Money Counts: Daisy Leaf

Money Counts: Daisy Leaf

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 set.  Unlike the badge work for older girls, there are not a whole heck of a lot of guidelines for the petal patch set.  

The leaf badges are a great compliment to the product sales, whether it be cookies or fall products.  We did ours with our cookies sales, but in the end, you could do this anytime it fit in your schedule.

Leaf Activity #1:  Understand different kinds of coins

The first two parts of this were very similar - I did this with my girls at the beginning of cookie season, so I grabbed our bank bag of cookie money and basically dumped it out in front of them.  We spent some time identifying the different coins and their values.  My girls were in kindergarten so they needed some help and reminding.  We also put them in order and talked a bit about which ones were worth more, and what kind of things we could buy with their change.

Leaf Activity #2: Know more about paper money

The first two parts of this were very similar - I did this with my girls at the beginning of cookie season, so I grabbed our bank bag of cookie money and basically dumped it out in front of them.  We spent some time identifying the different paper bills and their values.  My girls were in kindergarten so they needed some help and reminding.  We also put them in order and talked a bit about which ones were worth more, and what kind of things we could buy with their money.

Leaf Activity #3: Find out the cost of fun

Things you'll need:

• popsicle sticks
• general info on local attractions

This was my favorite part of this badge.  For this badge, I gave the girls a budget of $10 per person, and two event options.  One was the local zoo, and the other was a meal at a fast food restaurant and time at a large park.  My girls chose the zoo.  I had 7 girls, which meant they needed 2 chaperones.  I gave my girls 90 popsicle sticks ($90), and some paper.  On the paper, I wrote:

Admission: $6, unless they have an annual pass

Lunch: $3

Snack: $3

Souvenir: $5

Train Ride: $3

Horse Ride: $4

I gave them just a few rules.  

1.  Admission was a *must*

2. Everyone had to eat.

3. If one person got a souvenir, everyone got a souvenir.

I explained that each popsicle stick was $1 - they could spend all of the popsicle sticks they had, but not more than that.  Then I let them go to town.  This was super endearing to watch - the first thing they decided to do was basically everything on the list!  We offered some gentle guidance and suggested they take care of the admission cost first, and then see where they were at with their funds. My girls took a survey of the girls and leaders to determine who had annual passes - turns out 3 girls and one leader had passes.  After this, they tackled lunch.  They liked the idea of buying lunch at the zoo, but one enterprising little lady asked if it would be cheaper to bring PBJ sandwiches and water bottles for everyone.  We estimated that would cost about $10.  After admission and lunch were taken care of, they had $50 bucks left to play with.  This was actually much more than I had expected, so this was great.  The girls talked about a souvenir, but they deemed it far to expensive for them, and (after all) the zoo was in their home town - they could spend time there whenever they wanted.  The girl were split on train rides and horses, so they voted, and split up the chaperones.  The chaperon with the train ride would need to ride but the horse one could just watch. At this point, they had $22 left.  They decided to get snacks with their money, and specified they would get popcorn, and each person would share with their buddy.  We ended up getting 4 fictional popcorns.  

Cost of our *fictional* zoo trip:

Admission: $30

Lunch: $10

Train: $12

Horse: $16

Snack: $12

Total: $80

The girls learned a valuable lesson on how much fun costs, and how to budget for it.  They also returned $10 bucks back to the troop account - for our next fun activity.

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 Money Counts leaf earning went!

Event Planning with DAISY's!

Every leader has to, at some point, plan an event.  The participation level of said leader should *theoretically* be minimal, however with the smaller girls, that can be a struggle.  They need a bit more guidance, and are really still learning what it means to plan an event.

Today I will discuss the technique I've found that works really well with my littlest girls, empowering them to plan their own events while giving me some control of the situation so we don't end up with girls planning a bridging ceremony complete with ponies, ice cream and helicopter rides lol!

