We tried to start a homeschool Girl Scout troop for Juliette, but first I couldn’t find a co-leader, then hubby’s job got confusing. He will have to change job sites so it doesn’t really make sense to start a troop if we won’t be available to meet. Oh well. I’m hoping to do some Juliette meet-up once we get through Thanksgiving and stop being sick…
Second Lady’s 2025 Summer Reading Challenge
Although this is an activity open to anyone, someone in a Facebook group created a fun patch for participants. I’m happy she did since we submitted Juliette’s completed challenge 2.5 months ago and haven’t received the certificate of completion. Anyway, Juliette read 12 books over the summer, and we submitted the list and a picture she drew of her favorite book to complete the challenge.
Read Across America Patch
Prior to visiting my sister at work, we had decided that Juliette would try to earn the Read Across America fun patch. The plan was to deliver Girl Scout cookies, spend time with my sister as she led storytime, and then Juliette would read to a therapy dog that was visiting. Of course, we had too much to do so that didn’t happen. BUT our local library has a “Tales with Tails” program where kids can sign up to read to dogs. We signed up and Juliette read a Biscuit book to Fletcher and his handler, thereby earning her fun patch! She signed up and read to Fletcher again the following month. So fun!
Finishing STEM Sisters 2025
Unfortunately, the STEM Sisters meeting with women professionals in outdoor jobs was cancelled, so Juliette watched Sarah Squared, a short video about marine ecologists monitoring elephant seals. We also looked a little bit into the marine ecologist field to see what other types of jobs people can have in the field. This earned her a fun patch. We also checked in on the online sites for the program and had completed all of the other requirements so Juliette became a STEM Sister Superstar! We recently received a letter sharing the results of their first year of programming. It mentioned there were 154 registered Girl Scouts and only 15 superstars. Go, Juliette!
STEM Sisters 2026
It’s now a new year of STEM Sisters with four brand new quarterly challenges. We’ve started working on the first quarter’s challenge (Cybersecurity) and Juliette is signed up for a Space Science mini-challenge as well. I think there was a fun patch for STEM Sisters early birds and possibly another for being in the program both years? We also shared the program information with another local homeschooled Girl Scout so Juliette earned a “Brought My Bestie” fun patch. It’s hard to keep track of all the ones for this program. It’s definitely worth the cost of signing up! (And we just signed up for several more STEM programs with them!)
Digital Leadership
- Discover your communities
- Explore a world of information
- Use technology for good
It’s been awhile since we completed this one, but I believe that we talked about our community and she drew pictures of the important places. We’ve visited many of them (libraries, schools, fire department, police station, etc) so she had real-life experiences to connect to the community. Next we talked about public and private information and then played a game of share or don’t share where we named different pieces of information about ourselves and said whether we could share or shouldn’t share the information with strangers or openly with anyone other than our immediate family. This was fun because it definitely moved from serious into complete and utter silliness. For the third step, Juliette created her own emoji drawing.
Art and Design
- Discover art and design
- Experiment with your medium
- Be inspired by a subject
Juliette still wants to earn every badge, so yesterday she chose to earn Art and Design because she thought she’d already earned it. She chose play dough for her medium and chose piggies as the subject that inspired her. After combining colors to make a “cake” color, she shaped her project and covered it in pink play dough. She used a brown marker to make the face and then showed daddy that she could cut it in half to reveal the “cake” inside. Today we stopped by our local library that hosts art shows. Juliette looked at the art and I asked her to describe some pieces for me to find. Then she chose her favorite piece.
An Update on Progress
We took a lot of time off for the summer and have recently started back up working on badges again. Juliette still has 25 possible badges/ journeys/ awards to earn and says she wants to earn all of them, so they’re all technically on our to do list. Currently it’s Nuts and Mags season and she hasn’t sold any. I haven’t pushed for it since they’re not as familiar as GS Cookies, so it looks like the won’t be earning any of those fun patches:
- Considering all that’s been happening family-wise lately, we didn’t work on outdoor badges. I guess we’ll see if that’s something we pursue when everyone is healthy again…
- Juliette’s signed up for another NASCAR program in January and will earn the Roller Coaster Design Challenge and Model Car Design Challenge badges. So it looks like we should start working on the Board Game Design Challenge to finish up the trifecta.
- STEM Sisters is providing Think Like an Engineer badges for any STEM Sister that completes that badge/ journey, so that’s definitely on our to do list along with the 5 Flowers, 4 Stories, 3 Cheers for Animals! Journey, Think Like a Programmer Journey, and the Daisy Outdoor Journey (likely when it’s warmer, but we’ll see).
Badge Numbers 33 & 34
- Promise Center (and Home School patch)
- Democracy for Daisies (and 2024 Election patch)
- Make the World a Better Place
- Honest and Fair
- Space Science Explorer (and Mars patch)
- Friendly and Helpful
- Animal Observer (and fun patches: Girl Scouts of Hawai’i, Queen Liliʻuokalani, WWII Remembrance, I Love to Travel, Cruise Ship, Hawaiian Luau, STEM Sisters, Space Science)
- Considerate and Caring
- Courageous and Strong (and My Promise, My Faith Pin Year 1)
- Responsible for What I Say and Do (and Daisy Global Action Award Year 1)
- Think Like a Citizen Scientist Journey
- Respect Myself and Others
- Robotics 1: What Robots Do (Robotics fun patch and Total Eclipse)
- My First Cookie Business (GS Council CEO, GS Council, and Cookie Rally fun patches, and Cookie Entrepreneur Family Pin Year 1)
- Respect Authority (Safety Award Pin and World Thinking Day Award 2025)
- Use Resources Wisely (Techie, Booth Sales, Gift of Caring, 200+ bar, Embrace Possibilities, 2025 Year bar, Charm patch with Embrace Possibilities charm, My First Cookie Sale 2025, STEM box)
- Be a Sister to Every Girl Scout
- Good Neighbor
- Automotive 1: Design
- Automotive 2: Engineering
- Automotive 3: Manufacturing
- Craft and Tinker
- Cybersecurity 1: Basics
- Cybersecurity 2: Safeguards
- Cybersecurity 3: Investigator
- Eco Learner (Chemistry, Weird Science, and Meet-the-Pro Chemistry, Robotics, Space Science)
- Between Earth and Sky Journey
- Robotics 2: How Robots Move
- Robotics 3: Design a Robot (Stall Catchers fun patch)
- Welcome to the Daisy Flower Garden Journey (Daisy Journey Summit Pin)
- Money Explorer (2025 Lunar New Year – Year of the Snake, Big Sister, Police Department Visit)
- Daisy Snow or Climbing Adventure (Outdoor)
- Digital Leadership (Summer Reading, Read Across America, Outdoor meeting, STEM Sister Superstar)
- Art and Design (STEM Sisters, STEM Sister Early Bird, STEM Sisters 2025/2026, Brought My Bestie)