Brownie Badge: Snacks

Three years ago, when the girls were in their first year of Girl Scouts, we held our meetings in a room at the school.  We developed a rotating schedule, and each family was asked to provide a snack for the meetings.  For the past two years, we have met at my house.  The girls have had the opportunity to eat a snack at home before the meeting, saving our precious meeting time for business and fun.  The girls do love a special treat every now and then.  The snack badge gave them a chance to make a typical meeting a little more exciting.  While the Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting provides guidelines for Brownies who are working to earn the badges, I feel it is acceptable to think outside the box when it comes to meeting the required steps.  

Step 5, for example, is called Slurp a Snack.  The Guide gives three choices:  make your own milkshake, make your own fruit smoothie, or make your own party punch.  We decided to make our own slushies.  While a slushie is not a milkshake or a smoothie, it is a snack you must slurp.  Our family purchased a Ninja blender from Kohls, using a 30% off coupon, of course.  This blender crushes ice remarkably well.  Perfect for slushies.  This treat is relatively low cost especially when you consider how much it would cost to buy your troop a frozen drink at Dairy Queen or all the ingredients required to make a fruit smoothie.

Step 4 is called Snack For Energy.  We created a snack for a group when we were at camp this past fall.  We enjoyed trail mix while we were on a hike.  Please note that I like to plan ahead with help from the girls.  If we are doing an activity for one badge that can also satisfy a requirement for another badge, we recognize this.  No need to make more work for ourselves.  Snacking on trail mix during our hike allowed us to complete Step 4 for the Snacks badge and Step 4 for the Hiker badge (also called Snack for Energy). 

Step 3 is called Try a Sweet Snack.  Our troop planned a Christmas Party for the Daisy troop.  We asked the girls to bring snack ideas to the planning meeting.  The girls voted and decided to serve North Pole Cupcakes and Santa Brownies.  The cupcakes were prepared prior to the party, but we allowed the girls to assemble their own strawberry Santa hat on a brownie.  We spooned Cool Whip into plastic baggies, and we snipped off a corner so the girls could pipe the Cool Whip with minimal mess.  

I would like to end this post by describing how we completed Step 2 which is called Make a savory snack.  While driving to one of our events, we discussed the difference between a sweet snack and a savory snack.  The girls provided examples, and after the event they each enjoyed some cheddar crackers.  One of the choices provided for this step in the Girl's Guide is "make a savory snack from a different country."  This is one of those times when we took some creative liberties when it came to satisfying this requirement.  We took our girls to the Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant in Cincinnati.  We listened to a short presentation on the history of fondue, learning how others around the world enjoyed fondue and how it became popular in America.  Then we enjoyed an amazing spread of sweet treats.  At just $3 a person, this is a reservation you certainly want to work into your schedule.  Just make sure to have a lot of napkins!

Thanks for reading!