When my Daisies plan an event, we break it down into 3 parts - beginning, middle, and end.  This is a pretty easy process for the youngest girls to understand.  We use meeting time to plan events, and I come prepared.

Most recently, we planned out bridging ceremony.  I use foam sheets for our planning - just because they are fun.  You could use anything from regular paper to a tablet - just as long as the girls can visually appreciate it.  The process will go smoother if they can SEE what they are planning.

I start with 3 pieces of foam sheets, and they look like this:

Once I get the three basic parts on their own foam sheet, I break down those parts individually.  I like to piece out 2 or 3 parts that can be specifically planned out for each portion of the event.  I also add a space for notes on the bottom - historically, I've learned my little ladies often have many *tips* or advice for me regarding the events we plan.




In terms of breaking down each portion, the example I am using in this post is our upcoming bridging ceremony.  The beginning section of this event planning was broken down into 3 parts - opening, Emcee, and short speech.  Since I have Daisy's, my girls are all 5 years old to 7 years old.  Some of them are great at coming up with options, or choices, and some struggle.  Because of this, I generally put two or three choices, and then introduce them as a choice to the girls. We discuss each one, and the implications, and then the girls take a vote on which they prefer.







Since the outline is already set up, its fairly easy to just highlight, circle or underline the choices the girls make.  I also open the dialogue up to any notes or suggestions the girls have - they are usually pretty entertaining, as well as helpful! The photo to the left is a great example of the finished product.






In the end, you have a three page outline that is simply written, and easy to understand for your event.  I generally make foam sheets in the same manner for other items that need planning as well - for instance, our bridging ceremony will be a potluck style picnic, so we have a sheet for sides/appetizers, and main dishes as well in a similar style.

As the girls age, I imagine this will evolve to them handling all of the details, but at this point in time, this is a really effective, and simple way to plan their events thus far.

We had a great time with this - not many things cuter than 5 and 6 year olds planning a bridging ceremony!  Tell me how your event planning went!

Patch Distribution

There comes a time in every girl scouts life when they experience that quintessential girl scout experience, and they receive patches!

This is generally a *very* exciting and rewarding time for these girls, and as a leader, you want to make this experience special.  You have the fall back option of tossing the patches in a plastic baggie and calling it good, but most leaders like something a little prettier.  I have Daisy's so my girls are pretty little yet.  I have done a few distributions with girls this age, but we recently relocated, and so I have a new group of little ladies, and we are coming up on their first badge distribution.  This is an especially exciting time for them because these will be there *first* patches in their girl scout career.

I didn't want to spend a ton of money, since we are a new troop, and I also got my girls all a little gift to commemorate their first badges, so I rooted around in the house.  I started looking through craft supplies in my craft closet, and found a super cute spool of daisy ribbon, and I was off!



Supplies: 

Spool of Ribbon
Scissors
Lighter
Stapler
Patches
Embellishments


My girls all have different amounts of patches dependent upon who made it to what meetings, but I do like order, so I picked an order for the patches, and kept it throughout all of my girls, even if they were missing a few.

1.  Lay patches out in order on the table, and unroll the ribbon next to it.  You'll want to leave about 2 inches at the top and at the bottom.  Measure and cut ribbon.

2.  Lay out patches on the ribbon, and staple each on to the ribbon.  Each patch, I've found, works best with two staples in it, on opposite corners.

3.  Light the lighter and pass both ends of the ribbon through it - this will prevent the ribbon from fraying.

4.  I like to embellish these with some kind of theme, or cute start and finish.  I add the name in some capacity on the bottom - this time, I printed it on the ribbon itself - and I add some kind of embellishment at the beginning.  I haven't decided what I will put on these, but in the past I've used cute bottons, made bows, or added a small gift card for McD's (for my last troops first distribution).

My girls have always loved these, and I enjoy thinking up different ways to personalize them!  How do you handle your patch distribution?  Do you theme yours? I love seeing ways other leaders hand out their patches, so please comment and share!