Gerri: Respect Authority - Pink Petal

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.

If you want to print off a picture of the Gerri for the girls to color during the gathering time, you can find one here!

1.  Enjoy Gerri's story

Gerri's story is in the Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting.  Gerri the Geranium is the seventh petal of ten that you will learn about in this guide.  Gerri's petal is about learning what it means to respect authority.  If you don't have the Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting, you can hear it read here by Troop #5007.

Other appropriate books to enjoy and discuss in lieu of Gerri's story:

• The Berenstain Bears Show Some Respect
• Office Buckle and Gloria, Peggy Rathman
• What is Respect, Etan Boritzer

2.  Talk to someone in authority

**For a copy of this scripting
you can copy and paste, click here.

This is a perfect time to have a guest speaker come in and chat with your girls.  With my girls, we do a monthly guest speaker, for an event we call 'career day.'  Career day is when I ask a strong female professional from our local community to come and speak with the girls. I ask them to share what they do, and path they took to get where they are today.  It is so so SO important that our young women in today's society look at the world and think, wow - so many opportunities, rather that, I really want to do this, but it's a boy's job.  In respect to that, I think it's extremely important that girls are exposed early on and frequently to all types of careers.

For *this* badge, I asked emailed the local police department, and asked if their female canine officer would be willing to talk with my girls.

They forwarded my email to this officer, and she graciously agreed to speak with my girls.  I've found with professionals, its easiest to have 2-4 dates and times that work, and letting them choose what works best for them.

If you have the opportunity to request a female canine officer in your community, I highly recommend it! This was one of our favorite speakers.  She came, and spoke with the girls about being an officer, and how she got there, then her transition into canine officer.  At that point, she went and retrieved her partner from her vehicle (that was running for temp control, AND she wears a sensor at all times that alerts if the temperature in the vehicle is too warm - don't worry, pup was safe!) and she showed some of their training, had her canine partner scent and find something hidden, and ended with the girls being able to pet Dexter.

3.  Show respect

For this part, we did a craft I call, 'It Bugs Me'.  Its a simple craft that allows the girls to think of something that bugs them - and then gives the troop an opportunity to discuss how to show respect in those situations.  I did specify for this craft, we were going to think of something that bugs them in terms of respecting authority.  I gave them the example of 'It bugs me when...someone talks when the teacher is talking.'

Supplies:

• Lady Bug printout - one for each girl
• Pens
• Popsicle sticks
• Scissors
• Glue

**Another option would be to make the lady bug out of construction paper.

I gave each girl a printout, and a pair of scissors and had them cut them out - this is a great way for kinders and first graders to practice their cutting skills a little bit more.  Then we wrote 'It bugs me when...' on the left wing, and what bugs them on the belly. ie. someones talks when the teacher is talking.

When they were done with this, we glued the bugs to the popsicle sticks.  We set them aside for a bit and had snack, then came back to them. We had each girl hold her bug up, and read what bugs her.  Then we discussed, as a troop, how to avoid it happening, ie. remember to raise your hand when the teacher is talking.

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 Gerri the Geranium earning went!

Bugs - Brownie Legacy

Brownie Badge Work

The Bugs badge has 5 steps, and is designed to help girls learn about bugs, and immerse themselves in the world of bugs.  Brownies are in 2nd and 3rd grade, and ready to take the world by storm.

Brownie Legacy Bugs Patch

Badge Requirements

• Learn about bugs
• Bug craft
• See bugs in action
• Bug homes
• Take a bug field trip 

These requirements do not need to be done all at once, or even all in a row.  There is a great spreadsheet that will help track these badge requirements if you choose to space them out.   You can find the spreadsheet here.  The spreadsheet also gives some more great ideas for ways to meet the requirements.  You can also edit the entries if you choose to do something different.

If you have the means for it, a trip to a local zoo, or bug house can help complete the entire badge.  If this is the route you take, I will note what will complete each requirement.

