Our first Daisy Scout Meeting!

Among the things that are keeping me ridiculously busy these days is our brand new Daisy Girl Scout troop. Daisies are the youngest girl scouts- kindergartners and first graders.  Our troop is only kindergartners, and we have only 5 girls right now.  I've mentioned this troop before, but between one thing and another, it has taken us a long time to get off the ground.

We actually had our first troop meeting on February 5th, and it went very well!

Here are my little Daisies:

Emma

Abby

I really needed to get this troop moving, so we could take advantage of the Girl Scout Cookie sale.  That's right, it's cookie season!  From February 11 to March 27, Abby and Emma are selling Girl Scout cookies.  Hooray!  (No big sales pitch, here, I promise.  However, I do have all of your favorites available!)  This is a picture of the stock of cookies left AFTER the other 3 girls picked up their cookies:

Doesn't look too bad, does it?  The week before, I had 41 cases of cookies stacked in our entry.  I wish I could show you a picture of that!  I ordered enough for each girl to have 5 assorted cases of cookies, with 3 extra girls' worth left over.  I think we may get another girl or two in the near future, and I wanted to be ready.  Plus, this will keep me from having to run to the Cookie Cupboard quite as often.

Anyway, back to our first meeting.  I spent the better part of the afternoon making this:

We are holding our meetings in one of the preschool rooms at our church, and are unable to have a permanent bulletin board, so I made a portable one.  The space underneath the colorful letters is reserved for our craft project at our next meeting, so I will be sure to post a picture when it is full.  Here are the other components of the board:

One of the first things the girls learn is the Girl Scout Promise.  This is the craft we did at our meeting, to help the girls learn it.  I figured if they were hung up in a strategic spot, they could learn it while they were eating breakfast, brushing teeth, etc.  I hung one on the refrigerator, and Abby and Emma seem to know it already!

At this age, the girls don't earn badges, they earn Daisy petals.  They earn the center of the flower when they know the Girl Scout Promise.  I made a spot on our board to track their progress:

This is a black and white, 200% enlargment of the patches they will earn.  As every girl in the troop completes a petal, we will replace the black and white image with a copy of the colored image.  As I said, the center is for the Promise.  Each petal is a different color, and corresonds to a different aspect of the Girl Scout Law.

Here is the Girl Scout Law, with the words printed in the colors of their corresponding petals:

The girls will get to choose which petal to work on next.  It would be nice if they chose according to the words, but I have a feeling they will choose based on their favorite colors!

Since I've never been a Girl Scout myself, and neither has my co-leader (or, I think, any of the other parents!), I've made a section called "Did You Know?"  I will be putting up facts about Juliette Gordon Low, the woman who founded Girl Scouts in 1912.  Although the girls need to learn about her too, I really like this part for my own knowledge. (As a girl, Juliette's nickname was Daisy, and that is why the little girls are called Daisy Scouts.  Do you feel enlightened?)

We're also going to have a "Song of the Week".  This is the song I thought I was going to teach them at the last meeting, but I chickened out.  Instead, we learned "Make New Friends".  But, Abby, Emma and I have been practicing this one for next time.

If there are any current or former Girl Scouts reading this, or any current or former leaders, I could sure use some ideas!  Email them to  me, leave a comment on this post, or otherwise contact me.  It won't be long before the girls know more than I do!