Planning the Best Sleepover Ever

Tonight's meeting was all about planning the best sleepover ever! We talked about our 1st book club book and wrote down all of our party ideas. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the book -I think we will read Angelina's next diary book for our next book club selection.

Everyone was able to talk about the story. Animated discussion followed a question about girls our girls know like the mouseling characters of Priscilla and Penelope. It always amazes me how early we need to start our "mean girl" talks.

Here are all our party plans. It looks like we are going to meet at Lydia's house for dinner, go to our special viewing at the observatory and follow all that excitement with a dress-up dance party. Melinda, Rainy would like a "cheese mouse" for the festivities :)

We talked about the importance of our big sleepover to help us get ready to camp without all our moms...this was very exciting!

Planning our party helped us earn part of the Manners try-it. After our sleepover we will have completed activity #7 Hosting a Party. We are going to also practice our manners by coloring thank you cards for Ms. Anjela (who is brave enough to host our sleepover). The girls each got an Angelina coloring page to use for their card. You can find more Angelina coloring pages and games at Angelina's Website.

We had a special treat tonight; we got to introduce Girl Scouting to Miriam's friend Zoe. Zoe is visiting from Colorado. We told her about some of our favorite girl scout things: camping in the piney woods; making our draft eater snakes, t-shirt's and canvas bags; the corn maze and climbing the Indian mound.

Finally we recieved our patch for selling fall products :)

Novemeber Events

Remember to check out the rest of our November events. Next Monday is our book club planning meeting at the church.

Eco Exoplores

We had agreat trip to the Pineywoods Native Plant Center. Ms. Elyce helped us earn our Eco-Explorer try-it.

We learned all about ecosystems, habitats and the PawPaw tree. We also had a picnic, took a short hike, learned a little about flash light etiquette and got to see a bat. Even with all these activities, I think our favorite things were collecting acorns and jumping in giant leaf piles :) Who can resist leaf piles after all?

Here is Ms. Elyce telling us all about the PawPaw tree. We learned a great song about the PawPaw:

Where, oh where is pretty little Susie?

Where, oh where is pretty little Susie?

Where, oh where is pretty little Susie?

Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch.

Come on, girls, let's go find her,

Come on, girls, let's go find her,

Come on, girls, let's go find her,

Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch.

Pickin' up paw-paws, puttin' 'em in her pockets,

Pickin' up paw-paws, puttin' 'em in her pockets,

Pickin' up paw-paws, puttin' 'em in her pockets,

Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch.

---The Paw Paw PatchTraditional folk song

Here is Miriam drawing the popular PawPaw tree.

Click on this video and you can join us for a short part of our hike to look for living and nonliving things.

This is us eating the picnic dinner that several of our moms prepared for us :) YUM!

Here is a little more exciting news. We got to help out SFA's TIDES Program. Our adventures will help build science resources for elementary school teachers and students. Sean and Karl filmed our adventures. You should be able to hear us singing the PawPaw song very soon!

You can see more pictures from our adventures at the PNPC here...

Soon you will be able to read about our trip on the TIDES Blog and see more of our videos on the TIDES Website and the TIDES YouTube channel.

Cold Eating Snakes!

We started earning our Earth is Our Home try-it.






We completed activity #3 Stop a Draft. Ms. Alisa helped teach us how to make these great draft stopping snakes. She said they kind of "eat the cold air" :)




But don't be scared, because nothing this cute could be very scary :)

You can look here for more pictures from tonight's meeting.

We are thinking about having a Saturday meeting in December to make holiday gifts (like our snakes) that will help everyone be a little greener...stay tuned for more information.

November Calendar

Here is our calendar for November.

November 5th (Church)– Stocking Snakes
November 14th (Wednesday) - After school visit to the Piney Woods Native Plant Center and picnic dinner
November 19th - (Church) Plan book club party and sleepover
November 26th - No Meeting
November 30th (Friday-Saturday) - Book club party & sleepover (Anjela's house); exchange SWAPS made of recycled material

Halloween Party

We had a blast at our Halloween Party! See all our pictures here...

We completed three activities from three different try-its.

Here is what we made:
Wierd Glop (Science in Action; Activity 2)

Make Your Own Percussion Instruments (The Sounds of Music; Activity 1)

Origami Black Cats (Numbers and Shapes; Activity 2)

We decorated with our recycled grocery bag ghosts.

We used our new instruments to scare our ghosts...spooky!

Miriam's sister was a great sport and agreed to be the mummy for our wrap the mummy game :)

Don't forget to read the newest adventures of Hoppy Greenie!

Corn Maze

We went to the Corn Maze in Dixie Louisiana today. Between getting lost in the corn, diving in a pool of corn & riding the cow train, we had a blast! Here is the patch we earned.

