Tonight was the District 10 Leader Expo.  It is a great night to get out and learn about what is available in our District.  Once again, I was hosting the Journey's Display with the Journey series "It's Your Planet, Love It!"  This is the one night a year, I feel like I am going to lose my voice from talking so much.   

I love the challenge of the questions I receive in regards to the Journeys.  My first question of the night was in regards to how does one complete a journey that requires being outside learning about weeds?  I chuckled inside, as I explained to this leader, I shared the same problem a year ago. 

When my little girl started out as Kindergarten Daisy, our troop did the It's Your World, Change It Journey- Daisy's Flower Garden.  The girls enjoyed the Journey and looked forward to the release of the next Journey.  The release date for It's Your Planet, Love It Journey- Between Earth and Sky was just in time with the start of our 1st Grade Daisy year.  We were so excited.  We were looking forward to the next Journey with our Flower Friends.  As we proceeded into this Journey, we realized some of the activities were not applicable due to Missouri's wonderful winter weather.  This is where Customizing Your Journey comes into play.   

As I have to remind myself and others I help with their Journeys, the sample sessions in the leader's guide are exactly that- SAMPLE SESSIONS, they are not written in stone.  Adapt the Journeys to fit your situations and your troops needs.  It may seem difficult at times to come up with ideas on how to adapt or expand the Journeys.  But with the help of fellow Girl Scout Leaders and Council Members,  I was able to have another amazing year with the girls.  There are amazing resources out there to help you Customize Your Journey.  We even thought so far outside of the box, we worked on our schools Butterfly Garden, built a bridge and raised butterflies to release in the garden for our Bridging Ceremony.  Our sister troop and ours became known as Team Butterfly. 

So if you are in need of any additional information or help with your Journey, please don't hesitate to ask for help.  Spend the extra $5.00 on It's Your Journey, Customize It!  I only wish this resource had been available when I was stumped last year.  We are blessed to live in St. Louis with all of our wonderful resources to help expand and adapt the Journey Programs.  If you find yourself stuck in the middle of winter working on the It's Your Planet, Love It Journey series, remember your park departments.  They have wonderful resources for classroom type settings, and then you can complete the other activities when Spring finally arrives. 

Plus there is also a workshop you can take called, "Journeys-Map It Out" which will be coming in the new Spring Course Catalog. 

JourneyWorksheet1[1].pdf (10.78 kb)  I have found this worksheet to be extremely helpful in planning quality activities for my troop that compliment the Journey Program.

Enjoy and don't forget, there are all kinds of wonderful people there to help you with this AMAZING JOURNEY you are on now called, "It's Girl Scouts, Enjoy It!"