Daisy Promise Center

Welcome to the Daisy Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting!  The main focus of this book for our first and second year girls is the Daisy Petal Patch.  Unlike the badge work for older girls, there are not a whole heck of a lot of guidelines for the petal patches.

1. Form a circle with your friends 
2. Say and discuss the Girl Scout Promise 
3. Sing a song with your friends

The gist of this patch is simple - the girls should learn the promise and understand what a promise is.  Since this is generally the second meeting (after the parent meeting) that daisy's will have, I like to start it with the girls gathering in a circle on the floor.

The next thing we did was make name tags - this was our craft for the meeting.  I laminated green cut outs of the trefoil, and punched two holes in each.  The girls each took one, and drew their name on it.  This was a pretty appropriate craft for my girls, because they had all just started Kinder - name drawing was something that they all could do.

Mom's were all in attendance at this meeting, since it was our second meeting, AND what mom in her right mind drops her kid off with strangers lol!  This worked out to our benefit though - each girl had their very own helper to help them thread string through their trefoil name tag.  This sped things along a bit, and we could move on to our next step.

The next thing we did was talk about the Girl Scout Promise, and try out the Girl Scout Sign.  Girl Scouts make the girl scout sign - using their right hand, holding the pinky down with the thumb, with 3 fingers raised, to indicate the 3 parts of the promise.

On my honor, I will try: 
    To serve God and my country,
    To help people at all times, 
    And to live by the Girl Scout Law.

I stated it line by line, and had the girls repeat it.  We did this twice, and though they did not have it memorized (they were 5 lol) they did have a good start on it.  After our initial repeating of it, we went through it line by line. 

On my honor, I will try:

• I asked my girl's what they thought this meant.  They weren't entirely clear on honor, but they got the gist. I told them it was giving their word - committing to something.  We talked about the importance of keeping one's word, and the girls gave examples of how to do this. [ie. picking up your room when you tell your mom you will pick it up]

To serve God and my country:

• Something important to remember when discussing this line is that not all girls are religious, and its important to remain sensitive to this.  God doesn't specifically mean a Judeo-Christian God, but can refer to any and all God that a said girl believes in.  The Girl Scouts also believe in inclusiveness, and in 1993 voted to allow a substitution in lieu of God.
  
  My girls were 5 and 6 so we touched on this briefly - and my troop was comprised of families that were fairly religious - so we simply addressed the verbiage as is.  I have heard some troop leaders that have their parents fill out a questionnaire at the parent teacher meeting to touch on religion so they are prepared for whatever substitution or wording that may be necessary.

To help people at all times: 

• With this line, we talked about being a sister to every girl scout, and to help people at all times. 

And to live by the girl scout law:

• The girl's don't know the law yet at this point, since they will earn it as they go through earning the petals.  I just explained that going through our patch work would teach them all about the law. 

The last thing we did at this meeting was to learn our first Girl Scout song.  I considered this for some time, and we decided to do one verse of 'Brownie Smile', only we changed it to Daisy Smile.

Here are the lyrics, and a link to a video of the song:     

     I've got something in my pocket that belongs across my face. 

     I keep it very close at hand, in a most convenient place. 

     I'm sure you wouldn't guess it if you guessed a long long while. 

     So I'll take it out, and put it on, it's a great big *Daisy* smile!

After this, we closed the meeting with a send off friendship squeeze.  The girls stand in a circle, and cross right arms over left, and grasp the hands of the girl on either side of them.  One girl starts the squeeze and you pass it girl to girl.  This is a great farewell - as we pass our friendship onto the girl next to us!

We had a great time with this - not many things cuter than 5 and 6 year olds learning about girl scouts! Tell me how your promise center earning went!