Girl Scouts: Surprise for our helper girls tonight!

Hi everyone,

I've really been racking my brain for a way to express how stand-out it is for the girls helping out tonight, and I think I came up with the perfect way to say thank-you.  I wanted to find something Dad-And-I related, and Girl Scout-ish, so:

For the girls who have signed up to help tonight, if you want to go, I'll cover the cost of going to either of the Daytime "My Guy and I" events at Camp Silverbrook.  That's a personal thank you, for the level of selflessness and sacrifice that goes above and beyond the call of duty.  That's the kind of choice that should be rewarded!

Events are June 13th 9AM-3PM or August 3rd 9AM-3PM

Description:

"Team up with your dad, grandpa, or favorite adult male for fun in the outdoors! Boating, fishing, crafts, and more. Make this a day to remember.  Lunch is included."

If you want to go to one, just let me know and I'll get you signed up.  I've gone with Evie in the past, and it was a great way to have some undistracted Dad-and-Daughter time--we had a TON of fun.

Thanks girls!

Aleks

Scouts: Saturday Details, and Meeting Followup

Hello!

Just a couple quick notes:

#1)  Saturday:  We're cleaning up at South Shore beach.  Plan to meet behind the pavilion at 10:00 on Saturday 4/20.  I haven't heard anything from any event organizers, so I'll bring trash bags, grabbers, and gloves.  Parking can be tough, so do your best.  You may have to walk a little ways, so plan some time for that.  (Pavilion address:  2900 South Shore Dr. Milwaukee, WI 53207)

As far as I was able to see, there was no official "end time" for the event, so I plan to hang out and clean up there until noon, and then wrap it up, grab some lunch and head home (actually to the Wave playoff game--Go Wave!)   If anyone wants to join us at Classic Slice Pizza ( 2797 S Kinnickinnic Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53207 ) after cleaning up, I'll buy a couple big pies and share all around! 

#2)  Meeting info:  We had a lot of fun--but I can't wait to get our play and track girls back!  I hope they did well at the track meet, and can't wait for the play!  

First: I have a baking pan, and some towels that we'll return--just let me know how to best get them to you!

Second: for the girls that left early (Carrie, and Teagan) we finished up your "paper that can grow" for you, and have them drying at our house.  We'll get those to you too so you can plant them and see them bloom!  Remember, we chose all edible flowers, so when they're blooming, you can add them to a salad or dress up a dinner!

Thanks to Eva M. for leading the smoothie making,

Teagan and Quinn for leading us in nature weaving, and

Collette and Evie for leading the "growing paper" project

The girls did great jobs, and really seem to be getting the hang of being true leaders!

We didn't get to do poetry/music inspired by the sounds of nature, but we'll give Ellen and Carrie a chance to lead that the next time we're all together!  I can't wait!

See you Saturday--the weather looks great!

Aleks

Girl Scouts: Meeting Update, Earth Day Choice

Hi everyone!

The snow is melting, let's hope it all goes away!  Here's what I have for you for the moment:

#1)  Meeting update--the Boss Girls for Tie Dying agreed that it makes sense to do a different craft on Wednesday and to save nature tie-dying for a time when we're not in a social studies classroom!  So we'll be doing a different bit of nature art.  Here's what that means for you:

 You do NOT need to send a white t-shirt to the meeting to be tie-dyed 

 You do not need to send dye-making materials including:  spinach, beets, blackberries*, blueberries*, red cabbage, or raspberries.*

*IMPORTANT:  You may have to still send berries if your scout signed up for them for smoothies.  See the very bottom of the email for the supply/boss lists for the various activities.

#2)  Earth Day activity:  The votes are counted!  We'll be doing the South Shore Beach Clean Up at 10:00 on 4/20.  If you can attend, please email me so I can get a head count!  Does anyone need directions to South Shore Beach?

See you soon!  (Updated supplies email information included below.)

Aleks

MEETING ACTIVITIES, BOSSES, AND SUPPLIES:

Activity 1:  Smoothie making using natural ingredients (the art of cooking)

Girl Bosses:  Katie and Eva M.

Supplies needed/girls assigned:  

Blender:  Eva M

Raspberries:  Quinn

Strawberries:  Teagan

Blueberries:  Teagan

Grapes:  Carrie

Apple and Orange Juices:  Evie

Ice:  Katie

Bananas:  Eva M

Activity 2:  Nature weaving art.

