Girl Scouts: What's the big deal with the Gold Award anyways?

One addendum to the last email I sent out:

What's the big deal with the Gold Award?

A lot.

When Girls earn their Gold Award, they prove to themselves and the world that they are women of distinction and are capable of changing the world and making it a better place.  

When Girls earn their Gold Award, they may be recognized with a day in their honor by the State of Wisconsin 

When Girls earn their Gold Award, they may be recognized by the Village of Greendale with a ceremony and a day in their honor 

When Girls earn their Gold Award, if they enter military service, they enter one rank higher

There are many scholarships that recognize the Girl Scout Gold Award, and college entrance committees recognize the value of the Gold Award when making their decisions.

It's a big deal.  And I know our girls deserve it and can do it!  And this Bronze Award is the first step!

Aleks

Girl Scouts: Let's Get Bronzed!

Hi!

Earlier this year, the girls started working on our Bronze Project--one of the highest honors in scouting, and a requirement for the Gold Award they can get in High School.  

They decided to hold a Bicycle Safety Clinic in June, and we have partnered with the Greendale Education Foundation and with the Vilage of Greendale to put on the clinic at Greendale's first:  "First Night of Summer" celebration June 9th, the last day of school.  

To help with the clinic, the girls decided they would try to get donations from local businesses and support from local organizations to be able to have tables/booths offering helmet decorating, safety lessons, safety sticker making, possibly a bike tune-up area, and more.

We worked together to research and write drafts of letters earlier this year, and I've posted them online here:

Letter to a Fire or Police Department or similar organization asking for volunteers

Letter to a business for donations

The job now is for the girls to hand write these letters and mail them to appropriate places.  I've made a sign up page for girls to pick which place(s) they'd like to send letters to, and included sign up spots for the places the girls already thought of.  If your scout thinks of someplace else, they can add it at the end.  Feel free to personalize the letter and make it appropriate to the place you are sending it.  If you would like, let us know how many letters you mailed, and the troop can reimburse you for postage.

We would like to have all the letters mailed before the middle of February.  So if the girls can start working right away, that would be great! 

Here is the link to the sign up page:

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4fa5ad22a13-bronze

Thanks everyone!  This is going to be great for the girls, and can be something they brag about for a very long time.  (Imagine being able to have this on their resume, when they're still only in 5th grade!)

Aleks

Draft of a letter to a Fire or Police Department or Safety group

Dear FIRE OR POLICE OR SAFETY ORGANIZATION,

We are Troop 8035 Girl Scouts.  Our Troop has forty 5th grade girls from 3 different schools—Highland View, Canterbury, and College Park elementary schools.

To earn our Girl Scout Bronze Award, we need to make a difference in the community.  One problem we saw that could use a change is bicycle safety.  We did research and found that in Wisconsin one bicyclist is killed or injured every 10 hours!  Between 1/3 and ½ of those are children and those crashes mostly occur on local roads.

To help solve this problem, on June 9th in connection with the Greendale Education Foundation, we will be putting on a bicycle safety clinic in downtown Greendale.  We plan to have demonstrations of bicycle safety tips, places for kids to decorate their bike helmets, bicycle repair or check up stations, a bicycle safety obstacle course, bicycle helmet fittings, and opportunities for kids who don’t have or can’t afford bike helmets to be given one.

We need you to help!  The best way to help would be for professional safety experts to help teach kids about safety at the event.  This would be a great way to build good community relationships with the kids in Greendale.

We would like to schedule an appointment with you to talk about our plans and how you can be a part.  Please let us know when you are available.  Please contact us by email or by phone.  Our Troop Leader is Aleks Skibicki and his phone number is 414-595-6668.  His email address is kwaterk1978@yahoo.com

Thank you very much.  With your help we will fulfill the Girl Scout law to “Make the World a Better Place.”

Sincerely,













The Girls of Troop 8035 Girl Scouts

Draft of a letter to a business for our Bronze Project

Dear BUSINESS NAME,

We are Troop 8035 Girl Scouts.  Our Troop has forty 4th and 5th grade girls from 3 different schools—Highland View, Canterbury, and College Park elementary schools.

To earn our Girl Scout Bronze Award, we need to make a difference in the community.  One problem we saw that could use a change is bicycle safety.  We did research and found that in Wisconsin one bicyclist is killed or injured every 10 hours!

