Every Council's Own Girl Scout Fun Patch Program That Your Girl Scouts Can Earn from Anywhere: Reading and Writing

Welcome back to my very weird series in which I am listing, week by week, topic by topic, every single Council's Own Girl Scout fun patch program that your Girl Scouts can earn from everywhere!

My Girl Scout troop enjoys earning Council's Own fun patches, as well as official badges and retired badges. I usually look for a fun patch that they can earn in addition to a badge whenever we're planning a big project or a trip, etc. This list is essentially just my own research written down for easy reference.

This week's category: Reading and Writing! This includes fun patches about literary characters or genres, fun patches that support literacy, and fun patches that incorporate reading or writing challenges. 

I was a little disappointed that there weren't more Reading and Writing fun patches. Reading and writing are my favorite things, sure, but also the favorite things of many of the kids in my Girl Scout troop! I suppose that part of the problem might be that it can feel tricky to keep assigned reading and writing activities from feeling too school-ish, but there's so much scope for fun. When my Girl Scout troop had a Percy Jackson meeting, they made and battled monster pinatas, created their own card game, figured out which Greek god or goddess had secretly parented them, and just generally had a glorious time diving into Greek mythology and children's fantasy.

For this list, I only included fun patch programs that fit the following criteria:

1. Girl Scouts can earn this fun patch wherever they are. I did not include any fun patch programs that have site-specific criteria, unless I felt that those criteria would be easy to substitute and still maintain the point of the fun patch program. I also didn't include fun patch programs that require time-specific criteria that have already passed, such as patches programs designed for the 2020 COVID lockdowns. I noted in the description of each patch when substitutions would be required.
2. Girl Scouts can obtain the council's requirements to earn this fun patch. I found several instances in which the council still sells a specific fun patch, but has deleted all the requirements from its website. If I couldn't find an easy link to those requirements from another site, I did not include the patch.
3. Girl Scouts can obtain the physical fun patch. There were also several instances in which councils still host the requirements for a fun patch program, but no longer sell the patch (or, as in the case of a few GSAK patches, they have fewer than ten remaining). If it is unlikely for a Girl Scout to be able to obtain the fun patch, I did not include it. The link to purchase each fun patch is in the caption for its graphic.

READING AND WRITING

Library Love GSC

Library Love, Girl Scouts of Citrus. Become familiar with your library and the services that it offers through this fun patch program. This fun patch pairs well with the Cadette Book Artist badge, or for a younger Girl Scout troop planning a field trip to the public library.

Living Like Laura GSEIWI

Living Like Laura, Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois. Learn about Laura Ingalls Wilder while immersing yourself in the pioneer life. This fun patch program pairs well with the Junior Playing the Past badge. 

Reading Diva GSWCF

Reading Diva, Girl Scouts of West Central Florida. Rewards Girl Scouts for reading. You could pair this with a school or community reading program, or a book drive service project.

Read to Lead GSLE

Read to Lead, Girl Scouts of Louisiana East. Read widely and explore activities that advocate literacy.

Summer Reading GSAK

Summer Reading, Girl Scouts of Alaska. Create and complete a summer reading goal and try other literacy activities to earn this fun patch. Thsi is a good fun patch program for Girl Scouts to work on independently. 

Here's a look at my complete fun patch series:

• Arts and Crafts
• Culture, Diversity, and Equity
• Games and Sports
• Geography/History
• Outdoors
• Practical Life Skills
• Reading and Writing
• Science
• Service Learning
• Social-Emotional Skills
• Technology, Engineering, and Math

Follow my Craft Knife Facebook page for more Girl Scout resources as I exhaustively compile them!

WIP Wednesday: Felt and Fences

It's the middle of the week, and here are the projects that I'm in the middle of!

Felt Moveable Alphabet

I saw this TikTok the other day--

--and immediately decided that a felt moveable alphabet would be the perfect next big gift for my toddler niece, AND it would also work to accomplish one of my favorite long-term goals, which is to use up my ridiculously large felt stash!

Here's where I am on that project today:

Cutting and sewing by hand is VERY slow going for me, so it's good that I'm not in a hurry to finish this project. The letters are looking super cute, though, exactly the way I'd hoped, and I love how tactile and sensorial they're going to be with the color and the heft and the stitching and the texture. I'm also considering making some command cards with short words on them in the same font, sized so that my niece can set these felt letters directly on them to spell the words. 

Front Yard Fence

I've been able to read the writing on the wall for years now, with my college-bound kid and the dog she takes on two walks a day.

Gee, I wonder who's going to pick up that slack when she goes off to college?

