Girl Scouts

To my great surprise, I have found myself co-leading a Girl Scout troop this year. I've never been a GS girl, and I have my doubts about aspects of the organization, but this group of Liesl's friends is sweet and fun, and my co-leader is the wonderful Elena, and we are running it as a cooperative endeavor and the other parents are creative and ambitious and super fun, and so here I find myself.

Our first adventure was a short hike and scavenger hunt in Hoyt Arboretum. We distributed a list of natural objects they had to find; I printed a trail map and let them choose which direction to go, marking our progress on the map; we collected leaves and flowers for an art craft project; we made fairy houses in the forest. It was altogether fun and hopefully a bit educational.

I taught them how to use each other's backs as table-tops. They loved it.

A Liesl fairy in the woods.

They were amazed by the exposed roots of this tree in the creek bed.

Back row: Chloe, Nina, Campbell, Ella, Elia. Front row: Diya, Alexis, Maya, Phoebe, Liesl. No Nora.

It looks like another clearing, but this is the famous fairy garden.

Snacktime, and a completed scavenger hunt sheet.

The Arboretum map, and our route traced in blue marker.

Making leaf crowns.

We gave them all Brownie sashes and their first badge: a forest adventurer!