Pumpkin STEM Project

Check out this tasty STEM way to celebrate Halloween. Dayna at Lemon Lime Adventures has a great post with many detailed photos of this activity on her blog.

We will be doing this at our end of the month meeting for sure. Candy is already bought and the toothpicks collected!

STEM Challenge from Lemon Lime Adventures

The Snowball Fight :: Brainstorming

Lets squeeze a little more fun out of the winter this season!

We are certainly longing for nice days where we can get out and run around - but in the mean time consider bringing some snow fun indoors. This year my scout troop was needing to work together to create a community service project to tackle a concern in our neighborhood. The girls had so many great ideas it was sort of tough to narrow them down. In addition sometimes the all business meetings can be a little dry especially following a full day of school.



After watching this video, we decided to give the indoor snowball fight a try.

The girls each wrote down a problem that they saw in our community. Ideas included hunger, stray animals, literacy, and bullying. After they wrote their topic at the top of the paper the girls crumpled their pieces into a snowball shape. We split the group into two sides and at the count of three we let them toss the "snowballs" for a little bit. When I called stop (or a whistle blew) the girls all froze. They were then instructed to find a "snowball" closest to them, open it up, read the topic, and then write down one thing we could do to help with the problem stated at the top. Before we bagan this exercise we explained the importance of not squashing ideas at this stage of the game. Brainstorming is just a flushing out of ideas...no idea is to small, big, goofy or unrealistic. Narrowing them down would come later. We repeated the tossing portion a number of times so that each topic had a number of ideas underneath. The girls had a great time and still recall it as one of their favorite meetings.

Summary:

Age:

This seemed best suited for the kids in grade 3 and up - although there
were younger ones involved, they just needed a little more help
understanding the idea. When all was said in down we had a clear picture
on what the girls had the greatest passion for and we moved from there
to create their project.

Supplies:

• A sheet of white paper for each kid
• A writing instrument for each kid

Notes:

This would be great for brainstorming ways to use fundraising monies, where to take a field-trip, a community service project, what badges the kids most want to earn and more.

Even Further:: ways to dig deeper

• Serve Russian or Mexican Tea Cake cookies (they look like snowballs)
• When done turn all the snowball sheets into paper snowflakes
• Enjoy some hot coco
• Turn your snowballs into snowmen keepsakes

Service - Coupons To Troops

With Veteran's Day coming next month consider a service project that will benefit our military families. Check out ::Coupons To Troops::. Military commissaries will accept coupons that are up to 6 months expired.  Sign your troop up and get assigned a family to send too.

Troop Leader Inspiration

:Deep Space Sparkle: created this really inspiring letter to first year art teachers and as I was reading it I thought it sounded like something the first time and returning troop leaders might find uplifting as well. Pop on over to the blog as there are many great lessons and ideas that can be adapted for a troop.

Getting To Know You - People Hunt

Mrs. Russ over at :Mrs.Russ' - Russ' Rockets: has a really great section of her site dedicated to getting to know you activities. When we open our first meeting this year we will be using the People Hunt form featured on her site. Be sure to check out her other great ideas for a whole years worth of getting to know you activities 

Inside Outside Circle, Linkages, Turn Toss, Where Do I Stand, The Name Game, Two Truths and A  Lie, Line Up, Name Toss, Commons, Mystery Person, Squiggles, and more...

PVC Bow and Arrow

::Life Sprinkled With Glitter:: has a really awesome post about how to create a bow and arrow set made out of PVC pipe and doweling. This could be a really fun camp out project. Be sure to hope over to the blog to see many more pictures and instructions. The site features both boy and girl decorated versions of this project.

Election Year - Get Out And Vote

The election year makes a great backdrop for teaching lessons of citizenry. Take a look through your badge work for activities that may work well this fall. If you are really interested and you have a Girl Scout troop consider looking into the Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts badge program called "I Promised A Girl Scout I'd Vote" - the patch can be ordered through their online shop. For more ideas check out the badge work for the Election Connection and the Right To Vote programs.

Consider contacting the local brand of your states League of Woman Voters and have a guest speaker.

Also check out how Girl Scout Troop 2447 incorporated voting into their meetings. They learned about elections, set out to make voting booths and ballot boxes to voice their opinion on their holiday party.