Meeting 8: December

Pre-Meeting: As the girls came in, we had them collaboratively draw a Bald Eagle for our animal mural, which we'll continue to add to throughout our 3 Cheers for Animals Journey (we had a photo of an eagle for reference). It looked so awesome! We also had them do the "What People Need" activity from the Making Choices financial literacy leaf. Finally, they drew a picture of themselves helping someone else, also part of the Making Choices leaf. 

Opening: Pledge, Promise, Law

Song: We had two options this meeting, "Pink Pajamas" or "Boy and a Girl and a Canoe"--both some of my favorites! Our song chooser picked "Pink Pajamas." I think they were rather shocked! :)

Circle: The girls had made a goal of selling 120 boxes as a troop. During our circle, we talked about how many boxes each girl has sold so far, and what incentives they have earned. Some girls hadn't sold any, and a couple had sold a lot already. We counted up the total number and colored in goal chart. Each girl got to color in about the same amount, to reflect that our goal is a group effort and everybody is helping to sell. So far, we've sold 61 boxes--more than half our goal! We reflect on our event shopping for Birthday Wishes, and the girls got to talk about how helping someone else made them feel. 

We took a quick break to play Daisy to Daisy, and then the girls stood back to back, locked elbows, and tried to sit down in pairs, then stand back up. So funny! We talked about our next Service Project (OperationPaperback), where we'll be collecting children's books for military parents to read to their children via webcam or DVD. We looked at a map to see where military people live, and how far away that is from their families. Then, we brainstormed about how the girls can help get books. They seemed a bit underwhelmed with the project, unfortunately, but hopefully as they see how many books they get, they'll get more excited. We'll be collecting for a few weeks.

Snack: We had gingerbread cookies and pretzels for snack. Yum!

Activity: We looked at pictures of bird nests, and talked about what we have that is like a nest. Then, we made our own nests out of paper bags and tissue paper. We put our pictures of helping other people inside. This is another activity from the 3 Cheers for Animals book.

Game: We played two rounds of Barnyard Bash. The girls each got a secret animal to act out, and had to find the girl who was also that same animal. It was pretty fun, but since we only had 6 girls at the meeting, the rounds went pretty quickly. We played Tiger, Cowgirl, Princess to finish the meeting.

Closing: Fists of Five showed that the girls all had fun at the meeting. They liked drawing the eagle on the mural, and making the nests. The girls got their Making Choices leaf, and girls who had signed up got their Early Bird patch. We did the Friendship Squeeze. 

We sent home the final activity for the Making Choices leaf, the Setting Goals Chart, for the girls to do with their parents and "officially" earn the leaf.