The Epic of Gilgamesh and Gingerbread Cuneiform: Studying Mesopotamia

My teenager's combination World History/Art History study (that I'm still not entirely sure how I'm going to record on her high school transcript...) is a TON of fun. We read the history and the art history, study the major artworks, read some literature or mythology, do something immersive, and write about it. I love it, and so far it seems pretty teenager-friendly, too!

My favorite parts of her Mesopotamia unit were listening to The Epic of Gilgamesh (the teenager ships Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and I can't say that she's wrong), envisioning the Ishtar Gate (not to be confused with the Gates of Ishtar, a Swedish metal band), figuring out the Sumerian genealogy of gods and goddesses (always a hit with my mythology-obsessed kid), and making this gingerbread cuneiform.

The idea--and the gingerbread recipe!--come from this Edible Archaeology post. We also followed the author's suggestion to use a disposable bamboo chopstick as a stylus, which led to a whole adventure of eating at several local Asian restaurants over the course of a couple of weeks, since every restaurant we went to happened to have the separated chopsticks with round ends, not the snap-apart ones with square ends!

Finally, we were met with success--and absolutely DELICIOUS ramen--at this little place tucked into an apartment complex behind the grocery store near the mall:

With the proper bamboo chopsticks and a batch of gingerbread dough, we were ready to write!

We did not follow the author's highly ambitious example of copying a large cuneiform tablet, because WHOAH. Instead, we cut small squares, then used the stylus to copy some of the examples from my teenager's world history textbook:

A chopstick makes a PERFECT stylus!

Baked, the impressions still showed perfectly!

Cuneiform sign meaning "god" or "sky"

Cuneiform sign meaning "day" or "sun"

The student scribe takes an art break!

older Cuneiform sign meaning "barley." Doesn't it look like barley?

Since we did this project right before Christmas, we went ahead and used this dough to also make gingerbread cookies, and the kids made their gingerbread houses. Eleven years into this beloved tradition, I'm now a devotee of melted sugar as glue, and I still think the houses look messy and gross, but nevertheless, they bring me joy:

A lot of hands-on history projects are just fun little craft projects that don't teach a ton about history; if you want your hands-on history project to be valuable for history, and not just a thematically-related activity, you do have to be vigilant. When the kids were very little, for instance, letting them build Egyptian pyramids out of sugar cubes didn't teach them anything about the history of Egypt, but it was a good STEM project and they loved it. But having them create salt dough maps of Egypt and paint and label them was also fun, and reinforced some useful information about Egypt that we still know, such as the fact that Upper Egypt was south and Lower Egypt was north because that's the way the Nile flows, and that the Delta is shaped the same as the Greek letter. 

There's nothing wrong with doing thematically-related but non-valuable projects, even with older homeschoolers--my teenager created this gingerbread Stonehenge during her Astronomy study, learning little about Stonehenge but a decent amount about gingerbread construction and hand-building, and it was fun! But this gingerbread cuneiform, we found, taught us a LOT about cuneiform, and therefore about Mesopotamia. We were all surprised to see how exactly the square stylus recreated the cuneiform, and how well the imprints stayed when baked. You wouldn't be able to recreate that nearly so easily by drawing the figures, but you could get a LOT of cuneiform onto even a hand-sized piece of clay, and that clay would be portable, durable, and virtually immortal. 

That's a lot of knowledge gained for oneself while also decorating cookies, drinking eggnog, and listening to Christmas music!

We've spiraled through history throughout our homeschool years, or done interest-led unit studies non-chronologically, so I've built up a lot of Mesopotamia resources. Here are some of what we've enjoyed over the past dozen years:

