Month #6 -- Earning our Orange Petals

I apologize, I missed a meeting in my blog entries! This should have been between the first cookie shop entry and the end of cookie sales.
Cookie sales gave us a nice opportunity to teach the girls about being responsible. During our March meeting we went over the basics of how to behave at the cookie shops. We talked about the rules and asked the girls for their ideas. Then we set up a mock cookie shop and I pretended to be the Girl Scout selling cookies. Becke was the customer. We showed the girls that they must speak politely to the customer if they want to sell cookies. We also showed the girls possible scenarios they might encounter at cookie shops. We discussed things like:
1. Speaking clearly to customers
2. Answering questions for the customers and not being afraid to ask Mom, Dad or the troop leaders for help.
3. Never following a customer to their car.
4. Always saying thank-you after speaking to a customer, even if they don't buy cookies from us.
Our goal was to help the girls be responsible for their own words and actions. I think it worked pretty well. We also talked with them about listening to the volunteer Moms, Dads & the troop leaders when we are selling in public. People might not want to buy cookies from a Girl Scout who does not respect authority, so we were able to sneak in an early lesson towards our Purple and Magenta petals.

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.