Scout Badge Sunday: Brownie Try-It All In the Family

I have been trying to include a variety of scouting badges, but due to time constraints, I am going to focus only on Brownie badges and awards for the time being. The simple reason is that I currently only have Brownie Girl Scouts and these are the things we are working on. However, if I am unable to find a Try-It that fits with the weekly theme, I will try to find one in either another age bracket of Girl Scouts, the Boy Scouts, or another scouting organization all together (Heritage Girls, Keepers At Home, etc). Also, if there is a badge in any other program that you are interested in earning and would like some ideas, e-mail me at ldsmom2201 (at) yahoo (dot) com and I will do my best to help.



1) Find out where your ancestors came from and find it on a map. Are they American Indian? Which Indian Nation and what area did it cover? Share a family tradition, story, dance, or food with your Scout troop. We did this during the week as we studied our heritage. We are choosing to share homemade flour tortillas with our scout troop as we share the girls' Mexican heritage.

3) Make gift coupons for everyone in the family and honor the coupons when redeemed. We are making these during craft time and the girls' are being encouraged to think about what each person would like, not just what they want to do. Some ideas are washing the car or taking out the trash for dad, chores or sharing a favorite toy with a sibling, and folding the laundry or sweeping the kitchen for mom. Of course the chores would be in addition to already assigned/regular chores. We will likely be using these certificates found on www.ivyjoy.com.

5) Help your family keep fit. We have done several of the suggestions already in the past few weeks (plan a healthy family meal; mini-Olympics), but we are also implementing a weekly family fitness day, which will consist of an after-dinner walk when weather permits or another fitness-type activity when weather is not conducive to walking.

6) (My personal favorite) Make a family time capsule. Make collages of things that represent each family members interests and be sure to label them. Include current photos and maybe even a short note written by each person. Put everything into a tube and seal it shut. Decorate the tube and hide it somewhere in the house. Remember where it is and in 5 years or so, open it together and see how much things have changed. A variation of this was something I did in high school: one of my teacher's had us write ourselves a letter the beginning of our freshman year. We could say whatever we wanted, but we were encouraged to write about what our likes and dislikes were at the time and our future plans. Upon graduation, four years later, the letters were mailed to us.