• irrigation activity. Irrigation was critical to the development of Mesopotamian agriculture! Here's an idea for how to model an irrigation system. I think it would be cool to use chia seeds so you could build an actual working model!
• map of known ziggurats. Research these via YouTube or Google Images, place them in your salt dough map, glue thumbnail images to a wall map, flyover them in Google Earth, etc.
• Mesopotamia flashcards. Use these flashcards for matching or memory work. 
• popsicle stick war machines. If you read Story of the World (which you should!), you'll encounter Sargon the Great. You can use popsicle sticks to model some of the war machines that he used.
• Royal Game of Ur. You can't study Mesopotamia without playing this game found in a tomb in Ur!
• sexagesimal system. Mesopotamians counted in Base 60, something that you can still see reflected today in activities like measuring time (60 seconds, 60 minutes) and circles (360 degrees). Here's a starting point for researching the sexagesimal system, but I've found some great activities in books over the years that I pull out occasionally for math enrichment.
• Treasures of the UCLA Library: Cuneiform Tablets. My teenager and I watched this short video before beginning our side-hustle as cuneiform scribes. 
• write your name in cuneiform. This is a fun way to get just a taste of cuneiform writing
• Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors: An Activity Guide. This book has a good recipe for sebetu bread. Read more about sebetu and Mesopotamian recipes here. 
• The Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook
• The Epic of Gilgamesh
• Eyewitness Mesopotamia. Eyewitness books and Smithsonian Handbooks were the kids' JAM when they were little!
• The Lifeboat that Saved the World. The author is one of the Mesopotamia curators at the British Museum!
• Story of the World, Volume 1. You must listen to the audiobook of this, because Jim Weiss!

And the beloved spines of our current World History/Art History study:

• Archaeology: The Essential Guide to Our Human Past
• Duiker's World History
• Gardner's Art through the Ages
• and lots and lots of images found via Google Images or downloaded from museum digital databases

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Cave Painting with Story of the World Ancient Times

Why yes, we HAVE been on chapter 1 of volume 1 of The Story of the World for about six months now!

The girls enjoy listening to the audiobooks of all four volumes of Story of the World (which I've burned to mp3 and put on my ipod), so I'd say that they've been skipping around quite a bit of history in their free time, but just when I think that we're ready to move on to, I don't know, chapter TWO?!?, somebody (me) thinks up or comes across another activity related to chapter 1, and somebody else (them) gets hyped up to do it, so there we go.

This time? Cave painting.

Including Paleolithic-era cave painting might be stretching even Bauer's definition of "from the earliest nomads" a little bit, but especially because the girls and I have spent so much time exploring prehistory and the evolution of the earliest humans on our own, I liked the idea of bridging the gap, so to speak, with an activity that connected early nomads to later ones, and I thought it was important to bring more historical (nomads didn't ONLY roam in 7,000 BCE) and geographical context (nomads didn't ONLY roam in the Fertile Crescent) to the study.

Because nomads made lots of cool cave art in lots of cool places during lots of different time periods. My favorite cave painting web sites are these two from France:

• Chauvet Cave
• Lascaux Cave--this site is AMAZING, just so you know. It's a virtual walk-through of the cave, down to the tiniest detail, and you can zoom up in even more detail on each piece of art that you pass, as well as get more information on it.

The Cueva de las Manos in Argentina is also a pretty great cave, but its web site is nothing fancy. 

To make our own cave art, I first created a cave environment by cutting open a ton of brown paper grocery bags and duct taping them all over a wall. The girls' loft bed was still against the wall at that time, so I taped the bags right over the planks of the bed that were against the wall, adding some dimension to the cave, since that was very important to many cave artists. 

Since the cave was a temporary installation, I prepared several pots of tempera (tempera's quality is crap, so it's unsuited to make any art that you want to keep, but it's so cheap that it's perfect for process-based work), and handed it all off to the kids:

I didn't give the kids any instructions (other than "We only paint on the brown paper") but we've read so many books about cave art, and seen so many visual examples, that I shouldn't be surprised at how traditional their work was:

It ended up as QUITE the fabulous cave:

Because we'd all been so intrigued by our study of Cueva de las Manos, I set up a second smaller cave wall specifically to do hand stencils. I used our liquid watercolors in spritz bottles, which work great on brown paper bags:

It was REALLY messy--of COURSE!--but turned out great. The kids both stenciled both of their hands (spritzing that bottle is an excellent fine motor-strengthening activity, especially for the non-dominant hand), and I even convinced Matt that he should join me in stenciling our hands, too, so that we ended up with a Paleolithic family portrait, of sorts:

Other than the aforementioned web sites, here are the other resources that we pored over to learn about cave painting:

• Recipe and Craft Guide to France
• Art: The Definitive Visual Guide
• The Cave Painter of Lascaux
• Cave of Forgotten Dreams
• Europe before Rome

Our American Revolution Unit Study

Yes, you CAN study the American Revolution with elementary students, and it CAN be exciting! Here's our complete American Revolution unit study, including all the hands-on activities that we did--and all of our travels!

