The New Girl Scout Leadership Experience

I'm very curious to learn more about the new Girl Scout Leadership Experience, which seems to be a complicated name for "New Age Levels." According to Girl Scouts USA, girls weren't happy with being in a troop with a three-year age range, so they've devised these new levels:

Girl Scout Daisy, Grades K–1
Girl Scout Brownie, Grades 2–3
Girl Scout Junior, Grades 4–5
Girl Scout Cadette, Grades 6–8
Girl Scout Senior, Grades 9–10
Girl Scout Ambassador, Grades 11–12

Now, perhaps my troop is an exception, but for the past two years, we've had a dual-level troop of Juniors and Cadettes without any complaints from the older girls. During the meetings, we participate in group activities as a troop, but separate into age levels for badge-specific activities. The Cadettes definitely like the opportunity to have a little more freedom, but still enjoy interacting with the other girls and acting in a leadership role with them (on occasion). So, while I'm very curious to see how these new age levels work out, in my troop, all it will do is rename my Cadettes as Seniors just as the Juniors are flying up into Cadettes.

And, it will only serve to confuse the non–Girl Scouting public even further, since the only levels they could understand were Brownies and "Girl Scouts" (aka Juniors. You know, "the ones with the green uniforms.") Just wait until we blow their minds with these Ambassadors.

Now, if only my local council will actually give us information about these new age levels, instead of making me glean info from Google searches of other councils' websites. . . .

The Girls' Guide to Campfire Activities

The Girls' Guide to Campfire Activities just received a nice review from School Library Journal (or, check it out on Barnes & Noble's page, if you have trouble finding it on SLJ's website). Here's an excerpt:

"The songs are silly fun, and the stories will have the campers squealing with frightened delight. An appealing volume that will give readers ideas for good old-fashioned fun."

I also have a couple of interior pages to share with you, so you can see how cute the book turned out.

I can't wait to show the book to my Girl Scouts—we'll be starting up again soon, and I'm eager to see how much they grew up over the summer.