Junior Aid part 3/ Lego movie

We were back to full capacity, yay! I am so glad that she got better quickly.

This meeting, our plan was to get some props made and for them to start filming the first part of the Journey video.

Well.... nothing ever goes according to plan.

My daughter started on finishing up her lego movie. We had done these at home, so she knew what needed to be done. And then I set the other girl up to finish her movie. I knew she was having trouble with the camera the whole time, and now I could actually see her problems. Nothing was in focus but since this was 2 weeks ago, I can not even begin to know what went wrong. I want to give her a chance to redo the video, just not sure when we would have the time. Maybe we can work on it at camp in January.

The girls were all give printed out "scripts" of the journey. We went over it really quickly with them, so that they can focus on what else was actually needed to get filming started. We needed flowers, backgrounds, a birds nest and a caterpillar. And they set off working.

If there is a theme with my troop it would be horrible time management because before we knew it, the meeting was just about over and we were not even close to being ready to film. I just do not think that we allotted enough time in our yearly plan for this project.

I decided to try to just film the introduction of the Journey and give the girls a chance to look over everything during the week.

This did not go so well. I was telling them that it is only an introduction and to be natural, but point a video camera at them and all of a sudden, I have 10 minutes of "bloopers". In the end, I asked the girls to know the introduction for next week so we can film it with out them reading from a paper. Hopefully we will be able to get the introduction and first part of the journey filmed next week.

I know that I am crazy, but I am hoping for the second part as well.

Lexy's movie

Junior Aid Part 2

This week one of our little ones was sick. And when you only have 4 girls attending troop meetings and one gets sick, it is kind of hard to continue as planned. When there is 10 girls and one misses, it will sound mean, but you don't really miss her presence. As in things can still get done. With a quarter of your troop is gone, it comes to a stand still.

The girls worked on their flower puppets and the script for the first part of the video. The plan was to have it all done so that we can work on filming the next week. The girls got right down to business and Miss B and I got right down to the business of cleaning out the supply closet.

I can not even begin to tell you how this closet bothered me. We would just chuck things in there at the end of the meeting, in order to get out on time. And it was a mess! Plus we had no clue what was actually in there, so I would be buying multiples of things. It took us 2 hours in total but when we were done it was beautiful! I loved it.

Now lets hope that it stays that way!

Since one of the girls who was sick was one of the ones who needed to finish their lego movie, we just pushed that off until the next week.

The Digital Photography Sleepover

While at camp this summer, I was talking with another leader and we had come up with the idea of having a sleepover for the girls in order to accomplish this badge. We had thought that it would be a great way for the groups to get together and we would be able to do it at once instead of packing up back drops and lighting equipment several times to get it done in the 1 hour meeting times. See in my other life, I am a photographer. I was looking forward to this badge and showing the girls what I do in real life.

We let the one of the girls pick the date for the sleepover and thankfully our host church was more than happy to let us stay over.

We got to the church around 6pm and the girls put all of their stuff in the nursery, where we would be staying the night.

And then the amazing thing, that is my troop happened. The girls just started to play and giggle with each other. These are girls that spend almost all day together. Two sets of best friends, that swap "besties" like normal people change underwear. They love like sisters, but fight like sisters. There are times where I worry about how things will go with them as a group, and then nights like this one happen. They clumped together and started playing with the baby kitchen. Giggling over a private joke that me and Miss B were not privilege to know.

We had a time line of 6 pm drop off, watch the high school marching band parade to the play off game, make dinner and then start work. We planned a 10pm bed time.

Well the moms chatted till 6:45, we missed the parade and didn't even start dinner till after 7. But that is the way with our troop. I like having a plan, in fact I am totally anal that I have to go into an event with a plan, but I am also extremely flexible with in my plan. I have no problem throwing out the plan and having the girls dictate the pace. I wonder what that says about me? (Other that I am crazy, lol )

I had picked up raw pizza dough and I figured that each girl can make her own pizza. Which went over great. They were loud with out being obnoxious and they laughed the whole time. They had flour every where. They called the corn meal chicken food and then dared each other to eat it.

After dinner we went upstairs to start our night. They decided that they wanted to do a photo shoot in their pj's, and that they really wanted to work on their lego movies right away. So they got started on their backgrounds and then started to take pictures.

