mention any community service you have planned, there really is no need to add in a Journey.

January

Your Ninth Second Year Girl Scout Daisy Meeting

Earn the Girl Scout Daisy Talk It Up Leaf

If you did not sell Girl Scout cookies last year and want to take a gentle plunge into the world of selling them, then now is the time to get things started. Many Councils have sales during the winter months, so if this is the case for you, the time for cookie selling preparation is now.

Photo by By Dsafdy (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons and altered by the author in Canva

The first thing you need to understand about selling cookies with Girl Scout Daisies is that they have a limited attention span and all sales are dependent upon parental participation. Over the years I have spent a lot of time writing blog posts about this, but a leader needs to accept the reality that if a girl does not sell cookies, either individually or at a booth, it is TOTALLY OUT OF HER CONTROL. Let it go, and she can help with cookie selling prep to make her feel like she is part of the troop team. You will not change the minds of non-committed parents, and troop money is troop money. 

Meeting Prep

Before your meeting, you will need to know how much per box of cookies your troop will be earning so that you can create a visual for the girls for your next meeting.

Ask the girls what kinds of trips and activities they would like to do. Write down these ideas and tell them that at your next meeting, you will share how many boxes THE TROOP needs to sell in order to make these activities happen. You will make a visual on a chart. 

For example, if a trip to Build-a-Bear costs $20.00 per girl, and each box sold earns 50 cents, and you have six girls in your troop, then the troop needs to sell 240 boxes so that the trip can take place (40 boxes per girl). Of course, these costs are made up, but your chart should have the Build-a-Bear Logo the number 240 next to a picture of a box of cookies. Do your chart from cheapest idea to most expensive.

On another chart, make a bar with the different goals labeled and pictured. At each meeting, tally up what the girls have sold AS A TROOP. They can see that the more they sell, the bigger the trip...and there may even be money to do more than one adventure! Whatever you do, comparing girls is wrong and please do not do it. Keep charts solely for the purpose of TROOP GOALS.

You can read how to earn the Girl Scout Daisy Talk It Up Leaf in this blog post with a detailed meeting plan.

January

Your Tenth Second Year Girl Scout Daisy Meeting

Earn the Girl Scout Daisy Making Choices Leaf

The Girl Scout Daisy financial literacy leaves tie in together nicely, so if there is some overlap, that is fine. Repetition is a good way for kids to learn and it certainly helps!

During this meeting, if you have time, have the girls make posters and signs for their cookie booth.

Photo from Canva

Go over any cookie sale updates that you have. If a goal has already been met, celebrate with a special treat. It can be food, a fun patch, or a special sticker or pencil from the Girl Scout Shop.

For a complete meeting plan on earning the Girl Scout Daisy Making Choices, this blog post gives all the steps.

February 

Your Eleventh Second Year Girl Scout Daisy Meeting

Earn the Girl Scout Daisy Money Counts Leaf

Photo from Pixabay

With two financial literacy leaves down, there is only one more to go. Start your eleventh meeting with a cookie selling update and cheer on your girls as they reach their goals.

For a complete meeting plan on earning the Girl Scout Daisy Money Counts leaf, you can read this blog post.  

February

Your Twelfth Second Year Girl Scout Daisy Meeting

Celebrate World Thinking Day (February 22nd)

As a Girl Scout, World Thinking Day is a holiday that comes once a year and is an easy one to insert into your long term planning. Since this may be your first cookie selling season, you do not need to go overboard with planning.

I created a very basic and simple five step meeting plan for your Daisy troop to help you plan your day. You can find World Thinking Day plans here.

If you want more World Thinking Day ideas, you can find them here.

March

Your Thirteenth Second Year Girl Scout Daisy Meeting

Girl Scout Week

Right after World Thinking Day is another Girl Scout holiday, Girl Scout Week. Celebrated during the week where March 12th falls, this is a fantastic opportunity for girls to use some of their earned cookie profits to help others. The very first Girl Scout meeting took place on March 12, 1912, and every year this is remembered by doing things for others.

By North Charleston from North Charleston, SC, United States [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Here are some ideas for you to incorporate Girl Scout Week into your meeting this month. The images have lots of information without being overwhelming. Make sure you do something at your meeting that can be checked off on your list.

