Think BIG Badge

1. Come up with a big idea.

My big idea is to raise money to travel with my Girl Scout Council to Pax Lodge in 2015!

2. Take your sales to the next level.

Some of my ideas are to have a booth sale and also go door-to-door with a wheelbarrow of cookies and sell in my neighborhood. I also thought I could have a drive-up cookie booth. People would drive to the spot and buy cookies.

3. Sell your big dream to others.

I can use social media to spread the word about buying Girl Scout Cookies and what girls can do with the money from selling cookies. I can also make a board presentation about some of the activities that I have done like camping and food drives, and another one about the trip to Europe.

4. Ask experts to help you take your plan up a notch.

5. Share your experience in a big way.

I can create a video presentation about the trip that I can show to my cookie customers.

Cadette My Promise, My Faith - Year 1

1. Pick a line from the Girl Scout Law.

I will do my best to be:
Friendly and helpful.

2. Interview a woman in your own or another faith community.

Talk to her about how she tries to act in her life based on that line of the law. Give examples of what that line of the law means to her and how she tries to follow it in her daily life.

I interviewed my mom who is also a woman in my faith community. She said that doing my best to be friendly and helpful means a lot to her in her daily life. She always tries to smile as much as possible because
that helps to spread happiness and good will to other people, no matter what kind of day they are having.
She also is a very good listener and maintains good eye contact when you are talking with her. When she
is listening to other people, she asks how she might be able to help even if it is in some small way. She is very helpful at home by doing the chores and laundry, being a good family member, and helping me with my homework, outside activities, and Girl Scouts! In our faith, we are friendly and helpful at church, and by helping to collect food for the local food pantry.

3. Find three inspirational quotes by women that fit with that line of the Girl Scout Law.

"The most effective way to do it- is to do it."
-- Ameila Earhart

"The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it."
--Mother Teresa

"The simplest way of saying this for the very young Scout is to do a good turn to someone every day: that is, to be a giver and not a taker. This is the spirit that makes the older Scout into a fine, useful, dependable woman."
--Juliette Gordon Low

"Do a good turn daily."
--Girl Scout Slogan


4. Make something, like a drawing, painting, or poster.

I made a poster about being "Friendly and Helpful." it included scenes about saying hi to the new kid, helping someone with groceries, keeping your grandmother company, and helping with babies.

5. Make a commitment to live what you've learned.

I showed my family my project and discussed it's meaning, and made a personal commitment to live what I learned about being friendly and helpful.

aMAZE Journey: Planning the Take Action Project

Today's journey meeting was our eighth. We read pages 120-129 in the girl book and brainstormed ideas for the Take Action project.

Woodworker Badge

1. Swing a hammer.
Make a design with nails on wood:
I made a smile face of nails on wood!

2. Keep it level.
Do a survey:
I checked five different spots around the house and garage to see if they were level and plumb. I discovered that the shed wasn't level!

3. Use a screwdriver.
Fix loose screws.
I tightened a lot of pot handles that were loose!

4. Saw some wood.
Square it off:
I used the miter box and handsaw - the handsaw was harder to keep straight!

5. Build something yourself.
Build with your expert:
I built a birdhouse with the help of my woodworking expert - Dad!

aMAZE Journey: Let Peace Begin With You

Our seventh aMAZE journey meeting was about "Surfing Through Cyber-Relationships" and the section called "Let Peace Begin With You." We covered pages 96-119 in the girl book, read and did activities about netiquette, cyber-bullying, safety in cyberspace, choosing communication tools, live vs. virtual, and the internet safety pledge. We also read and talked about how relationship skills impact the world, leadership, and moving toward peace. Today we started thinking about the take action project and brainstorming possible project ideas, which we will continue in the next journey meeting.

Science of Happiness Badge

1. Make yourself happier (did for two weeks or more):

Get into a state of "flow."
I have been getting into flow through using the app "Paint Joy" which allows you to create masterpieces on your phone. It sparks my creative interest and allows me to paint things that I've never painted before. Some of the projects I worked on using the Paint Joy app were creating a bonnet, the moon, and a winter scene.

Another thing that gets me into a state of flow is playing my double French horn. When I play, the time goes by quickly because it is so much fun! I found that I have the most flow when I played the music for summer band camp.

2. Think differently for happiness (did for two weeks or more):

Be happy for others.
We celebrated with Dad for his drum corps anniversary and told him how how awesome that was! We even went to the reunion and celebration.

A younger Girl Scout troop was bridging and we attended and participated in their ceremony, and celebrated with the girls afterward. I congratulated them and talked with them about what they are looking forward to in the next level of Girl Scouting.

We visited our cousins and heard all about some of the activities that they are involved in such as Boy Scouts, music camp, and sports teams. We asked them more about the activities and paid attention to what they were saying. We told them how awesome that sounded and celebrated with a pizza dinner.

3. Get happy through others:

Make something meaningful.
I made a painting to give to a veteran. It said thank you for serving our country, and had the symbols of the armed forces on it. I made it because I am grateful to the men and women of the military for all that they do to protect our country and keep us safe, and for helping others overseas.

4. Do a helpful happiness experiment:

Focus on one friend.
I talked to my friend who was sad because she lost her special bracelet. I gave her a hug and told her that she would find it soon, and then we did an activity that got her mind off of it. She said that made her feel better! I used my signature strengths of hope, humor, kindness, and love. It was amazing because it made me feel happy to help her that way.

5. Create a happiness action plan:

Create a bliss box.
We made a bliss box decorated from an old coffee can and put happy things inside such as happy moments from my journal, happy activities, reasons to be thankful, something a friend said, and some of my strengths.

aMAZE Journey: Caution: Bullies Straight Ahead

We began the section called "Caution: Bullies Straight Ahead" during out sixth aMAZE Journey meeting.
We read through and discussed pages 74-95 in the girl book and did activities about identifying bullying behavior, scenarios of bullying behavior, positive ways to help deal with bullying, bully-target-witness, differences between joking, teasing, and bullying, remembering that bullying is a temporary situation, being confident and responding to disarm a bully, and how to shift behavior to prevent relationship roadblocks.