To help solve this problem, on June 9th we will be putting on a bicycle safety clinic in downtown Greendale.  We plan to have demonstrations of bicycle safety tips, places for kids to decorate their bike helmets, bicycle repair or check up stations, a bicycle safety obstacle course, bicycle helmet fittings, and opportunities for kids who don’t have or can’t afford bike helmets to be given one.

We need you to help!  The best way to help us would be to donate helmets, or money to buy helmets and supplies for the clinic.  We will advertise your store at the clinic and tell everyone that you sponsored us.  You can also provide any materials you like at the clinic.  Because it will be a part of the “Last Day of School” celebration in Greendale this year, we expect a lot of people to be there and learn about your store.

We would like to schedule an appointment with you to talk about our plans and how you can be a part.  Please let us know when you are available.  Please contact us by email or by phone.  Our Troop Leader is Aleks Skibicki and his phone number is 414-595-6668.  His email address is kwaterk1978@yahoo.com

Thank you very much.  With your help we will fulfill the Girl Scout law to “Make the World a Better Place.”

Sincerely,




The Girls of Troop 8035 Girl Scouts

Girl Scout Cookies: P.S. THANKS!

I forgot the most important thing to say about the GS Cookie sale:

Thanks everyone, and thanks to the girls for all the work they're doing.

Remember, it's not just a fundraiser, it's a program designed to raise funds while at the same time teaching girls about setting goals, being responsible, ethical, and financially literate.  The girls can get a lot out of the program, so, with sincerity:

Thank You!

Aleks

Girl Scouts: January/February, Trip, And Cookie Info

Hi everyone!

There's a lot of important stuff here, but I'll try to stick to the most key parts.

1)  February Meetings.

MAJOR CHANGE:  The College Park meeting, originally scheduled for 2/15 has to be rescheduled.  I'm penciling it in for the following Wednesday (2/22) but I'll have to check with space availability at College Park.  If we need to, we'll use the band/music area in the back of the lunch room again.  I should know by tomorrow afternoon.

Other than that, everything is the same as usual.  We'll wrap up our flower badge work--remember to have your scout bring their colored-in picture of all the parts of a flower they got in the January meeting!  It's required for the badge!

Here's the sign up:  http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4fa5ad22a13-february

2)  Cookie Stuff! 

Ms. Kelly would like all cookie pre-orders by tomorrow (1/26).  Contact her by email to coordinate getting sheets to her ( kellymatt8476@gmail.com ) you can also send her your totals by email--just make sure to get a confirmation before assuming everything went through ok!  If you do send the numbers by email, please keep the totals in the same order they're listed on the cookie order form:  

Donation (DON)

Thanks-A-Lot (TAL)

Smores (SMO)

Lemonades (LEM)

Shortbread (SB)

Thin Mints (TM)

Peanut Butter Patties (PBP)

Caramel Delites (CD)

Peanut Butter Sandwiches (PBS)

Important:  If you had cookies ordered with the intention of donating them someplace, DO NOT double order.  Either put them in as "Donation" OR pick a kind and add that to your order in that column.  Do NOT both list them as a donation and also assign them to a particular kind.  If you do, you will get double charged (and so will the troop!) and you'll end up with extra boxes of cookies you didn't intend to order. 

Second Important:  You can keep selling cookies throughout the entire cookie selling season--not just during this pre-order period! Just because someone didn't get on the order sheet before you had to turn those numbers in to Kelly doesn't mean they're out of luck.  You can keep selling cookies, and we can keep filling orders right up until the second last week of March!  

Third Important:  Our troop does have Cookie Booths reserved through the council.  They go from the end of February through the second-last week of March. Ms. Kelly will send out sign up pages for those.  There are some on Saturdays, some on Sundays, some mornings, and some afternoons.  IF you know of, or work at a place that you think would be a good place to host a cookie booth, and doesn't already host cookie booths, contact Ms. Kelly, and she can work with the council to see about getting our troop there.  (There are TONS of rules about booths!)

3)  June Trip

In a few moments, I'm sending out the itinerary and sign up page for the girls to pick their particular area of expertise for the trip.  In order to not keep sending that sort of thing out to people who aren't involved in the trip, I'll be limiting trip emails to just the folks who are actually going.  I'm using the list of people that went to the Mandatory trip meetings in December.  Here's my list.  If I'm missing your scout's name, speak now, or else I'll assume you're out.

