Question from a Girl Scout Leader:
Sabrina Writes:
Our council is now allowing us to have multi- level Girl Scout troops. How does this work? What’s the biggest age difference that those with multi level troops have?
Answers From Other Girl Scout Leaders Compiled from our Facebook Page
“I have a multi-level girl scout troop of 42 girls age 2rd-11th grade. We meet twice a month-elementary girls 4:30-5:45 and middle/high school girls 5:30-7 with a 15 minute overlap when all are together for an opening/closing ceremony, announcements and reminders. I divide up into age levels with 1 co-leader working with each group at meetings.” Lisa
“Having come from another scouting organization, having multiple assistant leaders make it possible. ” Mary
“Welcome to the club. I have 36 girls all ranging from Daisy to Ambassador. its hard but its doable. I have had a multi level troop for 7 years. and our troop just keeps getting bigger and bigger.” Stacey
” I have Daisy and Brownies. Our neighborhood coins them as “braisies” lol I didn’t want to lose my Daisies because some of my girls bridged last year. Since badge work is ladder work it is easy to do it together. My girls are also multiple schools so my girls are very excited to meet because they see their friends they don’t normally see on a daily bases. I have 13 but about 10 are truly active.” Dina
“I have three sister troops grades Kinder through 11th. Daisies in one troop. Brownies and Juniors in one troop. Cadettes and Seniors in third troop. So council sees 3rd and 5th in same troop and 6th and 11th in same troop. They don’t understand multi level troops or sister troops. We became sister troops because the volunteers have MULTIPLE girls! We love it! I have 6 coleaders… we have a representative volunteer for each grade level. Many of us have more than one girl so more than one role when we’re needed.” Jean
“We have 36 girls from K-5th. We meat twice a month and divide up into different groups with their own leader. Then we have 1 main leader who overseas it all. It is very chaotic and not at all for the faint of heart. The hardest part is finding age appropriate field trips and activities.” Kristin
” I LOVE having a multi-level troop. We have 5 sets of sisters, so it’s convient, We meet twice a month and we try to sneak in one event per month. We have 28 girls, Daisies, Brownies and Juniors. We have 3 leaders and most of our parents registered and Coried. I have them all do a coloring or word search activity as they come in. One Brownie usually takes attendance and one Jr collects dues. We do our opening together, sometimes split up into three or four groups, then do our snack chat and share, and closing together. Kapers are a big thing, and I try to match up the younger kids with the older ones to get stuff done. For field trips, sometimes we get to do things all together, and sometimes its just with certain levels. I enjoy watching the interactions with the girls and sometimes my Daisies are the ones teaching the older girls a thing or two!” Shelly
“We have many troops in Colorado with Daisy to Ambassador Girl Scouts in the same troop. A lot of troops do what Lisa suggests below. Lots of planning for the leader because of the needs of the different levels. Seems to work best when there is a leader over each level or two levels. Hardest part is doing things together because Daisy and Ambassadors have very different characteristics. Being girl-led is the best idea and making sure the oldest girls’ leader is NOT a leader but an advisor. VAST difference in roles.” Amy
“Lots of help! Have one or two leaders/assistants at the very LEAST to work with one age group exclusively. Those leaders can organize the parents of that group to get an assistant or assistants to help with cookies, fall product, meetings, crafts, chauffeuring, planning. Of course, if you have more than a handful of girls at each level, you have to get two or more full-timers. I would suggest have one major fall product manager and one major cookie manager, to work with “level managers”. One of the leaders has to be the main leader. There are lots of things the girls can do together, if you’re creative like that you can incorporate badge activities in there, too! I’ve had multi-levels for several years now, so I’ve had some bad experiences that no leader would need to go through EVER, and tons of experiences that made me glad I took on the “challenge”!” Tamika
“Younger girls can learn from older girls and older girls gain self confidence when helping younger girls. When I was a gs, we used the patrol system. Each patrol is a certain age group and does their activities, but open close and snack together. And sometimes events are for everyone and sometimes just certain patrols. Also need an adult for each patrol. Or at least the younger ones.” Norma