Girl Bosses:  Teagan and Quinn

Supplies:  I'll bring the yarn, with luck, the girls can find leaves, and sticks outside because the snow wil be all melted and the ground will be dry!  If not, I'll figure something out.  Teagan and Quinn:  If you can practice, or at least take a look and nature weaving ideas so you can lead the activity, that would be great.  If not, we can still figure out something!  Thanks for your flexibility!  (If you google "nature weaving craft" there are a billion hits!)

Activity 3:  Creating nature music/poetry inspired by the sounds of the outdoors (the musical arts)

Girl Bosses:  Ellen and Carrie

Supplies needed/girls assigned:

Paper:  Evie

Writing Tools:  Evie

 Activity 4:  Creating "Paper that grows."

Girl Bosses:  Evie and Colette

Supplies needed/girls assigned:

Old Paper/Newspapers  SIGN UP https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0A4FA5AD22A13-april2

Popsicle Sticks:  Colette

Blender:  Evie

Tiny Binder Clips:  Evie

Screen:  Evie

Scissors:  Evie

Large Baking Pan:  SIGN UP https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0A4FA5AD22A13-april2

Towels:  SIGN UP https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0A4FA5AD22A13-april2Seeds:  SIGN UP https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0A4FA5AD22A13-april2

Girl Scouts: Meeting Assignments, Sign Up, and Proposal?

Hi everyone,

I thought I'd get this out yesterday but time just ran out---sorry!  But as usual, here's the results of the girls' planning on Wednesday!

FIRST:  The proposal.  The girls had decided as part of their outdoor art, that they wanted to do tie-dye using natural ingredients.  Which sounds AWESOME!  However, it's probably something we don't want to do inside Mrs. Perry's room.  Would the girl bosses for that activity (Teagan and Quinn) be comfortable holding off on that and doing it at a get together outside of the normal meeting time?  Especially since many of the natural dyes involve boiling/simmering fruits and veggies, if we do it at a home over summer, or at a campsite over summer, we can have a stove or campfire available for boiling/simmering.  Depending on timing, we could even use their ideas to tie dye our campout shirts if we hold off until August when we'll have our white camp shirts (maybe designed by one of our girls!)

As an alternative, would the girls be interested in doing a different kind of outdoor art in the meantime?  I was doing some computer archaeology and saw this picture I had downloaded many years ago, that we never got to use in scouts, or they could find something else that they think would be cool and fun and artistic relating to being outside?

Since the girls are the bosses, the choice is up to them, but from a practical standpoint, I don't know if the tie-dyeing is something we can do in a classroom after school.  We'll definitely still do it--it sounds super cool--but we just should work on the timing.  Please let me know!  

On to the supplies, bosses, and activities the girls picked:

Activity 1:  Smoothie making using natural ingredients (the art of cooking)

Girl Bosses:  Katie and Eva M.

Supplies needed/girls assigned:  

Blender:  Eva M

Raspberries:  Quinn

Strawberries:  Teagan

Blueberries:  Teagan

Grapes:  Carrie

Apple and Orange Juices:  Evie

Ice:  Katie

Bananas:  Eva M

Activity 2:  Tie-Dying using naturally occurring things to make dyes (the art of tie-dye).  (See note above though.  If we go with an alternative, I'll handle supplies.)

Girl Bosses:  Teagan and Quinn

Supplies:  TBD If the activity changes

Activity 3:  Creating nature music/poetry inspired by the sounds of the outdoors (the musical arts)

Girl Bosses:  Ellen and Carrie

Supplies needed/girls assigned:

Paper:  Evie

Writing Tools:  Evie

 Activity 4:  Creating "Paper that grows."

Girl Bosses:  Evie and Colette

Supplies needed/girls assigned:

Old Paper/Newspapers  SIGN UP https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0A4FA5AD22A13-april2

Popsicle Sticks:  Colette

Blender:  Evie

Tiny Binder Clips:  Evie

Screen:  Evie

Scissors:  Evie

Large Baking Pan:  SIGN UP https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0A4FA5AD22A13-april2

Towels:  SIGN UP https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0A4FA5AD22A13-april2

Seeds:  SIGN UP https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0A4FA5AD22A13-april2

That should cover it, see you Wednesday!

Aleks

Girl Scouts: What we did and what the girls are planning!