March

Your Fourteenth Second Year Girl Scout Daisy Meeting

Go on a Field Trip

This is the time to go on a field trip since the weather is getting nicer and spring fever is starting. Since you will not have all of your cookie money, try to take an inexpensive or free field trip. The police station, the firehouse, or a local business like an ice cream store or supermarket may be able to take your troop on a tour. 

April
Your Fifteenth Second Year Girl Scout Daisy Meeting 

It's Time to Think About Bridging

If your calendar is like mine, then April is a month where we have always had one meeting due to Spring Break. With this being your second year as Daisy leader, it is time to start planning your bridging ceremony and have the girls as involved as possible.

I have always been of the opinion that bridging should be at the last meeting of the year. This time slot has been carved out for the girls and the parents as well. If you meet after school and have parents who work outside the home, giving them a heads up about bridging one month in advance will permit them to clear their work calendars so they can attend. 

At this meeting, talk about what bridging is and have them make the invitations to send home.

I wrote a complete guide to Daisy to Brownie Bridging here, which will help you plan it all out. 

May

Your Sixteenth Second Year Girl Scout Daisy Meeting

Bridging Practice

This is the big time ladies! The bulk of your meeting time should be devoted to practicing the ceremony and songs in the order that they will be done.

May

Your Seventeenth Second Year Girl Scout Daisy Meeting

Bridging Ceremony

This is the time to enjoy all that you have accomplished. The ceremony will be adorable and the celebration afterwards will be your reward for all of the hard work you have done.

Rainbow Centerpiece and Other Rainbow Themed Supplies 

Available on Amazon

Now that your second year of leading a Daisy troop is over, it is time to think about leading your troop of Brownie Girl Scouts. My website How to Earn Brownie Try Its is ready and waiting to help you with meeting plans for every badge.

Photo created by Hannah Gold on Canva

The Perpetual Girl Scout Scrapbook

*This post contains affiliate links.

Create a Girl Scout Scrapbook That Will Be a Memory for Years to Come

To preserve your troop's memories of their years in scouting together, you can have them create a perpetual Girl Scout scrapbook.

Photo by Hannah Gold

If you are going to do this activity, your co-leader and you need to decide early in the school year so you can take pictures at every meeting (or else you will have nothing to put in the scrapbook!) These are the pictures we took at each meeting:

-The girls working at the tables as a group
-One group shot at the end with all of the girls holding the craft
-Individual shots of each girl 

By doing this, you can take advantage of photo printing sales online or in camera stores.

 

Walgreens has great photo specials every week. 

By deciding early in the year that you will be making a scrapbook, you can get the stickers you need while they are in season.

Buying the Materials Cheaply

The cost of doing a scrapbook is prohibitive if you use what is sold in craft stores. For our scrapbooks, we used Avery Clear View binders.

For this activity, you will also need scissors, glue sticks, and markers. Fancy edging scissors are not necessary for the scrapbook, but if your Girl Scouts want to use them, ask parents if they have any you can borrow.

We also asked for donations of stickers and invested in some themed ones, like Daisies and holidays. The holiday stickers are always on sale right before and right after the holiday is over. Stock up when you see them!

These and more are Available on Amazon

  

Prep Work Before the Meeting

Using the Cheri Liney font, a cover was made for our Girl Scout scrapbook. The girls colored them in any way they wanted. Leaving a space at the bottom permits the girls to glue an individual photo or a troop photo. Always run off a few extra, in case one of the girls makes a mistake.

The troop photographer needs to be in charge of organizing the photos. This task is made simple if she does it on an ongoing basis and not all at one time, when it can become an overwhelming job. Each girls' photos need to be put into a plastic bag with her name on it for distribution at the troop meeting.

The stickers need to be cut and clipped together for each girl so everyone gets the same amount. I put them into a plastic bag with for each girl.

If you are doing this craft with Daisies or first year Brownies, I strongly suggest you have a few volunteers to help out. Young girls are apt to cut too much from the photos or put way too many stickers on one page, leaving very few for the other pages.

At the Meeting

Have the girls create their own cover and slide it into the front of their scrapbook.

The next steps depend on the age of your troop. While older girls can be given all of the materials at once and left to their own devices, Daisies and Brownies need to do this one step at a time. That way they are glued and inserted into the binder/scrapbook.