You can see more pictures from our corn maze adventure here...

Here we are enjoying the cow train!

Meeting Notes

Hi troop! Tonight we planned our Halloween party, collected fall product money and took worked out the details of our trip to the Corn Maze on Saturday.

The girls brought:

1. Their ghosts made from recylced grocery bags;

2. Fall product money (we made about $330);

3. A count of the number of teachers in their grade at their school (TJR - 6; Carpenter 5; Raguet 5; Charter 5)

I found volunteers for our Halloween party. Here are your assignments:

1. Tally will help the girls complete activity #2 of the science in action try-it -Weird Glop. We will turn my library into a witches kitchen & Tally has agreed to dress up as our witch :)

2. Corrie will organize & lead the girls in activity #2 of the Numbers and Shapes try-it -Origami; there are directions on how to make an origami black cat.

3. Melinda will organize & lead the girls in activity #1 of the Sounds of Music try-it -Make Your Own; the girls will make Jack-o-Lantern percussion instruments out of paper plates and beans.

You can find these try-its and activities online here...

I will have this patch for the girls at the Halloween party (please bring $1.50)

Remember, the girls will exchange Halloween SWAPS at this meeting. Click on this Google Search to learn more...

Corn Maze

We will meet at my house on Saturday at 12:30. The girls should have eaten lunch. You can find out information about the Corn Maze and print a coupon here... The girls should wear their troop t-shirts and vests.

Hoppy Greenie

Nicole told us all about her time with Hoppy Greenie. Read about their week here... This week Hoppy is with Rainy.

Archaeology Fair - Caddo Mounds

Four of us were able to go to archaeology fair at Caddo Mounds. I Can't wait to hear all about it! You can see more pictures here...

Don't forget that we do not have a meeting tonight.

Hoppy Greenie

Don't Forget you can follow Hoppy Greenie's adventures here:
http://hoppygreenie.blogspot.com/.

Book Club

We got our first book club book tonight!

We are reading

Here is our not from Angelina Ballerina

Our book club will culminate in nothing less than the best sleepover ever!

Challenge 3

1. We will help remind our parents to use our canvas bags when they go shopping.

2. We will use recylced plastic bags to make these ghosts for our Halloween party. You can read the directions here. Please bring your ghosts to our October 15th meeting.

Shopping Greener

Tonight we learned about the benefits of using canvas vs. plastic or paper bags for shopping. We'll decorated canvas bags and pledged to help remind our parents to use them when they go shopping -read more in challenge 3!

Read about the difference you can make by using canvas bags here or here. You can find some fun crafts you can make and recycle plastic garbage bags here.

The Adventures of Hoppy Greenie

Now Hoppy Greenie has his own blog! Follow his adventures at: http://hoppygreenie.blogspot.com/

October Calendar

1st (Rec. Center)- Make Canvas Bags & talk about making shopping greener; bring challenge 1; hand out book club books
6th (Saturday) - Archaeology Fair at Caddo Mounds in Alto -Meet at 12:00

8th - No Meeting

15th - Church (bring plastic bag ghosts from challenge 3); Turn in Fall Products Money

20th (Saturday) - Corn Maize
22nd - No Meeting

29th - Halloween Party & trade Halloween themed SWAPS

Challenge 2

1. Help remind your parents to turn off lights, TVs and unplug electrical appliances when they are not needed.
2. Change out at least one regular light bulb with an energy saving fluorescent light bulb.

If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year… and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

Investiture & Rededication Ceremony

It was exciting to officially welcome our new Girl Scout sisters to our troop!

Remember to do your "good turn" so that you can turn your brownie pins up right :)

Turn off the lights!

Everyone worked hard on their ideas for making door hangers to help remind teachers to turn of their lights (Challenge 1). Everyone followed the rules and used recycled material to make their door hangers. Our next step is to come up with a plan to make them for all of our Kindergarten and First grade teachers. You can see more picture here.

Please bring your door hanger prototype to our next meeting!



Don't forget Challenge 2.

Investiture Ceremony

Monday we will have our investiture ceremony for our new girls and a rededication ceremony for the girls who bridged to Brownies last year.

New moms, I need your help with a couple of things to prepare your daughters for their investiture ceremony.

I Need them to learn their Brownie Smile Song. You can hear it here. I also need you to read them the Brownie story. If you already have your Brownie Handbook, then you can read the story there, if not then you can read it here.

All girls need to know the Girl Scout sign and Promise.

I am asking that everyone bring something to share for the reception after the ceremony. Here is what I know so far:

Tally - rainbow cake

Melinda - drinks

Erin - chips and dip

Corrie - fruit

I will take care of paper goods.

