2011-2012 Let The Fun Begin!


Brownie Troop 4607
September 2011
Welcome to another year in the adventures of Brownie girl scouts! Girls Scouts as a National organization is making some changes on us and I hope that they prove to be for the positive. They have prepared new program books for this year so the try-its are out. We could still use the try-it book if there is something in it that we are particularly interested in doing, however I may not be able to find the badge to go with it anymore. I am eagerly awaiting for the arrival of the new program books so we can see what they look like and how they will fit with our group of girls. They should be coming out by the end of this month so hopefully I will be able to pick one up by our next meeting. What I think we will work on at first is one of the Brownie journey books, they are keeping those. I have a few from a troop that dissolved so we can share and be off to a good start.

There are a few changes I would like to make to our troop this year. The first one is I would like to extend our meetings from 1 hour to 1.5 hours. We just seemed to run short on trying to get our activities done last year and I think an extra half hour would help a lot. The second thing is I would really like to ask for your help as parents a little more this year. I would like to start a program where I work with each child and a parent to help plan and run 1 meeting this year. I think this will really teach the girls leadership skills and give them a sense of pride and responsibility. I have a sign up sheet available, please let me know which meeting you would be willing to help with and we will either get together or talk over the phone separate from the group to plan that meeting. I also believe that since we all have different strengths and resources this will provide for a more well rounded experience for all the girls.

Fall Product sale or $20 dues? We need to decide tonight if we would like to participate in the fall nut and candy sale or if we would like to collect dues and be done with it. If we participate in the sale each girl will need to sell about 3o items to earn $20 for the troop. If we do not please plan on brining $20 to our next meeting.

Here is a list of meeting dates through the end of the year. Oct 3 & 17, Nov. 7 & 21, Dec. 5th & 19th. I really look forward to helping our girls grow again this year! I updated the blog today. I will keep current information on it through out the year so check it often. Ourscoutingadventure.blogspot.com You may also contact me anytime call or text 402-707-3742 or email bbrokenicky@hotmail.com

I look forward to a great year!
Brenda Brokenicky

Valentines & Art!

Tonight is our troop valentine party. I know the girls will have fun sharing their valentines with each other. The room will be filled with sugar and giggles! We have a couple of fun games planned for tonight and a small craft. I can't wait to party!

During our last meeting we discussed which badge we would like to work on earning next. The girls chose Art to Wear. This looks like a lot of fun and I can absolutely see why the girls chose it. I will need each girl to bring a few items with her next time and to be sure to wear some "crafting clothes", that won't matter if we get paint on them. I am sending a list of items to bring with you next time tonight and I will also include it below.

Art to Wear supplies
Plain white T-shirt(we will decorate them)
Paper Grocery Bag
6 clothes pins
1 small paint brush(like they get with water colors)

Like totally 80's!

Tonight we travel back in time to the 80's. We are like so totally stoked dude! We made a snack with the microwave popcorn that made it's debut in the 80's and dried fruit that was trendy then. We girls just want to have fun so we listened to music from the 80's Cindy, the New Kids and Bangles all made an appearance. Then we watched a movie from back in the day All Dogs Go to Heaven which was made in 1989. We probably won't get it finished tonight so we may have to finish it at our next meeting which is December 6th. This will be our Christmas party and the last time we get together in 2010. Each girl needs to bring a present to exchange with our friends for the party the gift should be worth about $5. Each girl also needs to bring a canned food item to donate to Low Income Ministries. This small service project will finish up our Through the Years try-it.

Happy Halloween!!!!!

Tonight our little goblins partied like it's 2010! We made crafts, and smores. We shared tricks and treats and had a great time! We even finished up a badge this evening with our smores. We girl scouts are just great multitaskers. I hope to post some picutures of our fun this evening in the next couple of days so you can see our good scary fun!

Our next meeting will be November 15th. We will be traveling back in time and learning about how scouts and our community have grown over the years. We will pick a decade to visit this evening. Will it be the roaring 20's the cool 50's, the peaceful 60's, the disco 70's, the totally rad 80's or the down to business 90's? The girls will decide.

I am considering making our meetings an hour and a half long after Christmas. We just seem to need a little more time to get everything we need done finished. Let me know what you think about this change. You can post a comment here or send me an email, text, or call. Thank you!

Girl Scout Ways

Today we talked about some important fundementals of Girl Scouts. This included the girl scout law and promise. We used the socks the girls brought tonight to make a puppet show about the girls scout law. We also talked about the girl scout sign which we did learn as daisys we added the handshake tonight and learned the friendship circle and squeeze. Did you know that the girl scout motto is Be Prepared? We put this motto into practice by talking about ways to be prepared for various emergencies.

Our next meeting is November 1st. This will be our Halloween party so come in costume and bring treats to share with the group. We have had about 6 girls coming to our meetings this year. I have gotten word about another girl that may wish to join us.

October 3rd Around the World

Today we worked on our Brownie Girls Scouts Around the world try-it. We learned that sometimes girl scouts have different names in other countries. For example in Chile Brownies are called Little Wings. We looked at a map of the world and found fun facts about Italy, Ghana and Thailand. Our world tour then took us to Germany where we learned a fun little folk song and then we played a game from Canada called Music Mystery. It was kind of like name that tune(for the old people that remember that game).

Our next meeting is October 18th. We will be talking about girl scout traditions from being prepared for emergencies to making smores. We need each girl to bring a sock to make a puppet with next time. We will also ask each girl to talk about one way their family is prepared for an emergency and to come prepared to share that with the troop on the 18th. We will give a different situation to each girl this evening and I will post that tonight or tomorrow.

Yesterday I received some of the items from my friends troop. I haven't had a chance today to go through it thoroughly but it looks like she had the journey books (which we will do also) so I will look into what the try-it books will cost and let you know.

Brownies!

This is the first of many blogs to come for our scout troop. I decided this year to be more environmentally friendly and instead of printing newsletters to send home with the girls, I will post all the information online for you to read and look over and over if you need to. The best part of this idea for you parents is no paper to misplace yeah! Just add our blog address to your favorites and it will always be there.

Our first meeting is, was September 20th 6pm. We have moved our meeting place to Sinai Lutheran church on the corner of 8th and Pebble. This is where we will meet all year on the 1st and 3rd Mondays of the month.
That makes our meeting dates:
October 4th & 18th
November 1st & 15th
December 6th No meeting on the 20th due to Holiday
January 3rd & 17th
February 7th & 21st
March 7th & 21st
April 4th & 18th
May 2nd & 16th
If for any reason these dates and times change I will post it on the blog and give you a phone call.

The main purpose of this first meeting is to get all the registration forms filled out and the registration fees paid along with the dues. Last year we tried doing the fall product sale instead of dues but we didn't actually make very much money considering the amount of work well all did as scouts, parents and leaders. So this year we are asking each girl to pay $20 in dues to the troop and skipping the fall sale. If you didn't have your registration fee this evening please make sure you have it by our next meeting October 4th and the dues need to be paid by our November 1st meeting.

I am very excited to be Brownies this year! Brownies is full of a lot more hands on activities that I know the girls will love! I have many fond memories of my oldest daughters troop in this age level. Brownies and Juniors are my favorite stages of girl scouts. This year the girls will need to get a new vest or sash, the council insignia, and troop numbers. You can move the pins on your daisy vest to your new brownie vest. This year we earn patches called try-its. I have a friend that is closing down her troop so I am going to try to get some of the try-it books from her if she has most of the books we need I will use troop funds to purchase the rest of the books. If she does not you may need to purchase this book but we will just have to see what my friend has. We keep missing each other.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at any time.