Joy Hakim's History of Us was our spine for this unit, with all of the extra readings, activities, and field trips organized to be relevant to a specific chapter in her text. Although they're roughly in order below, check out her books for the real chronology of what we did.

For each activity, click on the link. If it's an outside link, it'll have the reference that I used. If it's a link to another of my blog posts, it'll have the tutorial, links to any required resources, and links to the other reference materials, readings, and assorted outside resources that we used.

1. Early America: We listened to/read Joy Hakim's Making Thirteen Colonies for context to the American Revolution, completing just a few field trips and hands-on activities.
1. Christopher Columbus unit study. He's not a role model, but he does exemplify the Age of Exploration that I wanted the children to understand, and these days there are more accurate resources available to study him. Our Christopher Columbus unit study included a workbook that had acceptable coverage, several readings to provide more detail, a field trip to see recreations of the Nina and Pinta, a hands-on project to make our own recreations, and some live-action role play of their voyages. 
2. model Jamestown. This was a great way for the kids to see what a colony looked like and how it was structured, and it came out so adorable that the kids were thrilled
3. Jamestown online adventure game. It's an online role-playing simulation. Can you survive in Jamestown?
4. Mayflower map model. We made a few of the 3D maps from this book, including this one, a map of the early American slave trade, and a map of Paul Revere's ride. They're all wonderful.
5. The Bloodless Revolution and Parliament. We went to see a copy of the Magna Carta in person, so I wanted the kids to understand the Bloodless Revolution, but it's also important to understand Parliament as a contrast to the US system of government.
1. Parliament YouTube channel. Not much is super interesting on this channel, but you can surf around and get a good idea of what Parliament looks like and how it operates.
6. Geography of the 13 Colonies. Got to have this memorized! I bought these maps and made pin flags for them.
7. War of Jenkins' Ear. From Colonies to Country covers this; here's a more in-depth map to make the divisions clear.
8. The French and Indian War. Even if you don't do the rest of the build-up to the American Revolution, you HAVE to start here. It's where Washington learned to lead, and where the trouble over land really got started. Use From Colonies to Country as your spine.
1. lapbook. We don't do lapbooks, per se, but we did do notebooking with this unit, and they put many of these little lapbooks into their notebooks.
2. Story of the World, v. 3. This offers a broader geo-historical perspective to the French and Indian War. If you also have the activity book, you can use its quizzes and mapwork.
3. Fort Necessity. I discuss our trip here, as well as telling you all of the other resources, reference materials, and additional activities that we used.
9. The Intolerable Acts.  It started as a series of taxes to make the colonies "repay" Great Britain for the war, but then devolved into more taxes just to punish them. Protests, then riots, then rebellion ensued.
1. Mission: Crown or Colony? The kids have, over the years, played this role-playing simulation of the build-up to the American Revolution several times. It never seems to get old!
2. England's Reasons for Taxing the Colonies. This little lapbook is a handy reference to have the kids make and stick in their notebooks.
3. Skittles Role Play. One morning, I divvied a huge bag of Skittles into three Ziplock baggies. Each kid decorated her baggie as one of the colonies. I decorated mine as Great Britain, and only had a handful of Skittles in mine, whereas each of theirs was stuffed full. I told them that at the end of the schoolday, they could eat all of the Skittles in their bags. And then, I began to tax them. I taxed them for breakfast. I taxed them for paper to do their schoolwork. I taxed them to look over their schoolwork. I taxed them for taking them to the park, and taxed them for taking them home. Every now and then, I would enjoy a handful of Skittles from my bag while they seethed. Even though I taxed them only a Skittle at a time, by the end of the day they each only had about six or so Skittles in their bags, and Syd was so angry that she was crying. They will NEVER forget what it's like to be punitively taxed!
4. Battle Animations. There's a good one of the Boston Tea Party here!
5. Boston's Freedom Trail. Go there if you can, and see all the sites!
