Daisy program ideas

[shortridge]

Greetings, all

 

Im going to be starting up a Daisy troop at my daughters school next fall. Im new to Girl Scouting my background is in Cubs and Boy Scouting and I have yet to undergo training (thats coming in the spring). However, I have been spending some time brainstorming program ideas to last the two years of the new program.

 

Id really appreciate some input and feedback from folks whove been there, done that. Have any of these things worked (or failed) for you? Are there any that you think are too advanced for 5- and 6-year-old girls and should be saved for later?

 

Ive tried to use a progression approach, laying the groundwork in the first year for slightly more advanced activities in the second. One of the biggest challenges is going to be making sure the activities dont duplicate stuff the girls have already done in school, so its not old hat to them.

 

Ive laid this out in a rough seasonal format, but thats just for organizations sake these are just ideas based on interesting program topics, and some activities are clearly more time-intensive than others. (Ive also tried to beef up the winter programs with more indoor activities.) Im still working on pairing up the petals with individual activities.

 

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

 

 

 

YEAR ONE

 

Fall

1. Open house

2. Welcome meeting: Me In Paper, other fun, low-key intro activity TBD

3. Investiture family ceremony, activity TBD

4. Cooking 1: Food groups, eating healthy, snacks, make GORP, banana Popsicles, emphasize adult help/supervision

5. Cooking 2: Simple homemade soup, foil cooking (maybe)

6. Pumpkins/Harvest Time: Visit to/tour of pick-your-own pumpkin patch, painting and decorating pumpkins, maybe roasting seeds

7. Founders Day Oct. 31

8. Safety 1: Stranger rules, what to do in a car accident, dialing 911, simple first aid (cuts, scratches, splinters)

9. Safety 2: Visit to fire station, stop-drop-roll, home escape plans, dialing 911 (again)

10. Colors & Dyes: Tie-dye butterflies, natural dyes, doing something with shirts

11. Thanks-Giving food baskets, adopt-a-family, canned food drive

 

Winter

1. Maple sugaring: Visit to local nature center

2. Holiday parade (optional)

3. Caroling (optional)

4. Tea Party: Working on politeness, courtesy, manners just a fun dress-up formal-type troop event, bring your favorite stuffed animal

5. Art 1: Mosaics, collages, painting

6. Art 2: Sandpainting, masks

7. Flags: Basic rules about the American flag, salutes, Pledge of Allegiance, folding the flag, simple flag ceremony, color guard

8. Music 1: Simple instruments making your own shoebox banjo, washtub fiddle, drums, rattles, bottle flutes, kazoos

9. Music 2: Basic notes, types of bands, rehearsal

10. Theatre 1: Skits, songs, sock puppets, costumes, masks (combine w/Art 2)

11. Theatre 2: Visit a performance (high school/youth group show ideal), go backstage, talk to actors/actresses, stage crew

12. Family Show! musical performances, chorus, skits and stunts, art gallery on display

 

Spring

1. Weather 1: Rain gauge, thermometer, basic cloud types, barometer, weather rock

2. Weather 2: Keep a weather diary/chart, visit a local TV meteorologist

3. Kite Day: Making a simple kite, flying them at annual kite festival

4. Birding 1: Birdwatching basics, basic IDs, troop birdbook, binocular use, keeping up a birdbath, pinecone birdfeeders

5. Birding 2: Making nesting bags, birding walk with expert at state park

6. Gardening 1: Mini-gardens, cup seeds, flowerbox, window gardens, seedlings, troop garden

7. Gardening 2: Visit to greenhouse, organic farm

8. Flower Planting service project (daisies, of course!) at school, nursing home, community center, senior center

9. Safety 3: Police station visit, fingerprinting, safety ID cards, photos, plaster casts of shoes, dialing 911

10. Outdoors 1: Safety and getting ready adventure kits, foil shoeprints, whistle, water, poncho, GORP, Hug A Tree program

11. Outdoors 2: Family picnic and hike at local state park/nature center

 

Summer

1. Library visit (Summer Reading Program tie-in)

2. 4th of July parade (optional)

3. Indians 1: Studying different cultures, making headbands, how they lived, dances, clothing, game (e.g., corncob darts), visit to local Indian museum

4. Indians 2: Visit to local Powwow, talking to an Indian woman and members of local girls Indian dance group

5. Bike Rodeo: Safety, rules of the road, helmets, stopping, bike maintenance and helmet checks, string and cone courses get local bike shop employee to help?

6. Pets & Animals 1: Visit to a vet, no-kill animal shelter, discussion of responsible pet ownership, bring in photos of girls pets

7. Pets & Animals 2: Visit local zoo, talk with zookeeper

8. Swimming: At local Y or community pool, safety rules, basic swimming instruction for those who need it

9. State Fair visit

 

YEAR TWO

 

Fall

1. Fitness 1: Obstacle course, including balance beam, stunt walks (frog, crab, etc.), rope swing, frog stand, rope climb, monkey bars, etc.

