Monday, July 30, 2012

Ideas to Tie In to "3 Cheers for Animals" -- Part II

Hello! Last time, I posted a bunch of links for ideas of activities to add to the 3 Cheers for Animals Journey book's first story. This time, we're taking a look at the second story, "The First Stories: A Little Birdie Told Me ..." In this story, the flowers imagine how they got their colors, and they also imagine how the robin got his colors. The leader's guide suggests you have the girls come up with their own story of how something came to be. Here are some ideas that you could incorporate into the meeting where you read this story (be sure to look back at the last post; a lot of the flower activities would work here too!):

Premeeting

Snack
  • If you have a microwave handy, have the girls help you make their snacks for the meeting, birds' nests

Activity
  • Have the girls make get-to-know-you necklaces. During your closing ceremony, have each girl show off her necklace and explain what their personal story is
  • Make an "I Am" page, whether it's a collage or a painting or something else. This looks like a great self-esteem activity, and the girls should share all the good things about themselves
  • Start a journal that the girls can fill in a little at a time (hello, future Premeeting activities!). This one has poems and is for a Kindergarten class, but I think with a little time you could create a Girl Scout-specific journal where the girls can tell their own stories.
  • Make an adorable baby-bird nest from paper plates and pom poms
  • Make story bags. For a meeting, I'd have each girl bring in two or three items (depending on how many girls you have) and put one in each bag. Then, split up into groups (however many bags you have). Each girl in the group draws out an item one at a time and adds to the story. Once they've created the story, return to your big group and have each small group tell their story to the troop
  • Make a birdfeeder to feed the robin from the story (and all his bird friends). You can make one from a toilet-paper roll, a pine cone, an orange (we made this one in our troop--messy fun!), popsicle sticks, with cookie cutters, and probably a million other things
  • Make a bird's nest. This is a suggested activity from the leader's guide for this Journey. They suggest using paper bags, but you could also use more natural supplies
  • Make a bird's nest necklace. Daisy scouts might need a lot of help with this one, but they are just so cute I had to include them!
  • Make story stones. Use them to create a story at this meeting or at future meetings
  • Make these sweet bird-cage lanterns
Have another idea for "A Little Birdie Told Me ..."? Leave a message below!

7 comments:

  1. Just found your blog and I L O V E it!! We are doing this journey this year. I am looking for pictures of the Animal Mural though, do you have any of yours? Do all the girls just make one animal for it? We have 13 girls, I feel like that is a lot of one animal!

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    1. Thanks, Kristina! We just used a Google search to find simple outlines that the girls could draw. Sometimes we made one big animal together, and sometimes each of the girls made their own. You could also split them up into groups of two or three and have each group make an animal together!

      Good luck on your Journey -- can't wait to hear more about it!

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    2. Hi...I have a picture of my mural...I will post the link. I may have to add another bristol board to mine. What I did was each week that we do the Journey, I make templates for the new animal for each girl. They they each make their own animal to add to the mural! I will send the link here.

      EMPTY DAY1: https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/603222_10152122713630104_1808931076_n.jpg

      THEN AFTER JOURNEY DAY1: We added the EAGLES!! https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/2019_10152122717680104_515582461_n.jpg

      THEN WE ADDED LIONS: (need to find pic)

      THEN we added Red Robins... https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/292890_10152233281710104_1000686207_n.jpg

      NOW CHEETAHS ARE ABOUT TO BE ADDED (Have them but they had to dry)

      THEN at the end of the Journey...the girls will all have each of their animals to bring home as a memory...I put small sticker labels with their name, and they put it on the front so they can always see where their animal is :) Hope this helped anyone looking for ideas...I think I will start a blog about my troop :)

      UmmKhaled kasey.hussey@gmail.com

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    3. Thank you for sharing your pix!

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  2. This blog is amazing. Thank you!! Our troop is doing this journey this year too. In addition to the journey awards we will earn the 4 leaves (during cookie sales time). Our troop meets once a month (during the school year) so we are looking at 9-10 meetings to cover everything. Is this too much??

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    1. Thanks, Alcedo! I think you'll have lots of fun doing this Journey. I think if you get started right away with the Journey, you should be able to get through the whole thing and earn the leaves. It depends a bit on how you organize your meeting. Our meetings always had the same elements (opening, circle time, snack, activity, game, closing) and were 90 minutes. It took us about 8 meetings to get through the whole book, but we didn't dedicate the entire meeting every time to the Journey.

      Hope this helps, and be sure to write back to let me know how it's going for you! Good luck!

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  3. Bless you for posting this series about this Journey! So very helpful! I'm looking forward to reading the rest of your blog. Love from Wisconsin :)

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