Girl Scout meetings have begun this year for our troop, we just had our first meeting a few weeks ago. I am again leading the troop with one of my favorite friends ("Barb, you complete me"). This year, our girls officially bridge from Brownies to Junior Girl Scouts. This most certainly called for a nice schmaltzy ceremony, complete with a bridge for the girls to walk over, roses to hand out, new uniforms, and candles to light.
Because their uniform colors have changed from brown to teal-green, we decided to end the ceremony by letting the girls make worry dolls out of our new colors. This was a really successful craft for 9-10 yr old girls, and the thinking was that while doing it, they would have time to interact socially and catch up. I pre-made the hair (wrap brown or yellow yarn around 2-3 of my fingers 10 times, tie them in the middle with matching yarn, then cut the loops) and glued the matchstick arms on prior to the meeting because we were concerned about time, so that was already done. They needed very little help to get the yarn wrapped once I demonstrated how to do it. The girls wrapped the dolls with the yarn (there was much deliberation over whether to do pants or a skirt), wrapped the sashes, glued little bead "badges" onto the sashes, drew the faces on, and glued on the hair. A few took the time to unwind the yarn hair, some even braided it. The most surprising part for me was that they all were very proficient with the hot glue gun. I don't have a low temp one, and knew that all this would go faster with hot glue, so I was completely ready to supervise. They honestly did not need my help at all, and eventually I left them to it. I was just completely blown away by that for some reason.
Girl Scout worry dolls (there are directions all over the net, but here's what we did):
Flat wooden clothespins (Joanns had these)
yarn in your chosen colors
wooden matchsticks for arms (cut the red tips off)
hot glue
craft glue
beads for badges
thin marker to draw in face
1. Cut the red tips off the matchsticks, then hot glue one to each side of the clothespin for the arms.
2. With yarn color chosen for "shirt" (glue all yarn ends on back), begin wrapping, stop at waist. Do the same with the arms (We successfully wrapped the torso and one arm before having to switch to a new piece of yarn to do the second arm).
3. Wrap bottom half in same manner.
4. To wrap sash, glue at shoulder and at waist, wrap 3 times, beginning and ending in back (inconspicuously).
5. With a fine tipped marker, draw face (the marker will "bleed" on the wood, so draw quickly.
6. Glue on hair (directions above).
7. Glue on bead badges.
8. Place under your pillow at night for a worry you have during the day. (Emma says it helped get rid of her worries!)
If you make them let me know!
Tomorrow I leave for Portland to see my favorite Oregon family, and celebrate this book. I get to be just Blair for a whole night, imagine! And thanks for everyone's comments on the last post, what a bunch of good people you are, know that? I still don't know about that raisin pie though.