I thought I had enough camera's for all of the girls. I had my two older point and shoots, which kept going through batteries like they were water. I had my Canon 50d and my Big camera, my 5d Mark 2 (which I was only going to let my daughter use). Well I forgot to put a memory card in my 50d, so we were down to only 3 cameras for 4 girls. The one with out a camera did not have to wait long as they were pretty quick taking pictures with the point and shoots. But then everything started to fall apart.

We ran out of batteries, the cameras wouldn't focus. and it was getting very frustrating to be going back and forth between the computer and making the movies, to the girls who were having problems with the cameras. It just seemed like what ever could go wrong, did go wrong. And it was getting late, and they were getting tired.

We got 2 lego movies done, one completely photographed and one that needed to be finished in the morning.

We did not even set up the back drops or lights.

The girls got into their pj's and sleeping bags. There was a tv in the nursery, so we put on Fantasia 2000 for them to go to sleep to. And it worked, there was no late night giggling and trouble making like there is at camp. The girls went right to sleep.

We had an early morning the next day. The girls had to be up and ready to go to the local food pantry to hand out bags. The bags were going to include the holiday turkey or chicken and I know the pantry was looking forward to them being there.

Surprisingly the girls got up with out a struggle, cleaned up and carried items out to the car. It was a pretty chilly morning and they did not even complain once. We got the last few shots in of the last lego movie and I told them that we could continue to work on it on Tuesday at our regular meeting.

I am so glad that we did this. It was a good way to get the girls together to work on a bigger badge. Sure we did not get everything accomplished, but it was fun. The first time you try something is always the worst outcome. We learn from each time we try something.

Next time I will charge my parents 5$ per girl to cover the food. It cost 30$ just in food and if everyone paid 5$, it would have been covered. I will also try to plan it when we have more time the next day. With the food pantry in the morning and I had to go into work, we did not really have enough time to get everything accomplished.

There is always next time! These are the two completed video's. Next week I will post the other two. I hope you enjoy them.

Piper's video
Olivia's video

Junior Aid- part 1

This is our next big thing. I think that it is going to take about a month to complete. The girls have decided that they are going to bring a journey to a Daisy Troop. The idea of doing a Journey was not exciting to the girls at first but then we came up with an idea that they were more than happy to work on.

They are going to transform the book into a video. They are going to make back drops and they are going to make the flower characters and the animals.Then they will act out the story.

All of a sudden the girls were supper excited to get started. They sat down with the book, 3 Cheers for Animals, and they came up with the first skit. Next week we will be making the back drops and hopefully film the first part.

In the end, they would like to publish it to Youtube and have it as a resource for Juliette girls.

Staying Fit

This is a badge that I was not looking forward too. More so than scribe. I don't know why, but it just seems like something that is a buzz word badge. I am all for the girls learning to be healthy, but we just did all of this during the council's Healthy Promise campaign. I feel like I am beating a dead horse. And I think that the girls have turned me off and I sound like the Charlie Brown teacher to them.

So how do we take a badge that no one wants to do and make it fun?

I purchased a few different foods; pop tarts, apples with yogurt dip, pineapple and a few different candies. I also brought in a bag of sugar and my digital scale. We looked at the amount of sugar that was in each of these products. We compared natural sugar vs processed sugars. The girls seemed really interested in it, and I think seeing the sugar in real life made an impact on them.

We then did some yoga and stretching. I came up with the idea of having the girls do some double dutch jump roping. Wow, did I not think this through. I bought 2 jump ropes, 7 foot long each and I thought that this would be big enough. I was trying to remember from my childhood. But this was clearly the case of things looking so much bigger when you were a child than when you are an adult. 7 ft long jump ropes is not big enough for double dutch. In the end we tied it together and the girls gave it a shot. The girls giggled but they could not figure it out. Unfortunately we were right at the end of the meeting and we planned on picking it up the next time.

*** Update on our Halloween Parades. The girl participated in 3 parades and they won Judges Choice at one parade and 3rd place in the groups category in another parade. The judges said that they were touched by how the girls were able to take a somber subject like breast cancer and bring awareness to it by having a fun presentation. The girls won money at both parades that we are going to use to help lower the cost of our winter camp.