We survived cookie sales!!

I must say I am very excited to report that we made it through cookie sales and we did great! The girls did great individually and as a whole the troop sold 1764 boxes of cookies!! The girls each reached their personal goals and most went beyond that. Our cookie shops went well, thanks to being allowed to set up indoors. South Dakota doesn't have the most predictable weather, and it was cold and windy most of the days we were selling. We finished up with 21 extra boxes of cookies, not bad at all considering 8 have already been requested by troop moms! The girls earned so much money that we are "celebrating" by going on a buffalo adventure! It's actually a Girl Scouts event, but I am hoping my whole troop can go. It will be our first event out of town. Here is the link: The Possibility Farm
I am excited, with the cookie money we can afford to do some fun projects, camps and get patches! I love my troop a whole lot, I am so glad I decided to be a leader!

Our First Cookie Shop!

I am so proud of how well my troop has done selling cookies this year. For a small troop of first-year Girl Scouts, they did great! Most of the girls reached their goals and all of the girls earned the basic cookie patch. Our cookies came in last week and we have been delivering ever since. Today was our first cookie shop at a local truck stop. We are very thankful to the truck stop because they have allowed us to set up or table inside -- out of the rain and cold -- and they have agreed to let us have 5 cookie shops over the course of the month. The cookie shops are broken up into 2 hour shifts. Saturdays from 9-11am, 11-1pm and Sundays 1-3pm. I asked the girls' parents to committ to 2 cookie shop shifts. The girls who have signed up are asked to work their shift with one of their parents. I am there as well. The girls also know they can work extra shifts to earn more incentives, since some were close to big prizes but just not quite there.
Today was hard at first because the girls were wound up and giggly. But at the end of our day we had sold 73 boxes of cookies. Becke, my assistant, and I have talked and we would like to spend some time at our next meeting learning how to behave at cookie shops. We'd like the girls to be more willing to ask people to buy cookies and to prepare the peoples' orders. Moms should just be there to supervise and make sure people are given the correct change. Overall, it went well and we're excited for next weekend.

Month #5 -- Earning our Red Petals

We have had many opportunities to earn our red petals for being courageous and strong. The girls attended "Animal Yoga" in December to earn this patch as well as learning new exercises for their homework this past month. As an extra opportunity to try new things, I brought a hula hoop, a jump rope and an ankle skipping toy (sorry, I don't remember what it is called.) The girls enjoyed trying to hula hoop, though only a few were "pros", and jumping rope was by far the most popular activity. None of the girls was able to figure out the skipping toy, but everyone gave it a try. Our most recent opportunity to work on this petal was a trip to the fire station. We talked with Firefighter Troy about fire safety and how to be courageous and smart during a fire. The girls got a chance to walk through an ambulance and the big ladder truck! (Pictures to come, I promise!) We really enjoyed ourselves and learned a lot. At our next meeting the girls will be making a thank you card for the firefighters who talked with us.
Our craft project for the month was to make bead-ballerinas. The girls used beads, pipe-cleaners and paper muffin cups to make their ballerinas. We talked about being physcially strong and practicing a lot to learn skills like ballet, gymnastics, swimming and other sports.
To start the girls thinking about their next petal, Orange for Responsible for What I Say and Do, I read the girls some short stories from a book called, I Did It, I'm Sorry. The girls were given a set of multiple choices of how to correctly handle each situation, for example when something gets broken at home. I asked the girls to remember these lessons for the next month and try very hard to admit when they had done something wrong. I also asked them to remember to follow rules like wearing seatbelts.