2. Fitness 2: Fitness challenge athletics, gymnastics, sit-ups, push-ups, long jump, stretching, inner-tube stretches, dashes, croquet, kickball, Red Rover, Frisbee, basketball

3. Knots: Overhand, square, shoelace bows, coiling/throwing, ropemaking

4. Delaware Agricultural Museum visit: Old-time schoolhouse, baby chicks, looms/weaving, sheep-shearing, old-time baseball (rounders) demonstration

5. Farms 1: Tour of working farm (dairy/swine ideal), Q&A with farmer

6. Farms 2: Visit to/tour of orchard pick-your-own place ideal

7. Genius Kits: See traditional Cub Scout activity each member gets a box of miscellaneous stuff and has to make something from it a diorama, mechanism, display, just something cool

8. Magnet Power: Positive/negative energy, refrigerator magnets, making magnet creatures, drawings with shavings and plastic covers, magnetizing a needle, magnet games

9. Inventions & Creativity: Famous female inventors, washer-parachute catapult, puddle jumpers, etc.

10. Founders Day Oct. 31 special assignment?

11. Tools: Basics of safety and use tape measure, screwdriver, saw, pliers, hammer, nail-driving relay

12. Coastal Cleanup optional service project at state beaches, held annually

 

Winter

1. Hammer & Nails 1 (piggybacking off Tools): Review basics of tools, start making holiday gift toolbox or birdhouse

2. Hammer & Nails 2: Continue/finish making holiday gift

3. Holiday parade (optional)

4. Caroling (optional)

5. Collections: Different types of collections, keeping things organized, Show & Tell, how to start one

6. Family Bowling: Just a fun, simple, low-stress family event, possibly multiple troops

7. Night Skies 1: Fear of the dark, stars, umbrella pinhole planetariums

8. Night Skies 2: Telescopes, constellation basics, visit to observatory/local astronomical group, presentation by local expert, talk about stars and space

9. Photography: Very basic stuff, using simple digital camera, digital vs. film, snap shots for troop newsletter

10. Codes & Ciphers: Invisible ink, number codes, alpha substitution, code wheels, famous female cryptologists

11. Letters 1: Writing letters to future self, pen pals, sister troop, exchanges, letters to seniors, letters to soldiers (esp. local military women), making paper

12. Letters 2: Visit to/tour of post office, envelopes, addressing envelopes

 

Spring

1. Trees: Planting seedlings, deciphering rings, tree ID walk, collecting leaves, bark rubbings

2. Recycling 1: Three Rs, helping the planet, recycling at home, re-using stuff for crafts, making simple item/craft from trash

3. Recycling 2: Visit to recycling center, recycling drive service project

4. Kites: Making more advanced kites, visit to local kite festival

5. Fishing 1: Waterscopes, parts of the fish, how to ID fish, rules of safe fishing

6. Fishing 2: Make own simple poles, rules review, casting, fishing!

7. Visit a Brownie troop

 

Summer

1. Boating 1: Types of boats, balloon jetboat, rubber band paddleboat, making regatta racers

2. Boating 2: All-day event at state park (multiple troops?), raingutter regatta competition, pontoon boat trek (small groups)

3. Swimming (pool party?)

4. 4th of July parade optional

5. Family Fun campout

6. Summer Roundup weekend campout

7. Bridging ceremony to Brownies

 

 

SECONDARY MEETING ACTIVITIES in no particular order, just a start-up brainstorm list to complement or break up the main program activity

 

1. Treasure hunt

2. Scavenger hunt

3. Languages counting, greetings (in local Indian tribes language for Indian studies?)

4. Sing-a-longs make troop songbook with favorites?

5. Magic tricks show them off at Family Show?

6. Cardboard boomerangs

7. Spinning string color wheel (for Colors & Dyes or Art)

8. Map-reading, 50-state maps

9. Crystal candy

10. Color A Smile

11. Baby food-jar snowglobes

12. Project Linus

13. Halloween safety rules

14. Making smile bugs

15. Adopt-An-Angel or similar Salvation Army-type project at holidays?

16. Making soup mixes in a jar for elderly residents

17. New Friend Rolls

18. Weekly or regular pen pal letter-sharing?

19. Make friendship bracelets for Brownies

20. Story-time?

21. Make chore charts for use at home, with stickers

[HobcawChaos]

