Juniors: aMUSE Journey Supplement (Self-Esteem/Friendship/Bullying/Stereotypes)

I hope this works! It's been a long time since I tried to link to a file, so if you have issues, please let me know.

I am not a fan of Journeys, honestly. I think they are far too much like homework, and require too much work on the part of leaders to make them relevant to the girls, and engaging.

However, since GSUSA currently requires completion of a Journey for the Bronze Award, we partnered up with another Junior troop to knock out the aMUSE Journey in a day.

I didn't like how this Journey focused so heavily on careers (in my view). We have many girls who needed a focus on self-esteem, and how to deal with bullying. We had many who are struggling at school with their peers (and their own self-image), and to me, this was a priority over trying on "roles."

So I came up with the "All About Me" book to address the more important issues in depth, and the other leader helped with other activities and we both worked together in planning and gathering supplies.

It's possible there are other Journeys out there that already included these issues, but the aMUSE one is what the girls picked ahead of time -- based on flipping through the three Journey books I'd brought in. They immediately dismissed the others as "boring."

But I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to help with some of the relevant and current issues my girls are having, which is why I created this book project for them as part of their Journey.

Looking for a way to address some of these issues with younger girls? Check out the Brownie Community badge I totally revamped, specifically to work on friendship and inclusion.

I'm not going to get into a tutorial on how to do the entire Journey in one day (sorry! But there are loads of good ideas on the Internet, and some usable ideas, IMO, from the leader book, that you can use for your own girls), I focused on something that I felt was far more relevant to the girls at this age (4th & 5th graders), and saved it in a format that I could link to for this blog. :)

This book project was addressing not only self-awareness, but also the difference between true friends and bullies, stereotypes, and how to break them, etc.

Here are some sample pages -- for the full .pdf file, scroll down.

I love this so much!

We focused on boosting self-esteem, a LOT!

Identifying a True Friend is something many of my girls struggle with

We pulled out every craft item we had for this -- loads of things, and made sure they weren't stereotypical, either! Every girl created her own individual book, celebrating her as an individual.

If you choose to use this supplement, you will need to print each "book" (front/back) beforehand, and hole punch the pages for binding. Then bring gobs of craft materials for them to decorate the books, and either have them bring in a picture of themselves, or take a Polaroid of each when they arrive.

We used ribbon and yarn through the holes to keep the pages together, then crafted with construction paper and colorful duct tape for the binding (though some girls chose to use other craft supplies, which was fine! We let them run wild with decorating it).

I hope you find the book helpful. As always, pick what works for your troop!

Here is the link to our All About Me book.

-TLM