Just for fun, click here to see a picture from our Daisy investiture ceremony from last year :)

More to come.

First Meeting

Tonight the girls learned about our green theme.

We made troop t-shirts to tell everyone how much we love our planet. We completed the T-shirt Art activity of the Art To Wear Try-it.

We made new friends and taught them our GS promise, the GS quiet sign, our friendship circle and our Make New Friends song :)

We got our first challenge...details in the "First Challenge" post.

We have a new troop mascot we have named Hoppy Greenie. Madison got to take Hoppy home this week. She will write in Hoppy's journal all of the green things she does. I am sure Hoppy will have lots of fun!

You can see more pictures of our first meeting here.

Thanks moms for all your help tonight!

Remember that Fall Product sales start September 29th.

Our next meeting is our investiture & rededication ceremony at the church.

Friendship Circle & Song

We close every meeting in our friendship circle. We pass around a friendship squeeze and sing the Make New Friends Song.

Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.
A circles round, it has no end, that's how long I want to be your friend.

Girl Scout Promise

On my honor I will try:

To serve God* and my country;
To help people at all times;
And to live by the Girl Scout Law.

First Challenge

Each week you will be given a green challenge!

Miriam's teacher Ms. McCall is the inspiration for our first challenge. MS. McCall said that teachers could use a reminder to turn their lights of when they leave the classroom. She suggested that the troop could make door hangers to remind teachers to help save electricity and turn off their lights.

Your challenge: Use recycled materials to come up with a design for a door hanger to help teachers remember to turn off their lights!

Our first service project will be to make these for all the teachers in our daughters' grade level.

Parents' Meeting

I hope everyone made it through our parents' meeting without feeling too overwhelmed!

Here is everything you need to know...

Girl Scout Resources

We belong to the Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council (based out of Houston). Their website has forms and a link to the online version of the Golden Link (monthly GS magazine). You can find out about training and program opportunities.

The main web site for the Girl Scout organization has a shop online function. You can find the cost for all of your Brownie stuff. I do plan to make a trip to the GS store before our investiture & rededication ceremony at the end of September.

You should plan to buy:

You will need to buy 4 numbers (1383). If you went to rally, then you should purchase the Girl Scout Ways Try-it (picture in the blog post about rally). Many of our girls plan to by the skort...

SWAPS

Click on this Google Search to learn more...

Here is a picture of the SWAPS the girls made and traded at our end of year campout:

The first SWAPS we will trade this year will be at our Halloween party (Halloween themed of course).

Volunteers

The following people have signed up as volunteers :) I will e-mail you individually with more information about your new position. If you want to add your name anywhere, then please let me know!

Fundraising

Fall Products - Anjela

Cookie Sales - Trina, Yolanda

Extra Fundraising - Tally, Trina

Girl Records (keeping track of the awards the girls earn)

Melinda, Corrie

Troop Account Manager

Anjela

Snack Coordinator

Erin

Press/ Scrapbooks

Angie

Service Coordinator

Yolanda, Trina

Trained Parents (willing to get training and chaperone trips)

Anjela, Trina, Angie, Corrie

Meetings

Our regular meeting time is Monday from 6:30-7:30. The general rule is, if we do a weekend activity, then we will not meet the following Monday night. Before you can leave your daughter at the next meeting, you must give me a completed permission slip and medical form! I will be collecting your $10.00 dues next week; we will do this each month until we get our money from our first fundraiser. I will also collect money for items you would like me to pick up for your daughter from the GS store in Lufkin.

You are not required to stay at the meetings with your daughter. Angie will organize anyone interested to help compile our troop scrapbook :) I do reserve the right to nab you if Alisa and I need extra help with a meeting.

September

Monday 17th - Make Troop T-shirts (plan to get messy)

Monday 24th - Investiture and rededication ceremony (family welcome); hand out book club book

October

Monday 1st - Make Canvas Bags & talk about making shopping greener

Satuday 6th - Archaeology Fair at Caddo Mounds in Alto

October 8th - No Meeting

October 13th - Farmers Market; Earn Make It/Eat It Try-it (Anjela's house)

October 15th - No Meeting

October 21st - Corn Maize

October 22nd - No Meeting

Saturday 27th - SFA Homecoming parade (Tally, Angie & others?) planning a float

Monday 29th - Halloween Party & trade Halloween themed SWAPS

November

November 5th - Recycling; visit city dump

November 12 th - After school visit to the Native Plant Center and picnic dinner

November 19th - Plan book club party and sleepover

November 26th - Make paper; trade SWAPS made of recycled material

September 30th - Book club party & sleepover (Anjela's house)

* There is a Veteran's Day parade (the 10th) the girls can participate in, if anyone wants to organize it for the troop.

See you Next Monday!