2. American Revolution: We covered this in a lot of depth, with my goal to paint as vivid picture as possible of the people and places involved, and to really delve into the "why" and "how" of the events. I didn't emphasize the memorization of dates as much as I do in some units, because there was so much else that I wanted the kids to understand about this important event. They can always look up the date of the Shot Heard Round the World, but the reason why it's called that, what happened to instigate it, and what happened after? That's what I want them to know by heart.
1. American Revolution coloring book. This is a fun review activity to complete as you go; if you color each page as you study it, then in the end you'll have a completed story book of the war!
2. famous and not-so-famous people. As we went through From Colonies to Country, I had the kids complete one of these little lapbooks for each famous person we read about. 
1. Write with a quill pen. This is one of those fun activities that gets a kid into the mindset of a person living at the time. We also love dressing up in period costumes and playing the games and eating the food appropriate to the time.
3. The Shot Heard Round the World. It's so important to really understand this one.
1. "Paul Revere's Ride." It's not completely accurate, but it makes for great Memory Work.
2. Animated Map. This makes it easier to see what was going on with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. 
3. Minute Men National Historic Park. Here's our visit there, as well as the Schoolhouse Rock song that I sang incessantly. 
4. Declaration of Independence. It's the pivotal event of the American Revolution, and of the history of our country. If you can, go see it before it's too faded to make anything out of it at all.
1. Independence Hall National Historic Site. It has several Junior Ranger badges that kids can earn. Here's our visit there--you should go, too!
5. British Soldiers and American Soldiers. They were all just people, and they all had their reasons, many of which had nothing to do with Independence.
1. Military Perspectives from PBS. You can scroll over the illustrations to learn more about each soldier. 
2. Comic. This is pretty much what they were thinking, lol.
3. Clothespin soldiers. If the kids had been younger, we'd have made this.
6. George Rogers Clark. He led an exciting series of raids against British forts, and that National Historic Site is right here in Indiana! We visited it, the kids earned Junior Ranger badges, and they put brochures and postcards from the site into their American Revolution notebooks. 
7. battle sites. We didn't spend a ton of time on battle sites that I knew we weren't going to visit, because battles are really just a lot of running here and there and shooting, etc. I did have the kids complete this battle map to use as a reference, however, whenever we read about one or planned to visit it.
8. Thaddeus Kosciuszko Junior Ranger badge. From Colonies to Country tells the story of Thaddeus Kosciuszko. Go see his house if you can!
9. Valley Forge. We visited there and the kids earned their Junior Ranger badges.
1. The kids used Draw Write Now to help them create a portrait of George Washington. Instead of copying the text from the book, though, they had to write their own information about him. 
2. Mount Vernon. Although this is where Washington lived when he wasn't at war, the museum includes an excellent summary of his wartime actions. We went there, and even off-season, it was a LOT of fun!
1. We made Washington-era hoecakes, using the recipe in this book. 
10. Washington Crossing the Delaware. We visited Washington Crossing State Park, but the most interesting activity, I thought, was downloading and printing the largest-scale painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware that I could find, and then doing some guided viewing and discussion of it with the kids.
11. Battle of Trenton. This is an important battle! We didn't go there, but we did explore this interactive map. 
3. The Articles of Confederation. This is how America was governed before the Constitution was written, so it's important to understand it. We used From Colonies to Country. 
1. Articles of Confederation on BrainPop. It's a must-see! The kids watched the video and took the quiz.
4. The Constitutional Convention and the Constitution: We did most of our learning about the Constitution on our road trip to see it, and learning about the Constitutional Convention completed this unit study.
1. Independence Hall. Go see the room where it happened!
2. Constitutional Convention on BrainPop. My kids LOVE BrainPop! They watched the video and completed the quiz.
3. Germantown White House Junior Ranger badge. Although George Washington did live in this house twice, it was occupied by the British during the American Revolution, and is a great example of a wealthy house during the time period. I put it with our Constitution studies because it's in Philadelphia, and we'd hoped to see it when we went there (alas, we didn't, because it was closed).