Samantha S.

Ellen W.

Alyssa S.

Adrhia F-M. 

Teagan A.

Lauren P.

Bailee A.

Portia P.

Sophia V. 

Kahlen W.

Maya H.

Jesialis P. 

Megha M.

Ashlee F.

Liliana K.

Isabel S.

Lara E.

Madison M.

Lia S.

Evie S.

Katie B.

That's it for now.  If you're on the list above, you'll hear from me in a couple minutes.  And you'll all get information on the rescheduled meeting held at College Park as soon as I have room confirmation.

Keep Scouting!

Aleks

Girl Scouts: Wednesday Attendance, Location (slight) Change and Question

Hi everyone!

Happy January!  We have a super fun meeting coming up.  Here's who I'm expecting for Wednesday.  Not a lot are signed up, so let me know if I should add your scout to the list.  Also, please make sure to remind your scout to go to scouts.  This is the time of year when we really really don't want the girls waiting outside for a ride that never comes, or taking the bus home to a locked door.

Jesialis P.

Hannah S.

Ashlee F.

Sophia V.

Bailee A.

Lara E.

Maya H.

Madison M.

Second:  Due to the band/orchestra concert, there's a slight location change--we'll be in the music room instead of the foreign language room.  It's just off the lunch room, so we should still be easy to find.

Third:  Does anyone going to this meeting still need cookie selling supplies (money envelope, order card, etc.)?  I can pick some extras up and bring them with me if you need.  Let me know! 

Happy Scouting!

Aleks

Girl Scouts: Meeting information

Hi everyone!

Just some notes from our meeting:

1)  First we made some Cookie Sale magnets for our cars/refrigerators/work/etc.  A couple girls didn't finish them up.  I'll bring the laminator and magnet backing to next month's meeting, and if your scout finishes up between now and then we can magnetize it there.  Or, you can just stop in for a minute during the meeting next week and I'll send it through the laminator and stick on the magnet right then.  (That's 3:30-5:00 January 11th in Mrs. Bushman's room.)

2)  Then we started our Flowers/Science badge.  We did 2 activities today and will do two more next month so we get this one wrapped up pretty quickly.  There are some things to know about the projects today.  

First--the bath beads.  What look like globs of wet play-dough right now need to be set out and dried for (at least) 24 hours where they'll solidify into rose scented bath beads.  They're made of milk, flour, soap, rose water, and rose fragrance and are meant to be dissolved in a bath, or just left out as an air freshener.  The idea behind this was to talk about the ways we use flowers and their scents in daily life and also consider how and why flowers have scents of their own.  

Second--flower dissection.  We studied the parts of a flower and talked about what they all do, and what they all become.  It was fun to see the girls poke about and see the parts of the flower that eventually turn into seeds and fruits that we eat.  We spent time talking about pollinators too, and figuring out how the pollen gets from anthers to stigma.  Once the girls cut off a stigma from each of their flowers they were all surprised at how sticky it was and how it was able to grab pollen that it touched.  The girls each got a picture of the flower we dissected to color.  If your scout didn't finish coloring hers, make sure she brings it finished up to the next meeting so she can get her flower badge!

Next month we'll finish up with a game showing how bees direct other bees to good flowers, and a flower based craft--they'll need to remember all their flower parts for that!

Have a great night,

Aleks

Girl Scout 4th-5th Grade attendance today (1/4)

Hi everyone,

Here's who I'm expecting to scouts today after school, any changes?

Elena E.

Evangeline M.

Quinn S.

Kate K.

Liliana K.

Evie S.

Lauren P. (College Park)

Thanks!  See you soon!

Aleks

Girl Scouts: Be a part of history?

Hi everyone,

Girl Scouts has been promoting this a lot, and if you hadn't seen it from them, I wanted to make sure everyone got a chance to consider adding this to their schedule.

This year is the 100th anniversary of Girl Scouts selling cookies, so on January 28th, there'll be a big celebration downtown with a dance part, special activities, and finishing up with a special Girl Scout themed Admirals game.

More information is here:

https://www.gswise.org/en/about-girl-scouts/girl-scouts-of-wise/news/2016/girl_scout_cookie_ce.html

You can also register for the event right there.  Make sure you put "8035" in the troop field so you end up sitting with anyone else from our troop that ends up going.  

Happy Scouting!

Aleks