Session Two – Wonders of Water Brownie Girl Scout Meeting

It’s another meeting day! The days… the weeks… they fly by soooo quickly! I’m not sure how it happens…

However, here we are! Here is what I had planned.

Two new songs and two new games for the beginning and/or end.

(Go Bananas, I’m a Little Coconut; Ear & Nose, Rising Circles)

** We sang Go Bananas and the girls had a fun time. We need to go over the different verses again though. They loved the house (Rock the HOUSE! Rock Rock, the HOUSE!) and then we played Ear & Nose. They got the hang of it and the ones who smiled, laughed, or talked got out of the circle until it was just two girls. The rest of them were egging on everyone else but the two girls were not cracking! We quickly declared two winners so we could start our meeting as it was already 10 minutes past the hour. 

Flag, Promise, Law, etc.
Green Tea for a Blue Planet – Mom to bring in electric tea kettle, tea, and snacks.

(At this point, follow the Adult Handbook and Girl’s Guide book – Here are my notes to myself as I find it hard to scan the book and read paragraphs)

What does ‘Green’ mean when we say Green Tea? (Not just a color but good for the environment). *** The girls knew what green meant and had a good time talking about reuse and recycle and what it means to be green. 

Today we are having ‘Green Tea’ because our goal is to not waste any water. If you drink it all, you won’t be wasting it. By not wasting it, we are also… what? (Using resources wisely)

Who drinks tea?
Where is tea grown? (China, Kenya, Turkey, and Argentina to start)
What continent are those places on? (Asia, Africa, Europe, Southern America)
What is tea used for? (To drink but other people dye cloth with it too) ** They were amazed by this! They were guessing different things but no one guessed cloth. 
People drink it casually but also in ceremonies that follow special rules. ** We had a Mom in the room who pointed out that they would give tea to husbands in a special wedding ceremony and there were all sorts of different customs, etc. 

Who in your family drinks tea? What time of day do they rink it? What kinds of tea do they drink? What kinds have you tried?

Watching the water as it goes from a liquid to vapor to solid.
What are the main three states of water? Precipitation, Condensation, and Evaporation. ** Um, I really LOVE to read from a book or a paper and the girls knew solid, liquid, vapor… which was technically correct… 

MOM HELPER – To make tea
See if we can watch the kettle to heat the water.
Heating the water is a quick way to demonstrate the change of water from liquid to vapor, which is called evaporation.

** We had a good time at this spot. The Mom described all the teas she had brought (and she brought a lot!) The tea kettle took a long time to heat up but we were chatting about different things. The book suggested the girls spell Evaporation and Condensation so we did that and we had some brave (and super awesome spellers) get it right. It dragged a littttttle at this part but I need to learn to let go, and let the girls chat and have a little fun rather than trying to talk over them. It’s a REALLY fine line between keeping their interest or letting them have fun in a quiet way and I think went really well. 

<Read the book for notes>
Remind about composting tea bags ** One girl had a compost bin at her house and described it for everyone. 
Do the ice cubes ** Reminding everyone about how we have the solid ice cube turning back into liquid. 
See about holding a mirror in front of the steam to create condensation. ** Kinda forgot about that during the meeting…

So at this point, we went over the kinds of tea and YUM everyone tried their tea! I was very happy we had some brave girls. Some of them didn’t like it but that’s okay. 

Loving and Protecting Water – Basically go over the Girl Guide, pg 54 and on. 

We talked last week about what activities we love about water. Some of you mentioned the beach or water parks or showers. Let’s think of reasons you LOVE water. Do you have special reasons for loving water? What are they?

Today we need to think about a water promise. Which line of the Girl Scout Law is about sticking to your promises? (Responsible for what I say and do). Once we come up with our promise, we can think about advocating, which is all about positive talk and action.

This section went well. We had 9 girls so it was a lot quieter. They each had a desk and as they were sitting in a chair, there was less reason to roll around on the floor and be crazy. 

Last 15 minutes – Service Project!
Making cat blankets for Gloria’s Pet Rescue.

No time for this! Pushed to next meeting. The Friendship Circle Leader choose ‘Say When’ as our goodbye song and we did our circle and ended the meeting. 

On to Session Three of our Water Journey..