Valentine Daisies

With a couple of our girls sick today we had a small Daisy group but we still had fun! With Lindy and Paige helping and Eva's sister, Skylar, we had almost as much help as girls. Not that the little ones have a problem with that, they love having older kids around.
The highlight was the valentine exchange. Love the creativity of these girls! Then it was on to a crafty snack, Bingo, and freeze dance. A very fun Valentine's celebration!

Responsible for What I Say and Do

Daisy Scouts had an important lesson today on being Responsible for What they Say and Do, their orange petal. We started with our story from the Daisy Guide about the flower character Mari. We talked about doing our chores and if we say we are going to do something we do it.

The girls all made a paper doll of themselves and brought that back to our circle where we had another story. This one was about the Paper Doll that I had. Her name was Ella and she was really looking forward to a great day but it didn't turn out so great. Kids said things to her that were not very nice and each time that happened in the story we crumpled part of the paper doll. The girls were shocked to see me scrunching my doll and tearing off her leg. But then Ella's day got better, people apologized and were nice to her. We began to tape her leg back on and straighten out her crinkles. We talked about how our words can hurt a person's spirit inside. Even though we apologize or maybe think what we say is not very hurtful, things we say can hurt a person and leave marks on them.

Remember the story, The Boy Who Cried Wolf? Perfect for teaching a lesson about being responsible for what you say! I even had a real life story of that happening in our house!

Erin was so excited to make the snack for today. She remembered it from a co-op class last session. She made the example butterfly from celery and then taught her friends how to put them together. She was very proud!

They are such a sweet little group of girls!

Perfect Ella, ready for a great day. But her friends made fun of her dress and her nails. 

 Even though they apologized, Ella still had marks on her from the unkind words.

Erin's celery butterfly.

Bowling Fun

 Last week all the Girl Scouts had Rule 3 to themselves! We had an awesome time. So much fun for the younger Daisies who got to tag along with their big sis and boy where they spoiled!

Daisy Valentine's - Sisters to Each Other

Daisies are adorable, no doubt about that! I just love when my meetings all come together with their theme! This month is the celebration of Thinking Day. A day to celebrate girls all around the world. The end of February is our Service Unit's Thinking Day Celebration with girls "touring" around the "world" and stopping by seven different countries to learn about girls in those countries. They need a passport to "travel" so our craft was making passports. The girls decorated the cover and wrote their name inside. It is so hilarious to hear them talk about their personal "stats". Half don't know when their birthday's are, most don't know their address and the whole concept of what country they live in is well, they live in Ohio so that is good enough! It is so cute to hear them ask each other these questions!

What a great book! To help teach the lavender petal "Be a Sister to Every Girl Scout" we read this great Mem Fox book on diversity. We talked about people living in other countries specifically Girl Scouts. They may not have meetings that look like ours, their houses may be different, their food may be different but we are still all the same. Great opportunity to address that no matter what the differences are we still need to treat each other with respect. We then made our passports to take to Thinking Day.

What a great way to be a sister to all of your girl scout friends than to have a Valentine party and pass out Valentines to each other. Each girl got to take their valentines and pass them out to their friends one at a time. I try to, whenever possible, do exchanges this way so that the person who is giving can feel proud of what they are giving and also the recipient can acknowledge thanks. It is so very sweet to hear their voices say thank you for their treats to each other. It also gives them time to admire the work others put into gifts. Takes longer but worth the time in my opinion! I know that I love making my valentines and so do my girls. Half the fun is the delivering!

Lyza made some great brownie and popcorn for our snack!

Erin passing out her valentines!

Oh how fun to dump your boxes out and dig through!

So sweet!

Daisies Christmas Party

What a bunch! These girls are so cute, so fun, and so giggly!! That's all they do is giggle for two hours. Our holiday party was a huge hit! The girls each had a $5 limit for the gift exchange which they were very excited for. We did a quick review of left and right and determined that they could also play the Wright Family Exchange game that the Juniors did. We had to help a little when things started to get crazy with the left, right, left, left, right but if they didn't have that down before they arrived they've got it now!
Everyone shared what they received and thanked each other (also very cute!). We then started our snow people. All the girls love to paint so this was a hit. While the paint dried we had snacks while watching a quick version of Frosty the Snowman. Then it was back to the craft table to put the finishing touches on our snow people.
Merry Christmas Daisy Girls!

Such a sweet little group! It is so neat seeing Lindy and Paige with some of the girls they were Daisies with and how they have become such good friends over the years. Not only does Girl Scouts teach wonderful values but its such a great way for girls to bond and form friendships. Everyone is included and everyone is friends, be a sister to every Girl Scout!

When Lindy and Paige were Daisies I made these ornaments for all the girls in the troop. Its so nice to have Junior girls to help me out with things like this! Lindy took care of putting all the coats of white paint on these wooden flowers. The girls names are on the front with the year on the back in "Daisy Blue". I love having my ornament from my Brownie leader and its so special to think about all the fun I had way back when I was in Girl Scouts.

Flower Pot Snow People Craft

For our Junior and Daisy Girl Scout craft we did these adorable Snowmen (or girls, babies etc). They turned out so cute and I was able to adapt it for both the younger and older girls, just did a bit more prep for the little ones.
A flower pot turned upside down with a wooden ball hot glued to the top made the body. We cut infant socks near the top, turned them up a little to create the hat (you need one sock per snowman for this part). We tied a piece of ribbon around the middle of the hat and then snipped the ends with scissors to "fringe" the top. The left over sock was used to make the scarf. The girls then chose 2 buttons to hot glue on and then painted on their faces.
I am so glad that I have 3 of these to decorate for the winter, I just love them!

Learning the Girl Scout Law & Promise

For new Daisies learning the Girl Scout Law and Promise can be a bit daunting. So many big words and things to remember! With each petal representing a part of the Girl Scout Law I tried to make it fun for them to learn what each one will stand for.

The girls created life size daisy flowers taller than most of them! The center of the daisy represents the promise. We used cake discs that the girls painted "daisy blue". The stems were wooden dowels that the girls painted green along with the wooden base that we glued the stems into.

The girls each got a colored petal that corresponded with the petal in the Girl Scout Law. While I read each part of the law, the girls had matching gems to glue onto the petal.

Hot glue held everything together including the petals. The girls wrapped a sparkly green pipe cleaner around the stem and then we glued on two leaves. My plan was to print the Girl Scout Promise onto cardstock so that it could be glued onto the center of the flower but the printer was not cooperating! By the end of the meeting all the girls could recite the promise on their own so they were able to take home the center of their flower for their smocks.

Really a cute and fun project. The one thing they told me at their first meeting when I asked about crafts was that they all love to paint. I think this met their expectations! Paint, glue, sparkly gems = happy Daisies!

Finished product! When the flowers were done we measured each girl against their "daisy" and marked it with a Sharpie. They can then watch their growth through Daisy Scouts and see how tall they get when they are ready to bridge to Brownies.

The flower center is a cardboard cake circle and the base is just a scrap piece of wood.

Petals cut from scrapbooking cardstock.

Erin with her Daisy!

Megan's birthday was the day of our Daisy meeting! She brought chocolate cupcakes with strawberry icing to share with everyone. Lyza had just celebrated her birthday the weekend before so we had lots of happy birthday singing to do!