That pretty much covers it, although I'm sure there are tons of books and videos that I've forgotten, and, of course, we thought about the American Revolution a lot, talked about it a lot, and contextualized it with our other studies in the ten months that we spent on it. It took a ton of time, and I'm happy to admit that we're taking a bit of a break from intensive history study after that, but it was so worth it, and so do-able, even with upper elementary kids!

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

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: Geography and History! This category includes fun patches for geographical locations, if they can be earned not on site (I didn't include place-based fun patch programs that required specific location visits, since you can't earn those from anywhere), as well as fun patches for historical subjects and notable people of history. 

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.

GEOGRAPHY/HISTORY

100 Years of Votes for Women GSEWNI

100 Years of Votes for Women, Girl Scouts of Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho. Learn about the history of women's suffrage and the importance of voting.

2020 Women's right to Vote Centennial GSMISTS

2020 Women's Right to Vote Centennial, Girl Scouts of Michigan Shore to Shore. Learn about the women's suffrage movement and the importance of voting. This fun patch program pairs well with any of the Democracy badges and the Junior Inside Government badge.

Africa to America USAGSO

Africa to America, USA Girl Scouts Overseas. Learn about Africa, Afro-French culture, and African-American culture.

Be a Partner: Sangam GSCM

Be a Partner: Sangam, Girl Scouts of Central Maryland. Learn about the WAGGGS center in India, and explore Indian culture. These WAGGGS fun patches pair well with any World Thinking Day activities.

Be a Partner: Our Cabana GSCM

Be a Partner: Our Cabana, Girl Scouts of Central Maryland. Learn about the Nuestra Cabana World Centre and Mexican history/geography/culture.

Be a Partner: Our Chalet, GSCM

Be a Partner, Our Chalet, Girl Scouts of Central Maryland. Learn about the Our Chalet World Centre and the history and culture of Switzerland.

Be a Partner: Pax Lodge GSCM

Be a Partner: Pax Lodge, Girl Scouts of Central Maryland. Learn about the Pax Lodge World Centre and the history and culture of England.

Be a Partner: Kusafiri GSCM

Be a Partner: Kusafiri, Girl Scouts of Central Maryland. Learn about the Kusafiri World Centre and topics in African culture and history.

Be a Partner: WAGGGS GSCM

Be a Partner: WAGGGS, Girl Scouts of Central Maryland. Learn about WAGGGS and explore the diversity of world cultures. 

Because of Her GSBDC

Because of Her, Girl Scouts of Black Diamond Council. Learn about the life of a different strong female role model every month. 

Black History Month GSK

Black History Month, Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana. Celebrate Black History Month by learning about Black role models. 

Civic Engagement Scavenger Hunt GSKSMO

Civic Engagement, Girl Scouts of Northeast Kansas and Northwest Missouri. Visit places important to local, state, and national civil life. This fun patch program could support enough field trips for an entire programming year for an active troop.

Civil Rights GSSA

Civil Rights, Girl Scouts of Southern Alabama. Learn more about the history of the Civil Rights Movement. This is a good fun patch program to fill a meeting during Black History Month or around Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, or in preparation for a field trip to a site important to Civil Rights history.

D-DAY 1944 Normandy USAGSO

D-Day 1944 Normandy, USA Girl Scouts Overseas. Answer questions to learn more about D-Day.

Discover Dubai USAGSO

Discover Dubai, USA Girl Scouts Overseas. View a Google Slides presentation, then answer questions.

Discovering Flight GSCCC

Discovering Flight, Girl Scouts of the Colonial Coast. Answer questions to learn more about the history of flight.

Dolores Huerta GSHCA

Dolores Huerta, Girl Scouts Heart of Central California. Learn about the life of Dolores Huerta, and the importance of fighting racism. My favorite program activities are the ones that expose Girl Scouts to strong female role models! This one is particularly special, because it was created in collaboration with Dolores Huerta, herself!

Erie Canal Ecology GSWNY

Erie Canal Ecology, Girl Scouts of Western New York. Learn about the Erie Canal and its place in the ecosystem. This fun patch pairs well with the Ambassador Water badge.

European Castles and Palaces USAGO

European Castles and Palaces, USA Girl Scouts Overseas. Learn about some of the castles and palaces of Europe. This fun patch program could make a fun supplement to World Thinking Day activities.

Four Little Girls GSNCA

Four Little Girls, Girl Scouts of North Central Alabama. Learn about this sad but very important tragedy in Alabama and explore other aspects of Civil Rights history. You can find the Spike Lee documentary through various streaming services. 

Freedom Seekers, GSWNY

Freedom Seekers, Girl Scouts of Western New York. Learn about the Underground Railroad and the lives of those enslaved in North America before the Civil War. There are a couple of place-based requirements that you'll need to substitute, ideally with a field trip to an Underground Railroad location near you.

Freedom's Rites, GSWNY

Freedom's Rites, Girl Scouts of Western New York. Explore the history of suffrage and Civil Rights through these fun patch activities. This fun patch program pairs well with the Democracy badges.

Getting to Know the Desert GSACPC

Getting to Know the Desert, Girl Scouts of Arizona Cactus-Pines Council. Learn about the desert ecosystem of the American Southwest.

