Girl Scouts: reminder--cookie orders due Monday!

Hi everyone!

Just a quick reminder that any cookie pre-orders from the girls are due Monday.  (Preferably early Monday so I have time to send them to Girl Scouts!)  In addition to things like chaperone costs, and to cover event registrations for scouts that might need financial help, cookie money paid for everyone's registration in scouts for the year (which is $50 now!) and the September Campout, and are a very important factor Girl Scouts looks at when girls apply for things like board positions, destinations trips, legislative days, or other special leadership opportunities.

While we will have a few cookie booths scheduled this year, it's the individual sales that really make the difference. So I hope everyone participates.  And, as most of you probably know, these initial orders aren't final--you'll be able to add orders for friends and family through March!

To make my life easier, it would be awesome if you could send your orders to me by just copy and pasting this list and order and including your number of boxes on each line (even zeroes) :

 

Thanks-A-Lot:  

S'mores:  

Lemonades:  

Shortbread:  

Thin Mints:  

Peanut Butter Patties:  

Caramel deLites:  

Peanut Butter Sandwich:  

Thanks so much!  (And get ready for Discovery World Feb 7-8th!)

Aleks

Girl Scouts: Meeting Recap (sorry it's late!)

Hi everyone!

Just a quick rundown on our meeting last Wednesday.  We're really getting down to work!

We started, as usual, with a brain/body warm up--an indoor snowball fight!  The girls all wrote down three facts (little known, preferably) about themselves on a piece of paper, and then crumpled up the paper and we had a couple minute snowball fight with our paper balls.  After we were all done giggling it out, we unrolled the snowballs and tried to guess which facts went with which girl.  

After that, we got right to work!  We wanted to do some filming, so we started with the scene directions for "Look both ways before crossing the street" by Kendra.  We developed our shooting schedule, and scenes inside first, since it was kind of yucky outside, and once Director Kendra thought we were ready, we took it outside and started shooting!  We got some good footage, and Camerawoman Quinn will try putting it together so we can see how it looks next meeting.  

The next scene we had decided to film this week was the interview of Officer Vlaj, unfortunately he wasn't able to come to our meeting (he should be free next month though) BUT, that gave us a great opportunity to prepare our shots and the scene based on what Directors Eva and Teagan had as their creative vision.  The girls got some good practice so they should be prepared and professional when it's time to do it for reaI.  I think we should be ready to rock and roll for the interview in February!  

A big round of applause goes out to all of our actresses, script and question-writers, camerawomen, directors, and stagehands for their work!  By the end of the couple hours, the girls had started to really get the hang of thinking visually and setting up scenes.

Our next gathering is for the Discovery World sleepover Feb 7-8, and I think almost everyone is going, so we'll have a big group!  We'll finalize travel arrangements and such in the next week or so.  See you then!

Aleks 

Girl Scouts: Homework reminder and Discovery World Confirmations

Hi everyone!

Just a quick reminder of what the girls signed up to have ready for Wednesday and a request for confirmations for who actually wants to attend the Discovery World Sleepover Feb 7-8.

First, our movie prep jobs for Wednesday:

1)  Interview a police officer segment:

Job 1)  Bring a Camera (Quinn S.)

Job 2)  Prepare questions (Eva M., Teagan A.)

Job 3)  Make a thank you card (Ellen W.)

Job 4)  Get a police officer to come (Evie S.)

2)  Do's and Don't's sement:

Job 1)  Bring a Camera (Still Quinn S.)

Job 2)  Script a scene re: "Look both ways before crossing the street." (Kendra P.)

Job 3)  Script a scene re:  "Pedestrians have the right of way/cars need to stop if there's a person ready to cross." (Colette B.)

Job 4)  Script a scene re:    "Cross at crosswalks" (Katie B.)

Job 5)  Script a scene re: "Follow speed limits" (Quinn S.)

Job 6)  Keep control of young children at crossings (Eirlan A.)

Job 7) Bring a small child (Ellen W.)

Second, Discovery World:

Girls Confirmed attending:

Katie B. (I think?)

Teagan A.

Quinn S.

Evie S.

Girls who were interested and available, but I haven't heard a confirmation from:

Eva M.

Eloise K.

Colette B.

Please let me know ASAP if I should add your scout's name to the "Confirmed attending" list!

Details:

Welcome!