I've been bitching my head off for years about our need for a fenced-in yard, and I'm not even going to go into how I would have freaking LOVED to have had it when the kids were young enough that I didn't like them playing out there, just one roll down the hill from a road with a high speed limit. 

But oh, well. I will also love it when I can substitute one walk a day for letting Luna out to frolic in what will soon be our fenced front yard!

And crap. Here's me just now noticing, after the fence guys have been out there all morning so I know that part of the fence is mostly done by now, that the gate isn't lined up with the sidewalk?!?

Whatever. I'll just sit planters on that sidewalk, I guess.

Eco-Friendly Kid Craft Book Reviews

I wrote 50% of this article last week, and another 40% of it on Monday, and now I'm just waiting for the public library to give me the last book I need. Hopefully I'm able to pick it up in the next couple of days, or I'll have to come up with a completely different topic and write an entirely new article for Crafting a Green World this week!

Novel and Non-Fiction

Here are the books that I'm currently in the middle of:

Please note that neither of these are the many books in my house that are overdue--those I'm probably going to have to just return and check out again, ahem. 

Deliberately Divided is a study of what little can be known so far about the unethical human experimentation done in New York City by deliberating separating twins and triplets surrendered for adoption, never telling them or their families what had been done, and regularly testing and observing the children for several years afterwards, to what purpose we don't know, because the experimenters never published their results and instead insisted that all records of their actions be sealed until 2065. To me, the idea of separating newborn siblings for no other reason than to study them feels like an unconscionable human rights violation, and I think I'm progressing so slowly through this book partly because it makes me feel so sad.

The Book of Accidents seems, so far, to be a horror novel about a haunted house and maybe a ghostly serial killer? I'm not sold on it yet, but I do usually love horror, so I'll give it a few more chapters before I decide to DNR it.

Teenager's Bedroom

The house I grew up in had paneling on all the walls, and I still really don't know a ton about painting rooms. But I DO know that I hate priming these bookshelves the most!

I'm pretending like someone is going to help me prime the whole top half of the shelves that are too tall for me, and the top half of the walls, too, but in reality I'm going to have to go get the ladder from the garage, unfortunately.

But check out how much whiter the primer is than those nasty walls that I did kind of already know were nasty, but did think were white?!?

And nope, I don't have drop cloths down, because we've booked a company to come and tear up that nasty carpet, fix the floors so that they're actually level, and then install wood flooring. I'm trying to figure out if I should definitely paint the baseboards and door frames now, or see if I can paint them when the workers take them off to do the floors, or do it after they've finished and just hope I'm more careful in here than I was when I painted the walls in the family room, ahem.

Here's to my fond hope that by this time next week, all of these WIPs will be finished and I'll be in the middle of all-new WIPs!

Other than that alphabet, of course. That alphabet is going to take me months to finish...

Homeschool High School: Creative Writing and Creative Connections

Syd is studying and practicing creative writing more intensely this year, and we are having a LOT of fun with it. Creative writing with a high school student is now officially one of my Top Five subjects from our entire homeschool history together.

In keeping with my tradition of using one textbook as a spine, supplemented heavily, this is our Creative Writing spine:

• Imaginative Writing

Syd completes the daily 10-minute freewrite taught in this book each school day, although she likes to use it for different purposes than the "automatic writing" that Gertrude Stein devised. Currently, I think she's writing a serialized story in her daily 10-minute bursts, a high-interest, low-stakes challenge that's perfect for this study.

Weekly, Syd reads, records, and writes a few sentences of review of at least one novel, one short story, and one poem. I'd originally had high hopes that I could steer her towards some canonical works of my own choosing (will I never have a child who finishes a MENSA reading list?!?), but Syd prefers to make her own choices, which is, of course, better since her choices can fit her interests and aid her engagement and interest. Since she happily completes these assignments every week, I will not protest!

Syd is also working her way through Wordly Wise Book 12 this year, because an extensive vocabulary is the best tool you can have in your creative writing toolbox. This is the last book in the Wordly Wise series, gasp!, so I'll have to think of something new for spelling/vocabulary next year, because I simply cannot have a homeschool that does not include spelling/vocabulary acquisition.

My favorite parts of this Creative Writing study, though, are when we come together to write, play, and make creative connections. While I don't do formal, "school"-style lessons, I like each of our meet-ups to have a warm-up activity, a writing activity that we do together, and a writing activity, ideally inspired by our lesson, that Syd can work on in her own time and turn in later.

Six Degrees of Wikipedia is an uninspired title for a super-fun game that we sometimes play for a warm-up activity. It comes from Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, which Matt and I like to play, and of course from Six Degrees of Separation. 