First off...OMG wow! You have seriously put a lot of thought into this. Reading through you have some wonderful ideas and activities put together. There also seems to be a great variety of focus: arts, science, etc. As a disclaimer, I've never been a Daisy leader - only Brownie parent helper and Junior leader. Two things came to mind reading your post. First, the Juniors I have would be hard pressed to do as many activities as are listed on some days. They get excited to see each other and the first 10-15 min of any meeting is snack and social (we meet just after school). Second and more importantly, even at this level the girls will have interests and a lot of things that they want to do. Encourage them to share what they want their troop to be doing - then mix up your plan to meet those dreams and wishes. For example, let the Daisies be involved in the planning of their Investiture. So between the Parent Meeting and Investiture, you may have a couple of meetings where you learn the GS promise/sign/motto/handshake, talk about the law, interspersing it with games and relays. Plan and rehearse the ceremony with the girls. Whose saying what? Where are they standing? If using candles, practice and a safety review is needed. Let them make invitations to give to their parents and decide what kind of reception food to have. You get the idea.

 

Anyone can certainly tell that you are going to be a wonderful leader! Welcome to the Girlie side ;-)

[IM_Kathy]

you've got some great ideas... I love to hear people already planning a year ahead of time!

 

I was a helper when my daughter was a daisy... I was her leader part of brownies and juniors, then took some time off, and became a leader again when she was a cadette and am still her leader - my troop is senior girl scouts (9th graders) and I'm also the SUM and my troop helps quite a bit with the younger and new troops at the beginning of the scoutting year with helping at first couple of meetings... it's acutally a lot of fun - although I will say I'm glad my troop is older now as it allows for so many more chances to do different things. although as they get older it does get a little harder to work around schedules.

 

during the 2 years of Daisy's the girls will work on earning their Daisy pedals... the center is for learning the promice, and each petal represents a part of the law. They will also be able to work on the new Journey awards... right now there is only 1 book for each level published, but they are set to release a new one each year until there are 3 available for each level.

 

while I agree with letting the girls help plan ceremonies and ideas for activities... it is hard for scouts that don't have an older sister to know exactly what all should be done... so if in the first year you do all the different ceremonies then by next year they will be able to have some ideas of what to do this time.

 

for the daisy's and their reading ability I would recommend only getting books for the leaders.

 

a suggestion I give all new troops is that with Juliette Low's birthday (Oct 31) have a girl scout birthday party... make a bunch of sticky notes of craft supplies you want to keep in stock for the troop: couple boxes of markers, several bottles of glue, couple boxes of crayons, etc... and have the girls and their adult pick a sticky note to buy and wrap up for the party. There's a great little story that has you pass right and left and on and on and on... then the gift they have at the end they open and that item goes in the troop craft box.

 

there are tons of great websites...

 

http://forums.delphiforums.com/GSLeaders/messages

is a message board in delphi that is just girl scouts and has as much info as this site has for boy scouts

 

http://www.scoutingweb.com/scoutingweb/index.htm

is a website with just about everything - it's the site I go to first when looking for something for girl scouts - even has some boy scout stuff too

 

http://www.epilogsys.com/ScoutingWeb/SubPages/DaisyPetalIdeas.htm

daisy petal helpful guide

 

http://server.ellenbecker.net:4271/Recognition%20Equivlents.htm

is not a site you will need as daisy, but as you move up along the way you may end up with a mixed level troop and this site is very helpful in letting you know what can go with what pretty easily.

 

 

[cubbingcarol]

Ahhh, but don't forget this is a *New program* year. They have introduced the Daisy Garden with accompanied 4 part patch program. Of course you can still use the old Daisy petals but they are also introducing another part of the *New program* next year. And don't forget Daisies are 2 grades in the same troop, Kindergarten and 1st grade, which makes planning next year a little more difficult in that you will have younger ones that may not be as advanced as your 2nd year Daisies. That is of course unless you have enough of one grade to sign up and then split the grades into 2 different Daisy troops.

This is my 2nd year as Daisy troop leader. I kind of plan my meetings like I do for my Cub scouts. We follow a basic theme each month (sometimes I have even followed the Cub Scouts montly themes) and I go from there. Girls are much easier to keep busy, as a craft is liable to take twice as long as boys do. Many times at my meetings we didn't get around to something because we were busy with simple crafts. Just the difference between the two. And it is super easy to get them their petals, just do a little reading about the meaning of each and then you will be able to fit alot of what you already have planned into which petal you want to work on that month.

BTW we have really worked on our Daisy circle and group discussion this year. I want the girls to be comfortable speaking from their hearts in front of others. We have really had some good talks with this being an election year and who was voted as our president.

 

But the most important piece of advice I or anyone could give you (and with your experience as a Cub and Boy scout leader you will know)

 

Keep It Simple, Make It Fun!(or vice versa, you get the idea!)

 

Good luck,

Carol