Photo from Pixabay

For example, we had the girls take out the field trip pictures and put them on the autumn themed paper we purchased. We did the same thing for the Halloween dance pictures. Since we are Daisies, we did one page at a time. For meetings that had no paper theme, we had the girls use white copy paper and draw the motif. For our Saint Patrick's Day craft, the girls drew clovers, rainbows and leprechauns and glued their pictures around them.

If you are saving all of the photos for the end of the year, it will take at least two meetings to finish your Girl Scout scrapbook. An easier way to do it is every two to three months, make the meeting a scrapbook meeting.

Once the perpetual scrapbooks are completed for the year, have the girls put them away until fall. Purchase new plastic inserts for the papers and at a late fall meeting, have a scrapbook craft time. Over the course of a few years, the girls will have a keepsake of their time as a Girl Scout.

Girl Scout Meetings Four Easy Steps for Success for New Leaders

*This post contains affiliate links.

Updated August 2019

Girl Scout meetings are simple to run if you follow these four easy steps to success. You've gone through the training, your paperwork is completed, now it is time to actually meet with your girls! Before a sense of panic sets in and you begin to wonder why you did this to yourself, take a deep breath. The key to a successful and smooth running troop meeting is all about preparation. 

Image from Pixabay and altered by the author in Canva

Here are guideline for running your meetings.  

Step One Be Prepared

The first easy step for a successful Girl Scout meeting is to be prepared. Any good teacher knows that when you work with children, especially young children, it is best to establish a routine. All scouts, especially the youngest kindergarten and first grade Daisies, thrive when they know what to expect. Your meeting routine should look something like this:

• Have the girls put their coats and bags in the same place every time you meet
• Say the Pledge of Allegiance, the Girl Scout Promise, and the Girl Scout Law
• Do a short circle time (group discussion) to discuss the badge or petal you will be earning
• Craft time
• Friendship circle and closing song

Second Step to a Successful Girl Scout Meeting- Earning Badges and Petals

The second step to a successful troop meeting is to figure out what you want to do for the year. 

C

There is no special order for earning petals and badges. With your co-leader, you can create an outline for what you would like to do for the next few meetings or for the entire year.

For the new leader, select an easy craft and do all of the prep work at home. This step is essential, because you need to know if it is going to work. For example, I had a great Valentine's Day craft planned. As I glued the hearts together with wet glue, the paper kept slipping and I could not finish the craft as I had planned. I took out my hot glue gun, and voila! It worked! Imagine trying to do this with twelve first grade girls who were making Valentine's for their parents and THEN realizing it didn't work.

I was able to recruit additional volunteers to use the hot glue guns so we could finish all the girls projects during the meeting.

 Available on Amazon 

This planner is 152 or organization! From attendance to field trips and everything in between, this is a must have planner for leaders who want to stay on top of things.

Step Three-Purchasing Your Materials for Daisy Girl Scout Activities and Crafts

Next on the Girl Scout meeting success list is to buy everything you need in advance.  I know this is common sense, but for many people, disorganization leads to stress, which makes meetings less enjoyable.

Whenever possible, use your troop checkbook for all purchases, along with your troop's Tax ID number, you will save on sales tax. If you do not have the checkbook, save your receipts so your troop treasurer can reimburse you.

In a space in your house, assign a tote or craft organizer (I own two of the one pictured below) to store the materials you purchased. The extras will be used for future crafts.

Available on Amazon

Step Four Ask for Help

The larger your troop, the more hands you need

Younger troops will most definitely need more help than two leaders can provide. The fourth and final step for running successful Girl Scout meetings is to send out an email to your parents and ask if anyone is willing to come and assist. Of course, they will need to be registered with your Council and background checked.

Parents always need advance notice. Those who work full-time can clear their calendars, while those with younger children need to have arrangements made for their care, unless you want them at your meeting, too. Just know that once you permit younger children to attend, it will be very difficult to uninvite them late. You can read about tagalongs in this blog post.

One more item...a Girl Scout leader tote! Keep all of the things you need for every meeting in one bag. Put whatever else you need for the next meeting in a bag next to it.

If you take these four steps for successful Girl Scout meetings, not only will your time together run smoothly, you'll be looking forward to the next time you meet!