It has only been two weeks since we bridged and I still cannot turn off my leader brain! I think it is because my daughter found the old Junior Badge Book I bought and was so excited to look through it with me.
Since the book encourages girls to earn badges that interest them, my daughter wants to earn some of them on her own. I am going to have her pick three or four and buy the badges for her. This will give her something to do on the weeks when she is not attending day camp. Her twin brother can also join her on our summer adventures.
I am also planning on emailing my moms and let them know that this is an option for them, too. If they want to buy them, the Junior Badge Books on Amazon. I will be making a form to attach to the email which they will have to fill out in order to get the badge. The form will include:
Girl’s Name
Name of Badge
Page number of badge
Date badge started
Date badge completed
The six activities done to complete the badge
I will provide the moms with links so they can buy the badge on their own.
There are many Council stores that still have the discontinued badges in their inventory. As time goes by, there will be fewer and fewer available. You can do an internet search for “discontinued Junior Girl Scout Badges” to find the ones you are looking for.
Since there is more work involved with earning a Junior Girl Scout badge, and my girls have so many other outside activities (and not to mention fourth grade homework), I think that asking them to do a badge on their own during the school year just won’t happen. Summer is a more relaxed time, and for at least some of my friends, they would welcome a structured activity sometime around August when the summer doldrums set in.
I also think that it would be cool to share what they did this summer with their new badges on their vests! It might encourage other girls to try.
As for my troop badges, I plan on purchasing them over the summer when I have a better idea of what I want the girls to do. We meet twice a month for less than two hours, and I do two service projects a year. I have to see what is feasible in my time frame.
And what about the required Journey? I’ll talk more about that in my next blog post.
10 thoughts on “My Plan for My Junior Girl Scout Troop, Part One”
I know what you mean about your leader brain. last year I was a first time leader and thought I was going to take a break through summer, but nope started planning for the next year. Looks like I’ll be doing that again this summer lol. We bridged yesterday (I’ll be doing a post soon) and I’m already thinking about my plans for the junior troop
I have the new book, but there are limited opportunities to earn badges. My girl love to earn badges, and they can also earn them independently with the old program. If you only use the new edition, no girl will ever be able to have a vest full of badges!
My daughter is excited to earn a bunch over the summer.
well, there are badges that correlate to the journey books, but you don’t have to do them with the journey.. they are made to go in the 3 ring binder with the rest of the girl guide. there are 5 different badges to earn over the 3 different ‘areas”, so 15 badges. As brownies, we did the hiker badge (but we didn’t do any journeys as brownies at all. But we’ll be doing a journey this fall – we bridge this Wednesday to juniors and want to get it out of the way for girls who want to do the bronze award. what made you choose amuse as the journey to do with your troop?
Kris-I do have the new binder with badges…there are much fewer options. There were about 100 old badges that covered a much wider variety of areas of interest. For example, there are two horse badges and I have one scout who has been riding for years. She can earn the badge o her own.
Another scout is into musical theater-there’s a badge for that! Several take dance lesson and are in competitive dance. More badges!
Those who have pets can earn a Pet Care badge!
I will do the binder, but as I said, there are many limitations to just having 15 choices. IN the old handbook, they want the girls to try a variety of things.
I chose “Amuse” because of the research I did on various Girl Scout leader forums. That seemed to be the favorite.
Thank you for reading and commenting! I would love to hear about your bridging ceremony!
well, the badges i am talking about don’t come with the binder (those being the legacy badges), they are bought separately ($4 a piece and there are 3 of them. they are called badge activity sets at the GS online store) My eldest daughter was a junior just as the program was changing, so i remember the old badge book, but sadly a lot of troops in our council had the same idea about buying up the discontinued stuff to keep using it (we had hoped to just keep doing try-its this year as 2nd yr brownies, but couldn’t). I do kind of wish they would stop trying to “improve” the GS program. studio 2b wasn’t that great from what i remember from my sister-in-law telling me, so i wonder how long/well this journey idea will last.
I think it says a lot when leaders are still wanting to do an old program that works and not a new one. When I taught full-time, we teachers knew more than the administrators about what would work and what would not. Sadly they rarely listened to us.
I agree… why fix what works? While some girls/troops may have been just doing fluff, i am sure that is not true for the vast majority. I think this journey program will actually turn more girls away from scouting, then retain them. it’s not much different in health care, esp in a nursing home. You have RN administrators who rarely listen to the CNAs who do the grunt work and know residents on an individual level…
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I know what you mean about your leader brain. last year I was a first time leader and thought I was going to take a break through summer, but nope started planning for the next year. Looks like I’ll be doing that again this summer lol. We bridged yesterday (I’ll be doing a post soon) and I’m already thinking about my plans for the junior troop
Congrats on bridging! Summer is calm, so my brain can plan better without the other hubbub of the school year.
Why have you decided to use the old books instead of the new book?
I have the new book, but there are limited opportunities to earn badges. My girl love to earn badges, and they can also earn them independently with the old program. If you only use the new edition, no girl will ever be able to have a vest full of badges!
My daughter is excited to earn a bunch over the summer.
well, there are badges that correlate to the journey books, but you don’t have to do them with the journey.. they are made to go in the 3 ring binder with the rest of the girl guide. there are 5 different badges to earn over the 3 different ‘areas”, so 15 badges.
As brownies, we did the hiker badge (but we didn’t do any journeys as brownies at all. But we’ll be doing a journey this fall – we bridge this Wednesday to juniors and want to get it out of the way for girls who want to do the bronze award. what made you choose amuse as the journey to do with your troop?
Kris-I do have the new binder with badges…there are much fewer options. There were about 100 old badges that covered a much wider variety of areas of interest. For example, there are two horse badges and I have one scout who has been riding for years. She can earn the badge o her own.
Another scout is into musical theater-there’s a badge for that! Several take dance lesson and are in competitive dance. More badges!
Those who have pets can earn a Pet Care badge!
I will do the binder, but as I said, there are many limitations to just having 15 choices. IN the old handbook, they want the girls to try a variety of things.
I chose “Amuse” because of the research I did on various Girl Scout leader forums. That seemed to be the favorite.
Thank you for reading and commenting! I would love to hear about your bridging ceremony!
well, the badges i am talking about don’t come with the binder (those being the legacy badges), they are bought separately ($4 a piece and there are 3 of them. they are called badge activity sets at the GS online store)
My eldest daughter was a junior just as the program was changing, so i remember the old badge book, but sadly a lot of troops in our council had the same idea about buying up the discontinued stuff to keep using it (we had hoped to just keep doing try-its this year as 2nd yr brownies, but couldn’t). I do kind of wish they would stop trying to “improve” the GS program. studio 2b wasn’t that great from what i remember from my sister-in-law telling me, so i wonder how long/well this journey idea will last.
I think it says a lot when leaders are still wanting to do an old program that works and not a new one. When I taught full-time, we teachers knew more than the administrators about what would work and what would not. Sadly they rarely listened to us.
I agree… why fix what works? While some girls/troops may have been just doing fluff, i am sure that is not true for the vast majority. I think this journey program will actually turn more girls away from scouting, then retain them.
it’s not much different in health care, esp in a nursing home. You have RN administrators who rarely listen to the CNAs who do the grunt work and know residents on an individual level…
From all that I have read, Journeys HAS turned girls off to scouting, especially the older ones they so desperately want to retain.