One of the key aspects to Girl Scouts is having the girls learn many life-long useful skills, such as leadership, planning and organization. Meetings, regardless of age, should be “Girl Led” to the degree each level is capable. By the time a girl is a Junior, grades 4 and 5, they are pretty much on their way to running (or attempting to) the show.
Our troop leadership decided to do this by breaking the Junior-level of our troop into groups, based on the number of badges we planned to earn this year…our goal being by the time they bridge, they have earned every badge available. We assigned one leader to each girl team, for guidance and supervision. The girls then run with it.
We had spent the first half of the year working through a complete Journey so our last meeting was our first scheduled “Girl Led” meeting. We started with Social Butterfly, being coordinated and led by a team of three girls. In order to fit the whole badge into the time alotted, the team decided to break the badge work into stations and then have the rest of the troop rotate through.
The first station was during snack time – We had a fancy snack and worked on table manners and small talk. Each girl was sent home with a laminated place mat that shows 3 degrees of formality, of a properly set table. We hope this will be a good resource for years to come.
Planning a Special Occasion – During their time at this station the girls planned an event through a series of questions on a questionnaire. We had 6 pre-chosen events and the girls each blindly chose one, so not everyone was fighting over what would be easiest or more fun. Then they got to create a skit showing the event they planned…complete with a treasure trove of props from our dress up boxes!
Holding a Conversation – In this station the girls learned a little more about small talk and the nice vs. rude way to interrupt/interject in a conversation, through a game aptly named “Interruption”. They also learned the power of words through “The Toothpaste Game”. This game was great because they had a girl squeeze toothpaste out of a tube then her partner had 1 minute to try to get all the toothpaste back in the tube. The toothpaste was symbolic of the words coming out of your mouth and the inability to put the toothpaste back in the tube is symbolic of just that…once the words are out, you can’t take them back! So, be cognizant of what you say! It was a messy, but really fun one that they all enjoyed.
Saying Thank You – Sometimes we forget how important it is to say THANK YOU and how impactful this simple gesture can be. This was a craft station where the girls made paper flowers as flowers are always a good way to say thank you, to a host/hostess or someone for doing something nice. They were colorful and very beautiful.
The GIRL LED series looks to be great. It’s going to be fantastic leadership experience for everyone (and a nice break for the leaders…haha).
Girl Scout Troop 2214 