BellaOnline Forums Family Girl Scouts Leading a mixed group

I am thinking about taking over my daughter's girl scout troop because the previous leaders are resigning. The troop will have both brownies and juniors in it. I am looking for suggestions/ideas about how to plan activities/field trips that will cover both the brownies and juniors requirements for patches/badges. Thanks

Hi jdcmom, welcome to the BellaOnline Forum and glad to see you have started to post.

A lot of the junior badges and brownie try its are on the same topic so it is easy to do them together. Just have the juniors do the harder activities. I have found it next to impossible to do two levels of Journeys at the same time. I tried it for a few meetings but could not get it to mesh. You will need to split the troop by level and get your co-leader to help you if/when you do a Journey. I have Daisy through Cadette in one troop and I wouldn't go back to a single grade level for anything! Good luck with your new troop.

jdc --- as Vintage GS said, the tryits & badges are on the same things, esp in the realm of camping and outdoor activities. You can pair up Jrs with Brs and have them help the younger ones plan snacks, make snacks, make firestarters, make a Kaper Chart, etc.

There are also patch programs they can all work on together---if you go to patchworkdesigns.com you will find programs for states & countries---the latter are great for preparing for Thinking Day---that mixed groups can earn together. Also there are Councils Own patch programs---go to Scouting Web and click on Traditions ---that you can work into things the troop has planned.

A lot of places such as museums & nature centers have programs in which girls can earn all or part of tryits & badges. All you would have to do is notfiy the venue that you had a mixed troopp and they would modify their presentation to meet the tryit/badge for the girls -- they would divide your troop into age levels and present program accordingly. You would have to do a little ahead-of-trip planning with the venue but it would work out fine.

Thanks everyone for the ideas. After looking at the requirements for the try-its and badges I realized that they match up pretty well and if they don't I think I'm gonna break them off into two groups and work on a patch/badge with the same theme but doing different activities

Hi, I also led a mixed troop. I think the multi-level teaches the girls about sisterhood and leadership. They get to complete a lot of the patches that requires them to talk to, lead or teach a younger group right in their troop meeting. My Junior girls have been asking to make the front of their meeting place a flower garden so we're going to make that their Bronze Award. We started them on a journey book, but realized we couldn't take our Brownies through the same journey so we're giving the Brownies Try-Its to do that tie into the journey book that the Juniors are doing. Also I couldn't start my Brownies on the Brownie Quest, because I have everything from just starting out to one who will bridging this year. I think when the younger group of girls get older will switch it up to their journey, but for right now it's too much for them. Another issue we face is when we want to attend council programs. Some of the really great programs such as the Birthplace trip in Savannah, G.A. are grade specific so this year we decided to let the juniors pick one that will help them finish their journey and will plan a separate trip for the Brownies. Last year I incorporated all my girls in each trip and did a lot of research to attend things that weren't grade specific. It took a lot of my time and energy. I don't like excluding one group, but if they have something to look forward to next year and a special event this year. It might not be so bad.