Brownie Quest (Brownie Journey)

Brownie Quest is part of "It's Your World-Change It."

In this Journey, you will:
Learn more about how to earn your Take Action Award — and help your community — with the Girl Scout Take Action Guide.
 * 1) Find out how to take care of yourself, your family, your Girl Scout sisters, and your community—do an activity with your family to chart everyone’s special talents, play games at your troop meetings to learn how to work together, or do a fun “clue hunting” activity to learn the Girl Scout Law.
 * 2) Plan a Take Action project, such as visiting a nursery school to read to younger children or teach them a game, creating a school skit about healthy eating, or making a presentation to your city council about fixing a broken sidewalk by your school.
 * 3) Earn 4 leadership awards: Discover Key; Connect Key; Take Action Key; Brownie Quest Award. If you're a Girl Scout volunteer, go to Volunteer Toolkit for complete meeting plans and activity instructions.



Badges

 * Computer Expert (Brownie Try-it)
 * My Best Self (Brownie Try-it)
 * Dancer (Brownie Try-it)
 * Home Scientist (Brownie Try-it)
 * My Family Story (Brownie Try-it)

Discover Your Special Talents and Qualities
My troop did the ball toss game mentioned in the Brownie Quest Leader's Guide, followed by the girls sitting down to fill out their "Discovering Me" star, which worked fine.


 * Teambuilding Spinner. If I did it again, I might modify a spinner like this one from Laura Candler to ask the girls different questions. (Note: While this link says it is for team-building, it seems more useful as a get-to-know-you activity.)


 * Conversation Starters for getting to know each other.
 * I am Posters. My troop made I Am posters. On thick scrapbook paper, I put a picture of each girl. Then using magazines, they cut words that describe them and their talents. I made sure each of them had the words I Am at the top of the poster.

Discover Values of the Girl Scout Law

 * Girl Scout Law Scavenger Hunt. After looking around in vain for a Girl Scout Law Scavenger Hunt, I finally made up my own [[File:Girl_Scout_Law_Scavenger_Hunt.docx]]. You should be able to do this in most meeting places, but look at the location hints to make sure they all fit. The file includes: a scavenger hunt list (pages 1-2; print one copy for each girl); pictures to cut apart and hide around the meeting site (pages 3-12; print these double-sided, so the words end up on the back of the appropriate picture; print enough to have a copy of each picture for each girl); a key at the end to know where to hide the pictures (pages 13-14).


 * Girl Scout Law letterbox. Another similar idea I had for this was to do it as a Girl Scout Law letterbox set.


 * Girl Scout Law Game. Have the girls make up their own rules for this game using the printable board game, some game markers (whatever you want to use), and some dice.

Connect as a Team
Hula Hoop team-building. We did the hula hoop team building activity from the book, which the girls thought was fun. We did it around the circle once in both directions (and then they wanted to do it again).

I also did another hula hoop activity I learned from an office team-building years ago. The girls stand in a circle and hold out only their index fingers straight. Place the hula hoop in the middle on their fingers -- they can't curve their fingers around it to make it easier to hold! Then, without anyone losing touch with the hoop, they have to lower it to the ground and back up again. It sounds easy, but it's a lot harder than it sounds! (And it was even hard to do with 20 adults!) They have to work together and pay attention to what others on the team are doing.

Saving Fred activity. Help Fred the gummy worm get to his 'life preserver' using only paper clips.

Connect with Your Family
Make A Family Star that shares why and how the Girl Scout Law is important in your family.

Help lead your family in healthy habits, leading a family talk about healthy foods (how does healthy food help us, use a food pyramid), and come up with family exercises that would help your family lead a healthy lifestyle (like taking a walk every day).


 * help mom or dad go grocery shopping and prepare a healthy meal.

Connect with Your Community

 * Me on the Map activity to show the different circles of inclusion between me, family, neighborhood, community, town, state, country, world, etc.

Choosing a Project
Project Ideas:

Collecting gently used items from your home (clothes, toys, books) and donating to support a local cause.

Making braided chew ropes for dogs

Bake and donate dog biscuits

Collect for The Pencil Project

Collect for Message of Hope Foundation

Resources
Girl Scouts Brownie Quest official page (includes PDFs and printouts) http://www.girlscouts.org/program/journeys/your_world/brownie.asp

Girl Scouts of New Jersey have a 4-week journey program on their website www.gsnnj.org/About-Us/GSLE/Girl-Scout-Journeys/Documents/Brownie%20Quest%20Activities%20Program.pdf

Girl Scout Law word search

Take-Action Project ideas
Having trouble figuring out possible Take-Action projects? Look for ideas on the Take Action Project ideas page.