Grab your goggles, break out the beakers, and join us for a reactive night of chemistry! Become the chemist behind a series of exciting experiments and watch Dr. Discovero perform mystifying demonstrations. After a fun-filled evening of mixing, pouring, and stirring, spend the night in the museum and wake up on the shores of Lake Michigan.Each child must attend with an adult. Adults may accompany multiple children. There will be separate male/female sleeping areas. Please plan to provide supervision at all times.

Pricing:  (If there are financial concerns and you'd like the troop to cover the cost, just let me know and it's done--no questions, and confidentially.)

$45/Girl Scout

$22/Chaperone

Cost includes admission to Discovery World, all program supplies and lab activities, a snack on Friday, and a small breakfast on Saturday.Available Sleepover Dates (subject to change):

6pm, Friday, February 7th – 7am, Saturday, February 8th

(We'll probably head right out from after the GMS dance Friday, and then afterwards bring everyone back to our house--4256 Teakwood Ct.--for pick up in the morning.)

Girl Scouts: Meeting Recap and Jobs for next Wednesday! (response needed again)

Hi everyone!

What a fun and busy Wednesday!  

First:  Thanks to all the girls that helped with the Greendale Cookie Kick Off Party!  I know there are a lot of Troops that look forward to it every year, and they have your girls to thank for it.  So, from me and from the 75 girl scouts from 9 other troops that had a ton of fun:  THANK YOU!  I know some of the little scouts were already looking forward to the day they can be helpers like your girls were, so obviously your girls were good role models and leaders to look up to!  

Second:  The girls did decide that we will register for the Discovery World Sleepover February 7-8th.  I'll get those registrations locked in this weekend, so if your scout wants to go to the "Crazy for Chemistry" Overnight at Discovery World that Friday-Saturday, let me know now!   (This is the response I need!) We can work out specific details as the night gets closer, but I anticipate at least one option for Friday Night would be a group shuttle to dinner and Discovery World departing from GMS right after the GMS February Dance wraps up, and a pick up from our house the next morning around 7:00AM.  

Third:  The fun stuff!  I am actually very excited for the movie the girls are working on--even more now that they've started to storyboard and plan it out.  Here's how our process worked, and what the girls came up with.

Before getting into serious work, we warmed up with a couple team/group activities:

A brain warm up activity:  Rose/Thorn/Bud where each girl shared something that went well during their day--the rose, something that was a struggle--the thorn, and something they're looking forward to--the bud.

And a body warm up activity:  Construction Time where the girls split into teams and used strings and rubber bands to build a pyramid out of paper cups without touching the cups.   

Then it was "Director Time"  We started by  brainstorming ideas.  The girls came up with too many to list here, but that brings us to step (2) narrowing down ideas.  The girls decided that a 30-minute movie would be a good goal, and so they decided to narrow down their ideas to 10 movie "segments" covering different aspects of pedestrian safety, laws, driver responsibilities, and the results of not following the best practices and laws.

In no particular order, the 10 segments the girls will try to produce (and then will edit and arrange into a coherent narrative) are:

1)  Montage including important statistics, such as how many kids walk to school, how many drivers don't obey stop signs, how many drivers don't yield the right of way to pedestrians at marked and unmarked crosswalks, pedestrian injuries/accidents/fatalities/etc., ages of people inolved in pedestrian incidents, how many pedestrians generally use the sidewalks and street crossings in Greendale, etc.

2)  Interview Health Department, School, or Civil Engineering professionals or other government agent/agencies from Greendale or Milwaukee County

3)  Interview the family of the girl with the memorial statue in downtown Greendale (if possible.)

4)  Interview a police officer

5)  Interview a person who was involved in a vehicle/pedestrian accident

6)  "Do's and Don'ts" of pedestrian/driver safety

7)  Monitoring a popular street crossing and tape/record cars stopping for pedestrians/not stopping for pedestrians.

8)  Interview a crossing guard

9)  Recap of pedestrian laws in WI/Greendale (Where do pedestrians have the right of way? What are drivers' oblgations? What are pedestrian obligations?)

10)  Follow a kid's walk to school with a focus on street crossings and safety.

11)  Blooper reel!

Which brings us to Next Week:

The girls decided they're going to try to knock out at least 1, and preferably 2 of the segments next week, and they decided that these are the job assignments between now and then:

1)  Interview a police officer segment:

Job 1)  Bring a Camera (Quinn S.)

Job 2)  Prepare questions (Eva M., Teagan A.)

Job 3)  Make a thank you card (Ellen W.)

Job 4)  Get a police officer to come (Evie S.)

2)  Do's and Don't's sement:

Job 1)  Bring a Camera (Still Quinn S.)

