Saturday, July 25, 2009

Where do I get the try-its?

It has been asked if my Girlie is a Juliette (a girl scout without a troop). She is not, only because I was given the gift of BFF's mom who is also a homeschooler. She was in a homeschool troop before she moved to my little corner of the world and when she called Girl Scout Central she was given to someone who knew I homeschooled. This lead to BFF being in Girlie's Daisy troop. After finishing our Daisy year *(Daisy should only be 1 year not 2 IMHO) we left our Daisy troop and helped to form a homeschool, multi level Troop. We have 2 daisies, 3 brownies and 2 Juniors.

My family uses Scouting (boy and girl) as the spine for our curriculum. To that end, history, science, community studies and so forth are all introduced and as we move through brownies and Juniors they will be reinforced.

As to where I get my resources, well pretty much all of them are online.
http://www.scoutmom.net/program/tryit.htm a list of many different council's try-its
http://www.scoutmom.net/program/badges.htm same list for Juniors

You can search at different council sites for "council's own" and find all the fun and different try-its, patches, badges and so forth. And with a little forethought you can go though them and find which stuff relates to wherever you are going on a trip or what your intrests are as a family.

For example my family is going to camp for a week (yay pennsic!) The try its that Girlie will work on are :
outdoor skills
Take a Hike
Renaissance
On stage
Archery
Medieval Maidens
American Frontier
Sewing
Navy Pride
Leave no Trace

Patches (open to any level):
Jr. Ranger
Women in History

We will not complete all of these patches and Try-its but more likely do one or two requirements for each thing and then do more at home. This camping trip is just such an opportunity to get so many things knocked out, between sleeping in the "wild," having access to literally hundreds of people who the kids can talk to including Navy personnel, park rangers, historical re-enactors, researches, and so on.

All it takes is knowing what patches are out there and making a bit of a plan as to what can be learned.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

First Aid Lapbook

We have completed our first Brownie try-it lapbook --Birds. Girlie learned a lot about them, which I guess is the point of try-its. Sometimes we rush though the activities but I am not that concerned about it since she loves to go back through the lapbooks and reread them. I figure that helps cement the knowledge.

Anyway with the first brownie lapbook completed under our belts I have started to put together resources and activities for the next lapbook- First Aid.

Here are the requirements for the try-it. http://store.gscsnj.org/store/product/14662/FIRST-AIDE-TRY-IT/


Instead of re-inventing the wheel I wanted to see what minit books I could find to fit the requirements of this try-it for free online. I was surprised to find so many of them.

Here is the list of links to what either meets the requirements or is a nice addition to flesh out the unit.

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/docs54367/camping/first_aid_kit.pdf
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/docs54367/officer_buckle_and_gloria/call_911.pdf
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/docs54367/tornado/first_aid.pdf
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/docs54367/petunia/first_aid_basics.pdf
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/docs54367/care_and_keeping/Sports%20Safety.pdf (only the sprain minit book)
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/docs54367/petunia/community.pdf glue in the pictures of who would use first aid
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/docs54367/petunia/emergency_wheel.pdf (Expansion)
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/docs54367/leprechauns_dress_weather.pdf
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8271621/First-Aid-minit-Books

Be prepared isn't a requirement but I think it is a good expansion to flesh out the unit, also a good thing to get the little minds working if you plan on taking your kids camping.

The Emergency Wheel teaches about what to do in an emergency so even though it is not a requirement I think it is important.

For the sprain Don't forget R.I.C.E. Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate

The only things not covered by all the wonderful free minit books I found is care for shock and burns and also what things to be aware of in certain weather. To that end I added my own minit books to the list above so that these topics would be covered.

My plan is to work on this book with Girlie over the next little while. I'll post pictures when we are done.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Twitter and Pennsic Sewing

I can't be the only person who has long indepth conversations with herself while sewing. Especially sewing at the machine without the TV. Also I can't be the only one who cracks herself up as she enters the 4th hour of Tabard sewing with odd thought.

As I sat sewing some things occured to me. Mny of my favorite blogs now have twitter and while I decided I am just not that dedicated or interesting to use twitter I played tweets though my head as I sew.

Hour 1 : Cut out all the red tabards, double checked that that I had the right sizes for the guys.
Hour 1.5: Started to sew using black thread
Hour 2.5: Sitched to red thread
15 minutes later: Is it just me or does C&C dual duty thread not seem as good as it use to?
Hour 3: Up stairs in front of the TV pinning while watching Deadliest catch
Hour 3.1: Oh watch out for that wave!!!
Hour 3.5: I am so glad I am not his mom- what a potty mouth! 3 tabards pinned, 2 edges pinned
Hour 4: Back at the machine, back to red thread

I just don't see that as an interesting afternoon to anyone.