1.  Learn about bugs

Simply learning about bugs is a pretty broad topic.  There are a few great options.  If you are at a zoo or bug house, simply attending a talk about bugs or speaking with someone who is a bug expert.

Another option is to print off bug worksheets here, and hand them out.  This is a color sheet of an ant, and has label areas for the 3 main parts of an insect.  The title is 'The Insect' and the three sections to label, top to bottom are head, thorax, and abdomen.  

Give a short talk about insects:  Insects have 3 things in common - 6 legs, 3 body parts, and a hard skeleton.  The head is the first part, in front of the thorax.  The eyes and mouth are on the head.  The thorax is the middle part - sometimes wings are attached to the thorax.  The end of the insect is called the abdomen, and it sits right behind the thorax.  This is generally the largest part of the insect.

Then have the girls fill in the words, and color in the insect. 

Photo c/o: All Kids Network

2. Bug craft

• Paper Inchworm
• Supplies:
• White construction paper
• Green construction paper, printed with this template
• Black sharpie
• Googly eyes
• White glue
• Hole punch
• Black Pipe Cleaner
• Cut on the lines of the green paper.  Starting at bottom of white construction paper, glue one end of a green strip down.  Glue the other end down, pushing it towards the previously glued end, to form a bump.  Repeat this 2 more times to complete the body of the inchworm, overlapping the end of the previous bump each time.  Next make a circle with the last strip of paper.  Punch two holes in the top and slide one end of pipe cleaner in each hole.  Glue 2 googly eyes on the loop, and draw a smile on, then paste it down, overlapping the end of the last strip of the body.
  **This craft was inspired by this blog, and has been modified from the original picture to the right.

• Lady Bug roll up
• Supplies: 



Picture c/o: Free Kids Crafts

• Red 2 1/4 in x 6 in strips
• Black 1 in circles, with a tab on one side
• Leaves printed on green construction paper, cut out
• Googly eyes
• Black Sharpie
• White glue
• 6 in pieces of black pipe cleaner
• Make a circle with the red strip (this is the body of your lady bug).  Draw black line down the middle, and make 3 black dots on each side.  Next, fold tab over on circle, and glue onto the front of red circle (this is the head of your lady bug).  Fold pipe cleaner into antennae and glue to black circle.  Glue googly eyes on the middle of the black circle, and glue ladybug to your leaf.                                                                                     **This craft was inspired by this blog.

3. See bugs in action

Challenge your girls to find, and observe at lease 3 types of bugs.  Ask them to write 3 sentences about each bug they observe.

At a zoo or bug house, challenge your girls to observe the beehive.  They will see bees leaving and coming, and hard at work. You can also challenge them to find the queen, generally marked with a white or black dot on her back.

4. Bug homes

A)  Visit a local butterfly home, and check out the chrysalis'.  Share with the girls the life cycle of ther Monarch.

1. Female lays an egg, that sticks generally to a leaf or stem
2. Egg hatches into a caterpillar
3. Caterpillar creates chrysalis
4. Butterfly emerges from chrysalis, living the rest of their lives in a warm climate with lots of flowers.

Discuss the various homes of the butterfly, as they move through the stages of life. (Leaf or stem, Chrysalis, Warm climate/lots of flowers)

B)  Another option is the Simple Bug Hotel.  If you are skirmish and your girls are loving this bug badge, this may be for you.  You take a 2 liter, and cut the top and bottom off, then cut it in half so you end up with 2 cylinders.  Then you stuff the cylinders tight and full of organic material - twigs, leaves, wood, etc.  This was a great idea from THIS blog, and she made adorable bug hotels with her kids!

5. Take a bug field trip

If you are at a zoo or bug house, you've got this one in the bag.  Let the girls enjoy their surroundings and take in all the bugs they can find.

Other options are taking a trip to a local farm, state park, or beach, and taking note of your surroundings.  Notice bugs on the ground, in the sand, in the water, on trees, etc.  Observe them and try to figure out what is happening in their lives.