Hi everyone!

What a great bunch of girls!  We had to do a lot of last minute plan changing because of the weather, but the girls still made the best of it, and had a bunch of fun.  Here's a recap, and what they're planning for next week.  I'll get a more itemized breakdown of the homework they assigned themselves later (probably tomorrow morning) because it's getting late already, but you'll get the gist of it tonight!

We started the meeting by creating a "Get to know us" online quiz and we all raced to see how well we knew our troop, this helped our newest friend--welcome Colette!--get to know her new troopmates, and helped her troopmates get to know her too!  it was a lot of fun, and I know we all learned something about each other.  Great job girls!

Since it had been a long school day, the girls decided to snack next.  The girls that were at the wellness fair yesterday taught the rest of us proper fire-building technique but used edible components like raisins, potato sticks, different sized pretzel sticks, and dried strawberries to represent the fire ring, tinder, kindling, logs, and even flames!  Ask them to show you the right way to build a good fire--they're all experts now!

Then we took a little time and worked on our design submissions for next Fall's Green Corners Campout shirts and patches.  Some girls finished theirs right then, and some girls took their designs home to wrap up.  I need finished designs by the end of the month, so if your scout wants to be in the contest, turn the design in ASAP.  You can get it to me in person at a meeting, or can scan and email it to me too.  I've attached a copy of the design contest form in case anyone wants to start a new one or lost their started one.  Our troop has a long history of being represented in one of the two designs--let's keep that streak alive!

Then it was time to get to work planning for our next badge next week.  After careful deliberation, the girls decided to work on the "Outdoor Art" badge.  (Side note--we're really cruising on badges, in the last three months we wrapped up the Night Owl badge, are 90% done with the sportsmanship badge, and will pretty much wrap up Outdoor Art next week too!)  The 4 activities they planned out for the upcoming meeting(s) are:

Smoothie making using natural ingredients (the art of cooking)

Tie-Dying using naturally occurring things to make dyes (the art of tie-dye),

Creating nature music using soundscapes and sounds inspired by the outdoors (the musical arts), and

Creating "Paper that grows."

I'm sure looking forward to the next meeting.  As I mentioned, I'll get their self-assigned lists sent out tomorrow so they can get to work prepping for an awesome Wednesday!

Happy scouting!

Aleks

Reminder: Meeting today after school!

Hi everyone!

Just a quick reminder e have our April planning meeting after school from 3:00-4:30.

With snow, we might not get out to clean around the school or pick garlic mustard, but we'll still have a good mix of planning, food, and fun!

Aleks

Girl Scouts: Last chance, and a reminder!

Hi everyone!

#1)  There are still 5 unclaimed Admirals tickets for tomorrow night's game, if you're free and want to go, let me know and I can email tickets to you--at this point, it's first come-first served since we're a day away from the game!

#2)  Sunday morning we're putting together our activity and booth for the Wellness Fair Tuesday evening.  10:00-1:30, at our house 4256 Teakwood Ct. drop in when you can!  We'll make our background on how Girl Scouts provides skills and strengths to help resist drugs and alcohol, and also prepare an activity for people attending the event to do to connect with scouts.  (One girl suggested having people do camp skills like setting up a good fire, or make fire-starter balls (the cotton balls with vaseline we made years ago for camp)  which actually sounded pretty cool.  If the girls want to elaborate on that, it might be a good place to start--but no actual fire!)

#3)  Speaking of the Wellness Fair, who'll be there?  I know who signed up to go the last one that got rescheduled because of the cold, but don't know about who's available Tuesday.  Our part is from 5:15-7:00, but the girls are welcome to stick around and listen to the panel discussion afterwards that goes until 8:00.  The girls' job will be to run whatever activity we decide and answer questions about Girl Scouts.  They'll also get a chance to visit the other booths and activities while they are here, and usually pick up a bunch of swag and trinkets...oooooh!

#4)  Finally, remember to sign up to help volunteer at the Father Daughter Dance here:  https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c054daaa728a0f85-father  To say I am tremendously, outrageously, fantastically, overwhelmingly proud of the girls who signed up to help would be an understatement.  I know this is a super fun event, so the fact that these girls are actually, truly, making a sacrifice is not being lost--that's a big deal.  The world remembers those who serve and sacrifice.  Those girls are amazing; I hope they know it!  

Aleks Skibicki