All About Me | Getting to Know Your Troop

Getting started as a new Co-leader in a new multi-level troop, you might feel a bit overwhelmed about how to approach your curriculum when it comes to badgework. In the Volunteer Toolkit on your councils website, you can choose Pre-selected Tracks such as K-5 | 6-12 level Journeys for a multi-level troops, Daisy Petals and Leaves, Daisy, Brownie, Junior, Cadette, Senior and Ambassador level plans that you can use to set-up your meetings. I think that these tools are awesome and I was really impressed when I started going through the individual levels. But how does this help us to understand what interests our girls have and their goals as a Girl Scout? 

I, myself, am an absolute lover of journals, planners, stickers, gel pens, and all things that help my day flow a little better (with a sprinkling of cuteness and color). So, I decided that our girls should have what I like to call a Guidebook, to help them stay organized at our bi-weekly meetings. The Guidebook is more or less, like a plastic 3-prong journal for the girls to keep track of their progress throughout the year. Before each meeting, I'll add new badgework material and they can keep track of their accomplishments throughout the year. The girls then return their Guidebook back into me at the end of our meetings, so they don't get misplaced. They will be able to take their Guidebooks home at the end of the year. 

Also in the Guidebooks, I gave every girl a copy of the Girl Scout Promise and Law, so they could follow along at each meeting, even hadn't memorized them yet. I want them to have the knowledge at their fingertips and know that they can always look back at their Guidebooks for reference.   

I know that my 6 year old Daisy and 8 year old Brownie REALLY love to complete journal style handouts and I couldn't help but design an "About Me" for them and the other girls in our troop as their first creative way to express themselves and their interests. Looking online, I found some really great layouts/ideas, but it seemed that most were still not zeroing in on who our girls were and how I was going to tailor our curriculum to meet the collective interests of the whole troop.

Here is the PDF version of our "About Me" I really hope your girls have as much fun completing it as our girls did. I have also formatted the "This is me!" 2" x 3" rectangle (they can also draw a self-portrait) for a neat little camera that I purchased called a Kodiak Smile Instant Print Digital Camera. Oh wow! The girls LOVED watching their photos print out and they are sticky backed, so the girls could add them to their Guidebooks right away. What a fun time we had that meeting!

When I brought all of the Guidebooks back home and started looking over them, I was excited to find out that the girls were really into the Outdoors, Computers and Cooking. Our two Cadettes are very interested in obtaining their Gold Award and our troop is very excited about that!  

With this small exercise, I feel like I have a way forward with my first year as a new Co-leader. I can't wait to share more ideas with everyone about my experience as a new Co-leader with troop 1063.

Drop a comment below if this helped your troop or you have any ideas to make it better...I'm always open to new suggestions.

-Stacey W. Porter | Co-leader Troop 1063

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Here is the PDF version of our "About Me"