To play Six Degrees of Wikipedia, you pick your starting point and your ending point, both as random as possible. The other day, Syd and I started with "Walt Disney," and wanted to end with "apricot." So we both went to the Wikipedia page for Walt Disney, then using only the blue links, we tried to get to "apricot." As we went, we wrote down every link we clicked on so we could follow our path later.

We both got from Walt Disney to apricots, but the path that each of us took was completely different. I went from the link to California, then through California's produce exports, then through types of fruit. Syd went through some animation links to get to colors to apricot the color to apricot the fruit.

The lesson, of course, is that there is more than one path from A to B, and the practice is in opening your mind to making creative connections to get you down that path. 

Another creative thinking warm-up activity that we like is Dictionary Definitions (titling is not my strong suit). We each take a dictionary (every home needs multiple dictionaries!), and put five or so abstract terms on index cards, one term per card. Next, we lay them all face-up so we can both see them, and we spend a few minutes writing vividly imagined non-definitions for some of the terms. The "definition" should be a vivid image that defines the term without literally defining the term--think along the lines of "tell me the definition without telling me the definition."

When we've both got a few definitions, we trade cards, and the other person has to try to match our definitions to the correct terms. It's almost always possible! Here are some of my recent favorites:

Syd's definitions are always the funniest.

Our "lesson" the first day we did the Dictionary Definitions warm-up was actually a comparison/contrast of vivid imagery vs. concrete details. We traded these picture books that have vivid imagery back and forth (pro tip: picture books are SO GREAT for illustrating key literary terms and writing concepts without having to devote a ton of time to reading!):

• The Black Book of Colors
• Firebird
• Magnificent Homespun Brown

In each of these books, the author uses vivid imagery in place of concrete details. The Black Book of Colors is particularly interesting because it actually does use concrete details, but it uses them AS vivid imagery to explain an abstract concept.

Next, we read Dreamers, which uses vivid imagery to tell a story. The imagery works well to signal sensory overwhelm and to make scenarios that might ordinarily feel familiar instead feel abstract and foreign. 

The special thing about Dreamers, however, is that there's an author's note afterwards in which the author tells the same story plainly, with concrete details. She couldn't have created a better contrast if she was writing this book solely to my specifications for this lesson!

The activity lent itself perfectly to an assignment asking Syd to write a story two ways, one with primarily vivid, abstract imagery rather than concrete details, and one with primarily concrete details rather than vivid, abstract imagery.

On another day, we talked about writing prompts and how to use them creatively. There are tons of books whose primary purpose is to provide writing prompts and creative writing exercises. Good academic choices are 59 Reasons to Write and What If?, but there are so many highly accessible, open-and-go choices, as well:

• Rip the Page!
• Amazing Story Generator
• Leap Write In!

Of these, Syd and I have had the most fun using the Amazing Story Generator for timed writing exercises. We each generate a story prompt, then spend ten or so minutes just riffing on it. Then we trade and read each other's brilliant pieces!

Inspired by the Amazing Story Generator, Syd made her own writing prompt creator. Here are a couple of my favorite randomly-generated prompts:

I mean, don't you want to read both of those stories?!?

So far, we're happily invested in all kinds of short story writing, but my goal is to drop everything for NaNoWriMo, and then perhaps try our hands at some poetry. Syd doesn't like either of these ideas nearly as much as I do, though, so if I can't convince her, there's nothing wrong with a full year of short stories!

DIY: Super Easy Travel Journals

I strongly believe that journaling is one of the best things that you can do while traveling. Life happens especially quickly when you're on a trip, and you're likely to forget what you don't write down. And if it's a special trip--like once-in-a-lifetime special--there are details that you'll want to remember for the rest of your life. 

The frustrating thing about store-bought blank books for this type of purpose is that they're just too large. You likely don't want unnecessary bulk when you travel, and anyway, I think it's nicer to have a journal just the right size to record one single journey.

This DIY travel journal that I used to make with my kiddos when they were little, and which I most recently made with my Girl Scout troop before our Caribbean cruise, is just the right size for a 1-2-week trip. It's light as air, has some wiggle room as to number of pages it contains, supports a variety of paper types for whatever media you prefer, and can be modified to include all kinds of other fun and creative journal elements.

And it's easy as pie to make!

Here are the supplies you'll need:

• 6-8 8.5"x11" pages. Regular printer paper is perfect, but you can include tracing paper, watercolor paper (although that's thick enough that you might have to put in fewer pages), kraft paper (for bonus points, cut this out from brown paper bags!), cardstock, etc. 
• 2 pieces of cardboard or similar, at least 5.5"x8.5". The ideal size for this would be about 6"x9". My Girl Scout troop used some of my stash mat board, sized 7.5"x9.5", and it was maybe a little big but worked fine. You could also use cardboard cut from shipping boxes or food packaging, or even rip the covers off of those old books that hang around in your crafting stash.
• duct tape, at least 17" long. I used more stash duct tape for this, basically everything still left after Syd's duct tape dress form, and the kids had fun choosing their colors.
• stapler.
• large eraser.
• metal ruler.

