3 Fun Ways to Earn the Daisy Art Knowledge Patch

If you’re a Daisy leader you understand the struggle in developing relevant program content once you have exhausted the petals. Yes, there are the three journeys but trying to complete them over several meetings knowing that most girls will miss at least one of the meetings is stressful and inefficient.

It seemed to me that perhaps Girl Scouts would be best served by taking the Daisy program back to one year; however, there have been some new badges offered recently but you’re still going to need some meeting plans for the bulk of the second year.

One of the most successful programs that I have found is offered by the Girl Scouts of Maine. They have a patch program specifically geared towards Daisies and can be done over a series of meetings.

You can choose to do just one patch or all six – that’s the beauty of the program. Each patch has three sections consistent with Girl Scouts’ current stages of Discover, Connect and Take Action. You’ll need to do at least one activity from each section in order to complete the patch.

I’ve done all six of these with my Daisies and I recommend starting with the Art Knowledge Patch. It’s pretty active and what Daisy doesn’t like to be creative and show off her art and music skills!

Art Knowledge Patch

1. Make a simple musical instrument and play a song on it.

I brought supplies to make three instruments and told the girls we were going to start our very own Girl Scout Daisy band. The three instruments that we made were tambourines, bongo drums, and flutes.

These were pretty easy to make but you will most likely need some parent helpers to keep everyone focused and to assist with some of the construction.

Tambourines
To make these you just need to have some paper plates, beans or rice, a stapler and some crayons/markers/stickers.

You start by allowing the girls to decorate the outside of two paper plates using crayons or stickers. Once this is done have the girls place some beans or rice on one of the paper plates and then simply staple the second paper plate on top of it.

Make sure that your staples are fairly close together to ensure that none of the rice or beans fall out. Once the paper plates are secure your tambourine is ready.

Drums
These are a bit more difficult to make only in the sense that you need to do a little bit of prep beforehand by saving and cleaning a few metal containers from canned fruits or vegetables.

In addition to the tin cans, you will need wax paper and some rubber bands large enough to go around the mouth of the can.

Have the girls color and decorate the wax paper and maybe even the can first. Then just secure the wax paper over the open end of the can and you’re ready to go.

Pan Flutes
You will need eight straws per girl, scissors, tape and a ruler. Make sure your parent helpers are on hand to make these flutes because the straws will need to be cut in different sizes.

Lay all eight straws out flat and beginning with the second straw cut about 3/4 of an inch off, about 1 1/2 inches off the third straw and so forth.

Once this is done tape the straws together at the top and in the middle – be sure to leave the tops of the straws open.

Once all the girls have their instruments tell them it’s time for the Daisy marching band. Have the girls play their instruments as they march around the meeting room or outside. Yell, “Just the drums! And now the flutes! And finally the tambourines! Now all together!” I’m sure the tune will be loud and off-key but the girls will love it!

2. Introduce your girls to stamps (not the postal kind!)

This activity has the girls experiment with stamp making. If you have some rubber stamps on hand feel free to show them to the girls, but I wouldn’t go out and buy some just for this meeting.

The girls will need to create their own stamps using cardboard. You will need the help of your parent volunteers once again on this one because there is some cutting involved and cardboard can be difficult for little hands.

Have the girls draw a small heart, geometric shape or something similar on a piece of cardboard.

Try to limit it to around a maximum of two inches. After one of the adults cuts it out have the girl glue it to a handle of some sort.

You can use a cork or several layers of small cardboard pieces glued on top of each other. The girls can then dip their cardboard stamps in ink pads and press them on to paper to create beautiful artwork.

And now for the finale…

3. Learn three new songs

The last part of this patch is to learn three songs. It doesn’t specify which three to learn but I definitely think at least one of them should be a Girl Scout song. Here are the ones that I learned with my troop:

1. Pizza Hut
2. I’m a Little Daisy
3. Little Sally Walker

Pizza Hut

This song is fairly nonsensical and has some hand movements so of course, it is very popular. Here is a summary of the hand motions you will need to explain to your Daisies.

Pizza Hut – when you say Pizza Hut you make a triangle or square over your head. I have seen this done both ways and I’m not sure which is correct. I imagine that the hand motion is supposed to represent a pizza but whether it’s a slice or a square pizza was never clear to me.

Kentucky Fried Chicken – bend your arms and flap them like a chicken.

McDonald’s – use your hands to form an M in the front of your chest.

And now here are the lyrics:

There are additional lyrics but this should be enough for your Daisies to remember. Here is a video of one of the troop members to sing it for you.

I’m a Little Daisy

Just like the Brownie’s have their signature Brownie Smile song, the Daisies have their own anthem and it’s sung to the tune of I’m a Little Teapot. There are some motions with this one as well so get ready to boogie!

Little Sally Walker

And now for the final song. I would suggest saving it for last because the girls can play this game for a while! It’s a fairly simple song where the girls also include a one-on-one dance move.

Have the girls make a circle with one girl in the middle. The girls in the circle will sing the song while the girl in the middle skips.

At the first “Hey Girl” she will stop in front of one of the other girls and perform a dance move. At the first “switch” the girls trade places and the girl that was in the circle will repeat the dance move.

This girl then skips around the circle as the song continues. It sounds complicated but I promise it’s not. Most likely at least a few of your girls will be experts!

Here are the lyrics:

I’m including a video here so you can see it in action.

I hope you and your Daisies enjoyed these steps.  Be sure to check back later as I will be detailing the other five patches that are part of this program.  If you would like to view the original program details you can do that here: http://www.girlscoutsofmaine.org/content/dam/girlscouts-girlscoutsofmaine/documents/Daisy_Patch_Program_Packet.pdf