Meeting 17: April

It had been month since our last meeting, due to my coleader and I both being out of town, so I expected the girls to be a bit antsy. I didn't expect them to be quite so cranky, though! It's like the common cold--one girl starts it, and it spreads through the rest of the troop like wildfire. Leaders, what do you do when your troop has a case of the cranks? Please leave your tips in the comments section!

Regardless, here's what we did in the meeting:

Premeeting: We did two pages from the "3 Cheers for Animals" Journey. One had a picture of a zebra head and the girls were supposed to draw the rest--any way they like! A couple girls drew regular zebras, and one girl got really creative and made hers part spotted hippo and part striped lion! The other page had fill-in-the-blanks about them: who took care of them when they were little and something they couldn't do when they were small but they can now, plus a place for them to draw a picture of themselves.

We also added an alligator to our big animal mural. Yay!

Opening: We did our pledge, promise, and law as usual.

Song: I offered our Song Chooser to pick any song she liked, but she was a bit shy. So, I gave her two choices: The Jo Song or O, Chester. She picked The Jo Song. A few girls opted to sit this one out--I'm not sure if they were just feeling contrary or what, as it's been a while since we sang that song, but it is one we've sung quite often in the past.

Circle: For our Circle, I had the girls think back to their last meeting, where we made bird feeders from oranges. Next meeting, we are going to teach our sister Brownie troop how to make these to earn our Red Robin award, so the girls came up with directions. I was really surprised how well they remembered the order we made them in! They seemed really excited about teaching the Brownies how to make them, though not everyone seemed excited to re-do the same activity.

Snacktime! We had a really good snack--raisins, Cheese Its, and juice. Yum!

Activity: This is where the trouble started. :( The idea was to make postcards to send--I had postcard-sized paper with stamps all ready for the girls. They were supposed to make animal-related pictures on the front (it's one of the activities from the Journey book). One of the parents brought in magazines we could use to cut out. One girl wanted to do the word searches in the magazines, which naturally made others who wanted to use them upset. Ah well.

We also called girls over two by two to create a "game cube". They had to come up with an activity, the number of times to do it, and whether it was forwards or backwards. One twosome (including the nonsharer) had a hard time agreeing on what to do, and I'm afraid they weren't able to resolve it to both their happiness. The purpose of the activity was to teach collaboration and compromise, so I'm disappointed it didn't work here. Any suggestions on what I could have done differently?

Game: We were supposed to play the game cube, but we ran out of time. It was supposed to work a bit like Mother-May I, though: A girl rolls the cube and does what it says. The first one to cross the finish line wins!

Closing: We did fists of five. Since the It Girl didn't get a chance to be it, I let her choose a song to sing (She chose "Swimming, Swimming"). The Friendship Squeeze, and that was it!

It's been so long!

Sorry, fellow leaders! I haven't posted in forever. Things have been so busy--I'm sure you can relate. We've been reading along in our Journeys book. The girls love the "3 Cheers for Animals" stories that we read in circle time. We earned our Birdbath Award when a friend of mine who worked at an animal shelter came in to talk about what she did. The girls loved sharing stories about their own animal experiences! 

I hope to be back blogging on schedule in the coming weeks. Thanks for sticking with me!