1. Tape the cover. Set a piece of duct tape at least 9" long sticky side up on your work surface. With pretty sides down, put your two pieces of cardboard on the tape, leaving a gap of a scant 1/4" between the two. Fold the extra tape at the top and bottom over, then overlap with another strip of duct tape:

Use a fingernail or bone folder to press the tape into the gap and smooth it against itself and the cardboard covers:

2. Staple the pages to the covers. Stack 6-8 pages together, then fold them in half and crease them. Center the fold on the gap you created between the two book covers:

Hold everything carefully and flip it upside down, so that the pages are facing down and the duct tape spine and covers are facing up. 

Put the eraser directly underneath the first spot you'll staple.

Staple straight through the duct tape spine, center fold of the pages, and into the eraser.

Turn the book over and pull the eraser off the prongs of the staple. Use the edge of a metal ruler to bend the prongs down:

Repeat 2-3 more times down the spine of your travel journal:

Your travel journal is ready to go!

Here are some creative components that you can easily add to this type of travel journal:

• fill-in-the-blanks template. This makes a good prompt for littler kids--to reduce bulk, you can hand-draw a template directly onto the pages of a travel journal rather than printing and pasting one. Older writers might still find a list of prompts helpful.
• embroidery. You can use this for pure embellishment, or to add travel routes to a hand-drawn map. 
• paperclip bookmark. This is an easy way to hold your page between entries. 
• envelopes. You could literally just tape an envelope to the inside cover of your travel journal, but I really like these stitched covers made from book pages. I often score old travel guides from my local public library's used book sale, and envelopes made from these are extra awesome for travel journals.
• travel journal holder. I made these out of felt for every kid in my Girl Scout troop, and they came in super handy! The kids could put their travel journals in them, but also their favorite pens/pencils, stickers, ephemera, etc. 

And here are some sneaky fun things that you can buy to bribe teenagers to fill out their nice travel journals!

• gel pens
• stickers
• photo printer
• travel watercolors

I am under no delusion that I'm not the only person who completely filled out their travel journal, dutifully recording every single day spent with my girls and my Girl Scouts. But I hope the memory of this practice, how easy and fun it was, how important I tried to make it feel, the room for creativity and personality I tried to leave, will inspire the kids to give it a try again on a future trip. 

Scrapbook Paper Stationery Sets

This tutorial was originally posted on Crafting a Green World in 2016. 

 Whether you need a quick and easy handmade gift or you would rather not hit up the store just so you can send some thank-you notes, you'll find that it is super simple to make your own personalized, handmade stationery, entirely from your favorite scrapbook paper. 

 You will need: 

  scrapbook paper. I'm using 8.5"x11" scrapbook paper for the stationery in these photos, and I had very little waste left over. You can also, of course, use typing paper of the same size (perhaps with children's artwork on one side?), or even wrapping paper or thin cardboard food packaging, but keep in mind that your paper needs to be sturdy enough to be mailed, and if you choose something very thick, you'll need to account for that in your measuring. 

  measuring and cutting tools. I'm using a self-healing cutting mat, clear plastic ruler, and the same rotary craft knife that I almost cut off a chunk of my left forefinger with. 

  glue stick. It's basic, but really is the best supply for this job. 

 1. Make custom envelopes. If you have a size in mind for your notepaper, you can make custom envelopes that will fit the notepaper perfectly. Otherwise, there are loads of good envelope templates online. The envelopes that I'm making from my 8.5"x11" scrapbook paper are 4"x6", not including the flap. 

  2. Cut down a second piece of scrapbook paper to fit the envelopes. The matching notepaper should be twice the height of your envelope, and approximately 1/4" less in width. For my own pieces of notepaper, I cut 1/2" off of the width of my scrapbook paper, and then cut the remaining piece in half, giving me two pieces of notepaper that are 5.5"x8". 

 3. Fold each piece of notepaper in half. You can stack them together and insert them into your envelope, or make a second envelope to accommodate the second piece of notepaper. 

 To address your envelopes, put a white mailing label on the front of each envelope and write on that. Alternately, fold your envelopes so that the scrapbook paper is on the inside and the white side is facing out. If you buy a book of scrapbook paper, you'll find that it includes both similar patterns in different colorways and different patterns in the same colorway; either option would make a lovely, large set of handmade stationery to give as a gift.