Job 2)  Script a scene re: "Look both ways before crossing the street." (Kendra P.)

Job 3)  Script a scene re:  "Pedestrians have the right of way/cars need to stop if there's a person ready to cross." (Colette B.)

Job 4)  Script a scene re:    "Cross at crosswalks" (Katie B.)

Job 5)  Script a scene re: "Follow speed limits" (Quinn S.)

Job 6)  Keep control of young children at crossings (Eirlan A.)

Job 7) Bring a small child (Ellen W.)

We'll see everyone next Wednesday and get filming--we're all excited!

Aleks

Girl Scouts: Just floating an idea before bringing it up to the girls--please reply ASAP!

Hi everyone,

I was just browsing the Girl Scout website, and came across something interesting.

Background:  The girls had really wanted to do a Museum or Discovery World sleepover event this year, BUT unfortunately, the Museum was restricted to ages 12 and under, and until now, Discovery World Sleepovers were restricted to Girl Scouts in 5th grade and below.

However, I see that Discovery World opened up an option that runs from 2nd-8th grade "Crazy for Chemistry" sleepover.  

It runs from 6:00PM Feb. 7th - 7:00AM Feb 8th. and costs $45/Scout .  Because I'd need to get it rolling pretty quickly, I figured I'd check with you all first to see if enough girls were available to make it worth even bringing this up as an option to the girls at the meeting on Wednesday.  (It would be heartbreaking to get them all excited about the trip, but then turn out to have most girls not be able to go...)

If it turns out that there's a decent amount of girls available to go, then I'll bring it up and see if that's still something they want to do.

So, would there be girls available to do the "Crazy About Chemistry" Discovery World Sleepover Event on 2/7-2/8?

Furthermore, would there be any parents that would be able to join in as chaperones?

Thanks for letting me know quickly, sorry it's rushed--I just discovered it!

Aleks

Girl Scouts: Busy Next Week! Also, looking to February, and a response needed

Hi everyone!

Just a reminder that next week is getting busy!  (I can't believe how fast everything is moving.)

FIRST, this Wednesday (1/8) is a planning meeting right after school.  We'll have to look at our plan for a Feb. group activity, and also start coming up with segment ideas for our troop movie--maybe even enough to start filming the following week?  (Note:  Planning meetings end at 4:30)

SECOND, this coming Wednesday 1/8,  is ALSO the Cookie Kick Off Party at GMS in the evening.  We'l move right from the meeting to setting up for the Cookie Party in the GMS MPR.  Girls are welcome to stick around and help set up (that would be awesome!) and I'll order pizzas and dinner to eat during the set up time so we don't miss supper.  Otherwise your scout can also go home and come back for the party--since we're the big kids, we get to run the show.  Here's the link to sign up to let me know who'll be there to help--don't worry scouts, you'll only have to run a station for half the time if you want to play for the other half!   https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4fa5ad22a13-cookie6  (Shifts are 6:00-7:00, or 7:00-8:00, and parents are welcome and encouraged too!)  

THIRD, February 14th is Girl Scout CraftCon 2020 where troops will teach each other various crafts that they've had fun learning (we're teaching the clove-orange-air fresheners) HOWEVER, I just saw that there's a Forensics meet that night, which means a lot of our troop won't be able to attend, which means that we will be DOUBLE relying on the girls that aren't in Forensics to be there and represent our troop.  So if you're not going to be at the Forensics meet, please save the date to learn and teach some fun crafts (that just might double as awesome Valentine's gifts for mom and dad!)

FOURTH, a former scout's mom was concerned that her daughter didn't get credited in the Life in the Village Magazine for the poster she made to advertise the walking audit event.  The magazine will be publishing a "correction" to credit that girl for the poster design.  Since I think it would be incredibly unfair to single out a scout who isn't even a scout anymore to get credit on the walking path project that she barely even participated in , I'm going to suggest that all the girls who participated in the project so much more--enough to earn their Silver Award credit--should also get credited by name.  But before I do, I would need your permission for their names to be published.  It'll likely just be a simple blurb, like "Girl Scouts receiving their Silver Award for their work on the Walking Path Improvement Project include __________________________ " but they will get their names in print I hope!  So, can I have them include the names:  Kendra Persike, Ellen Walser, Katie Bruss, Teagan Amenda, Carrie Jansen, Genevieve Skibicki, Collette Booth, Eva Meyer, and Quinn Steinmann?

Thanks, and See you Wednesday!