” I separate the meetings. ONe Monday is Daisy through Junior and the next Monday is Cadette through ambassador. My older girls come work with the daisys and get their voluntter hours for girl scouts that way. they love it.. but we switch off so I get some one on one time with each level. trust me.. it can be hectic at times.. but once the girls understand how it works it works great for us.. But I have awesome older girls that are great leaders.. I have cadettes that are working on their LIA so they take over the brownies for a journey.. no mind you.. I set out the agenda and the girls have to plan the meetings.. I oversee this and see how they are doing.. but I also have great moms who help a great deal.” Stacey
“Multi-level troops are fairly common in our council although still rare in our city. My 3rd grade Brownie troop just absorbed the 2nd grade Brownie troop this year… adding 6 girls to make our total 24. My son is in boy scouts with a troop of 78 boys from age 11-18, split into patrols by grade and it works out beautifully. If they can do girls can do it. A common arrangement for multi-level is to split into patrols by level (daisy, brownie, junior, etc) and split for part of the meeting to work on level-specific badges. It’s Very Helpful to have an assistant leader for each age level to oversea the girls so the leader can bounce around. The badges are >very< easy to combine – at least for Daisy/Brownie/Junior – so even badges can be done as a group. Journeys are the same way. I recently did a Daisy money leaf with a Brownie money badge and it only took 15 minutes to figure out a gameplan to create 5 activities they could do together for everyone to earn their respective badges.” Deb
“My troop is a multi-level group (Dasies-cadettes). We have kept our girls at around 18 for the moment. This time last year we only had seven girls so it’s been a big increase for us. Our girls love it. We meet several times a month for meetings but also for other activities. The older girls help the younger ones to stay on task and set an example. while the younger ones help the older ones to remember to have fun. I have really enjoyed it. My best advice is divide your girls during certain activities, either with another leader or parent volunteer. We do this when working on badges that way were not always focusing on one group. Make sure you have good volunteers. You will need them. We have a parent who helps with our money, others who help with groups, and still others who help with field trips. Remember you can’t do everything, rely on your coleaders, volunteers and even your older girls to get it done. It can seem over whelming at first but it can be done” Cinamon
“We are Brownies through Seniors. We have one overall leader, me, who coordinates and does the paperwork. I also work with the Seniors and do camping skills. Each younger level has an 02, an assistant leader, to do their Journeys and badge work, etc. We do all ceremonies together and work on service projects together. We plan our camping trips together. I try very hard to NOT use the older girls as babysitters or teachers. They still have skills to learn, badges to do, etc.” Raegan
We have a troop that started together as Daisies from K & 1st, so we become split level every other year. On the years we’re all the same we worked on the official badges & the years we’re split we worked on completing the Journies with a lot of pre-planning to make the time lines of the different levels line up. To do this at meetings we start together to officially start the meeting, but then seperate by level for the reading of the Jouney stories. Then we regroup & do a quick discussion of what each of learned and then have the whole group do the corresponding activities together. It takes time to pre-plan to make it work, but we’ve found it easy to do because both levels are working on similar overall topics & the corresponding activities are fun for everyone.
We have 22 Daisy and Brownie girls. To be honest, our small meeting place and my sanity couldn’t handle having them all together and then splitting up to do separate things. So we have 1 meeting for the Daisies and 1 meeting for the Brownies. We come together for special events and field trips. I have a co-leader for each group to help plan and run meetings. So we are all the same troop, just meeting separately. Next year, when the Daisies bridge to Brownies, we will be one big troop again meeting at the same time.
I am looking at having a multi leveled troop in the fall. Currently, we have 12 Daisy’s but next year they will be brownies. We will be adding a 1st year daisy troop as well as Juniors to the mix. My questions are; do you have one troop number or multiple numbers? Do you have one checking account or multiple? Do they all sell cookies together or stay in age groups?