Hi Parents…
Well we are off and running! It was so great to see the girls again and meet our new recruits. I hope they came home as excited as we are. The meeting was so much fun! Here is our monthly summary…
We started our meeting with a snack and a sparkling cider toast. We had Rice Krispie Treats and Grapes. The girls toasted with there ‘fancy’ cups to a great year with Girl Scouts!
The girls introduced themselves to one another and shared something they did with a girl or woman over the summer. We are trying to have the scouts realize the importance of female bonding and how much they can learn from the girls and women in their lives. (This is a theme from the Brownie Journey we are following, World of Girls!) Some of the highlights were, swimming with my cousins, getting my nails done with my mom, diving from a diving board at the pool & lots of other beach/summer/swim activities with moms, sisters and cousins!

The scouts returning from last year had a re-dedication ceremony! We read The Brownie Story (Binder page 18) and had the newer girls help them recite the poem…“Twist me and turn me and show me the elf, I looked in the water and saw MYSELF!” Brownies are extremely helpful family elves. If you haven’t already, you should read the story, its so cute! At the next meeting we will have an investiture ceremony for all the girls joining this year!

Next we had an ART showing of all the AMAZING work that your daughters did over the summer! We can not express how truly overwhelmed we were with their paintings - so talented! The girls set up their artwork and we all walked around and each took a moment to explain their pieces. It was great to see them so engaged and asking questions about the works. We learned words like medium, collaboration and abstract. Also learned about a technique where you put tape as a resist to create a shape when you paint over it - thanks Aemilia! If you did not work toward the painting badge yet and would like to, there is still time! Please just let us know and we will arrange time at our next meeting. Everyone who participates gets a badge. There is no ‘girl scout police’. As long as your child does something that they are proud of, that’s all that matters to us! We will present girls with their badges at an upcoming trip to an art museum (date TBA). We were so PROUD of Troop 2440. It was such a great experience for us to look at their work and hear them describe the styles, techniques and emotions they used!

Then we played a Story Relay game… it was so fun! It was a good way to get the girls on their feet and using their minds. We had 3 teams and used index cards with random words written on them. Each girl selected 2 cards and worked to arrange them into a logical story/sentence in a relay sequence that kept building. After the scouts had 2 turns each, they took a few minutes to work together as a team fine tuning the story. We then shared the stories with the other teams. This exercise was to help remind the girls that words and reading are FUN. Also to help them find and relate to clues within stories, which is another theme from World of Girls.

This year we will end our meetings with the girls voting on a challenge for us! We think it is so important for the girls to feel empowered and that their voices are heard. Today we talked about fitness and polled them on their favorite ways to get their bodies moving. The scouts then voted on Freeze Dance and our challenge will be to incorporate that into our next meeting. We will come up with a different theme/challenge each month that they can vote on.
Of course we ended with the Friendship Circle! Such a great opportunity for the girls to think of something nice that they or a friend did that day and give their Brownie sisters a squeeze! (Binder page 23)

A few reminders…
Our Welcome Back Picnic is this Saturday 10-1 at Prospect Park! Please let us know if you will be attending. We will email you later in the week with location details (it's the same area as last year). Please bring your own picnic breakfast/lunch and any games you think the girls might enjoy. We will be playing a few organized games as well.

The Beach Clean-up event is on for 10/13, 10am at Plum Beach, Brooklyn. Please let us know if you will attend and if you can car pool. The beach is located off the Belt Parkway East between exits 9 and 11. You will need to bring lunch, clothes appropriate for cleaning beach and marsh areas and work gloves.

Save the date October 27^th, Plant a tree event (Scouts for a million trees NYC), Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn… more details to follow!

Newly added Bowling Event and the girls gave a huge cheer when we announced this! @ Maple Lanes 1570 60^th St., Saturday November 13^th 1-4. Please RSVP as soon as possible, it is $15 for each girl paid that day and for scouts only. Price includes two games, fun patch and food.

We are in the process of going through all the paperwork and checks now. We will contact you if anything is missing. Girl Scouts requires a lot of us right now but once this boring stuff is out of the way, we promise we’ll be nothing but FUN!

Our next meeting is Tuesday, October 30^th 3-5. We asked the girls to re-read Shali’s story in their books on page 6 (WORLD side) and complete page 17 at the end of that story. Also to complete pages 12 and 13 (GIRLS side).
As always we look forward to hearing your feedback, thoughts and/or suggestions, so please let us know what you think! 




That’s all for now!
Best,
Michelle & Martha