Girl Scout Birthday Week GSK

Girl Scout Birthday Week, Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana. Celebrate the founding of Girl Scouts with a week of fun activities.

Global Action Days GSCNWI

Global Action Days, Girl Scouts of Chicago and Northwest Indiana. Celebrate the international holidays that bring awareness to equity and diversity issues. This fun patch program is meant to be earned throughout the Girl Scout year, so is a good way to ensure ready-made programming for a few troop meetings.

Global Girl Scout GSOC

Global Girl Scout, Girl Scouts of Orange County. Become a global citizen while preparing for international travel. This fun patch program pairs well with international troop travel planning.

Historical Versailles, USAGSO

Historical Versailles, USA Girl Scouts Overseas. Research what Versailles was like when it was in official use.

Iroquois Confederacy, GSWNY

Iroquois Confederacy, Girl Scouts of Western New York. Learn about the Iroquois Confederacy, and its history and culture. There are a couple of place-based activities that you'll need to substitute, ideally with experiences relevant to the native peoples of your area.

Juliette Low GSNCA

Juliette Low, Girl Scouts of North Central Alabama. Learn about the founder of Girl Scouts by completing activities related to her life. This is a GREAT fun patch program to help you give Girl Scouts a comprehensive biography of Juliette Gordon Low. It would pair well with Girl Scout Week or her birthday.

Juliette Low World Friendship GSSWTX

Juliette Low World Friendship, Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas. Complete activities to learn more about other places and cultures.

Lighthouses GSSEF

Lighthouses, Girl Scouts of Southeast Florida. Learn about lighthouses, their history, and why many of them are in need of preservation. 

Mountain Mommas GSBDC

Mountain Mommas, Girl Scouts of Black Diamond Council. Learn about the Appalachian mountains and the cultural heritage of the Appalachian people through the lens of strong female role models like Dolly Parton and Barbara Kingsolver. This would be a really fun--and intense!!!--way to prepare for a trip to the region.

Our Volcano Neighbors GSOSW

Our Volcano Neighbors, Girl Scouts of Oregon and Southwest Washington. Learn about Mt. St. Helens and explore the field of volcanology. 

Paris Worlds to Explore USAGSO

Paris Worlds to Explore, USA Girl Scouts Overseas. Complete activities to learn more about Paris and French culture.

Past and Promise: The World of Me, GSMWLP

Past and Promise: The World of Me, Girl Scouts of Minnesota and Wisconsin Lakes and Pines. Become curious about your personal history and cultural heritage. This fun patch pairs well with the Journeys that focus on social-emotional issues, such as GIRLTopia and It's Your Story.

Religions around the World GSSWTX

Religions around the World, Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas. Complete activities to learn more about different religions.

Right to Vote GSCM

Right to Vote, Girl Scouts of Central Maryland. Learn about the history of voting rights and the importance of voting. This fun patch program pairs well with any of the Democracy badges and the Junior Inside Government badge.

Road Trip GSDH

Road Trip, Girl Scouts Dakota Horizons. Prepare for and entertain yourself during a road trip, while learning more about the geography you travel through. This fun patch program would be great to earn during a regional or national troop trip.

Scouting Our Past GSNETX

Scouting Our Past, Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas. Conduct a personal interview to learn more about the history of Girl Scouting.

Simone's Big Adventure GSGI

Simone's Big Adventure, Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa. Explore geographical and cultural activities from all seven continents.

Susan B. Anthony, GSWNY

Susan B. Anthony, Girl Scouts of Western New York. Explore the life and works of Susan B. Anthony. 

Two Nations, One Friendship USAGSO

Two Nations, One Friendship, USA Girl Scouts Overseas. Learn more about Paris and the relationship between France and the USA.

Women in Paris USAGSO

Women in Paris, USA Girl Scouts Overseas. Complete the activities to learn more about the lives of famous French and American women who lived in Paris.

Women's History Month GSK

Women's History Month, Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana. Celebrate Women's History Month by learning about strong female role models. 

WWII Remembrance, GSH

WWII Remembrance, Girl Scouts of Hawaii. Learn more about World War II and its particular significance to the people of Hawaii. 

A Year in the Life of Juliette GSBDC

A Year in the Life of Juliette, Girl Scouts of Black Diamond Council. Learn about the life of Juliette Gordon Low through a year's worth of themed activities. Use this for one low-prep troop meeting per month!

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!