The second half of our Girl Scout year started this evening, and it will be packed more badges – Meet My Customers, Pottery, Pets, First Aid, Money Manager, and the Global Action Award. We might possible add in Bugs and the Wonders of Water Journey – these would be done at our area nature center. I might also check out some of the new science badges that were recently added. We don’t really have a lot of time because soccer season starts at the beginning of May and many of the girls participate.
Opening Circle
*GS Promise
Badgework
*Meet My Customers
*Global Action Award
MEET MY CUSTOMERS
I love that this badge is one of the easiest, most straight forward badges for the girls to earn. It’s possible to knock the entire thing out in one meeting, though I tend to spread it out over several meetings. That is more to reinforce the skills before the girls brave the weather for cookie booths.
Step 1: Find your customers. We started with this by talking about who we sell cookies to – family, friends, teachers. We added in people we talk to at cookie booths. This bled a little bit in to Step 4 in that we talked about using our manners.
Step 3: Money handling. We started this step only. As we get closer to actual booth time, I’ll have the girls practice money handling by pretending they’re working a booth. I have a bunch of play money, and started out by asking the girls how much a box of cookies cost – $4. We counted out the exact amount before moving on to what to do if someone gives you $5 or $10 or $20 for varying amounts of cookies. I always tell the girls to count up to make change. So, if someone buys one box of cookies and gives them $10, they make change by starting at $4, add $1, and then add $5.
Step 4: Role-play. At this meeting, we really only discussed proper cookie booth manners. We’ll get to the actual role-playing once we’re closer to actual booth sales. Manners are something I stress repeatedly to the girls every year. Always be polite even if the people aren’t polite to you. Always say thank you. Know that sometimes people are going to ignore you. They’re doing it because they don’t want to have to acknowledge you and say “no”. Is it rude? Yes. But you still have to be polite.
GLOBAL ACTION AWARD
This will be the third year I’ve done Global Action with this troop, and it’s nice to see they’ve changed the requirements for it. That being said, I admit that the requirements are now a bit less younger child friendly. Previously, they were concrete ideas the girls could easily understand. Now it is more complex and nebulous with 17 different “actions”. As the leader, I have to winnow these down to a manageable number, and figure out which ones will be both the easiest for the girls to understand, and connect to things they already do or could do. Hopefully, GS will refine this for 2019, at least for the younger girls.
I started out by having the girls watch this video on YouTube. It is a three minute version of the “World’s Largest Lesson”. I don’t know how much my girls got out of it because the global goals are lofty, and if adults have trouble understanding why they should help the entire world, children will too. It’s hard to see the importance of the goals when the focus is global instead of local.
After the video, I tried to bring the idea down to a level the girls could understand:
the world = your house
all humans = your family
all animals = your pets
In short, do you like living in a clean house? Yes. The world is your “big” house, and it’s no fun living in a messy house. Do you take care of your family? Yes. All humans are family because we are all humans. Do you take care of your pets? Yes. We should care for all animals the same way we care for our pets.
When I was finished trying to get these ideas to stick, I had the girls draw a picture of something they have done to help other people, animals, or the planet. I didn’t care who they did it with – scouts, family, church, or school. Some of the girls had done some good things – donating winter clothes to a mitten tree, saving an injured raccoon and calling a wildlife sanctuary to take it for rehabilitation, or seeing that there was a lot of trash on beach while 0n a family vacation and having her entire family help with trash pick up. Other girls had looser understandings. Not wrong, but it highlighted how hard it is for people to think of conservation and activism on a larger scale, and why it is critical to focus on things that directly impact a given person.
Plant, Plant, Electro...What? 