Girl Scout Daisy Event Ideas

What is a Daisy Days Event?

Service Units usually plan for a Daisy-centric event sometime during the Girl Scout year. It can be a "fun" event as opposed to a "learning" event, or it may be held later in the scouting year so that a bridging Daisy can earn her first Brownie Try-it.  It is always an event to celebrate a girl's commitment to Girl Scouts.

How to Plan a Daisy Days Girl Scout Event

Planning a "Daisy Days" Girl Scout event for your Service Unit? Here are some tried and true ideas to help jump-start your planning. Older girl troops can easily execute any of these ideas with minimal help from adults. Junior troops, with assistance, can also successfully execute a Daisy Days program, but will need significant adult assistance to ensure that the event runs smoothly. Even older Brownie girls can help out by taking on a short rotation.  (This works especially well when the Daisy Days program is about learning what a Brownie scout is, so that a Daisy may 'bridge' to Brownies.)

1. Princess Daisy Day

A program space is transformed into a princess wonderland as Daisy girls are invited to make cone-style princess hats, hear a story about a princess, and have a princess-style high tea. This works best with staggered start-times, so that girls can do the activities in order (as opposed to in rotation.) So, the first group begins at 9am, the second at 9:30am, and the third at 10am. You can go longer if you have more troops participating. You can also have two stations for each activity, so that two groups can go at the same time.

2. Camp Daisy

Daisy Girl Scouts go to camp for a half-day of crafts, a hike, a snack, and a game. Troops may share a sack lunch at camp that they bring before headed home. This is a good way to show Daisy Girl Scouts and their parents what Girl Scout camp is like without having the sleep-over. Junior Girl Scouts and up can assist by running the opening flag ceremony and a quick Scout's Own at the end.

3. Storyteller's Daisy Day

Make a craft , hear a story told by a storyteller (or a creative older troop,) and have a snack. This event can also be done outdoors, incorporating a short walk or hike to a campsite or clearing where the girls gather to meet the storyteller. Make it fun by setting up a large decorated tent or shade structure where the girls can sit and listen to the storyteller. Animal stories such as "Bear Snores On," "The Rainforest Grew All Around" or even "The Lorax" are popular with the Daisy girls. "The Lorax" is fun for older girls to act out while one reads the story, and the message is a good one.

4. Running of the Daisies!

An active 90 or so minutes of outdoor fun for girls. This can be done in rotations of about 20-25 minutes, with about 5 minutes of travel time. Try a relay race type of game where girls fill a backpack with camping clothes; a Kim's game timed event to try to find as many bits of colorful pipe-cleaner pieces in a cleared area; a hop-skip-jump relay race wearing "old-tyme" clothing from Juliette Lowe's day; and a hula-hoop contest or a red-light-green-light game. Be sure to have a snack and water rotation so the girls don't get hungry or dehydrated.

5. Brownie-For-a-Day Daisy Day

Bridging Daisy Girl Scouts earn their first Brownie Try-it in a 90 minute to two hour session. Try the Watching Wildlife Try-it at your Program Center or on a local hiking trail. Look for animal habitats (ant hills, bird nests, gopher holes); try to dart as fast as a hummingbird, chatter like a crow, or dance like a bee; observe earthworms (purchase at a bait shop or garden center or dig some up in a backyard); and make a "shopping list" for a rabbit and another for a coyote. How are they different? Another fun Try-it is the Eat Right, Stay Healthy Try-it. Make a food pyramid game where girls run in relay fashion to build their pyramid to match an example pyramid; make a healthy smoothie with yogurt and fruit; have a craft to make a "healthy foods" chart for each girl: decorate a paper girl shape and paste onto a sheet of construction paper. Paste pictures of healthy foods on the construction paper; Play the shopping game: show girls a healthy lunch (fruit, drink sandwich )and help them "shop" for all the ingredients in the lunch. Provide a shopping list as a take-home for the girls. Older girls can run this event by leading the rotations and helping the younger girls.