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Girl Scout Journey in a Day Resources for Leaders

Updated April 2023

If you have read this blog for any length of time, then you know that I have never been a fan of the Girl Scout Journeys program. From the time I first looked at the Daisy Journey book when my troop started in kindergarten, my experienced teacher self thought, “This is age inappropriate!”.

My most commented on blog post in the past 6.5 years has been about the Journeys program ( you can read it here ). I followed it up last year with a post about Councils and leaders having a Journey in a Day program   . The bottom line for me is if it this program is so important, why can it be done in a day? What have you learned in a day that was absorbed completely?

Image created on Canva

Leaders who need to do a Journey but dislike the program have flocked to this concept. Since it is so popular, I have decided to place all of the Girl Scout Journey in a Day resources for you in one place. Then you can pick and choose what you want to do!

Of course, before you make any plans on your own, check your Council’s website to see what they are offering for a Journey in a Day. When searching for resources for you, the events often came up at the top of the list.

Photo from Haute Chocolate #hcstyledstock

Daisy Girl Scout Journey in a Day

One Year of Daisy Scouts (two documents with HOW to do a Journey in a day or sleepover event)

Welcome to the Girl Scout Flower Garden  (from Making Friends)

Between Earth and Sky  (from Making Friends)

3 Cheers for Animals  (from Making Friends)

3 Cheers for Animals (from Plant, Plant, Electro…What?)

3 Cheers for Animals (from Girl Scout Troop 2214)

Brownie Girl Scout Journey in a Day

Wonders of Water (from Girl Scout Troop 2214)

Brownie Quest Sleepover (from A year in the Life of a Girl Scout)

A World of Girls (from Girl Scouts of Nation’s Capital)

Junior Girl Scout Journey in a Day

aMuse (from I am Girl Scouts)

aMuse (from Girl Scouts of Nation’s Capital)

aMuse (from Girl Scout Leader 101)

Get Moving (from I am Girl Scouts)

Get Moving (from Girl Scout Leader 101)

Agent of Change (from Girl Scouts of Central Texas)

Have you done a Journey in a day? Did you plan it or attend a Council event?

Share this:

12 thoughts on “girl scout journey in a day resources for leaders”.

Hi there, I am the troop leader for Troop 2214. Your active link for our Get Moving journey (Juniors) is incorrect. Takes readers to someone else’s (equally amazing!) blog 🙂

Thanks for finding that for me! It is now corrected.

Like you I am not fond of the Journey’s, at all. I would like to know if someone has developed a Journey in a day for the Cadette’s, Senior’s and Ambassador’s?

I am not sure. You may want to join the Facebook groups for older scouts and ask there. They may resources for you.

This is my second year as a Daisy troop leader. The first year we focused on earning the petals. This year, we decided to wade into the Journey badges. We are going to complete the 3 Cheers for Animals and Welcome to the Daisy Flower Garden. We were told the 3 Cheers for Animals Journey was “the one to do”. In fact, it was out of stock and the lead time for shipping was 6 weeks. I was able to find a copy on Amazon though. After digging through the leader guide I was simply amazed at what was expected for this age level. The leader guide suggests taking a whopping 10 meetings to complete this Journey. Almost half of the Journey is planning to earn the Red Robin Award. As an adult I was overwhelmed just reading the leader’s guide! I started tweaking things so they were more appropriate for my girls and I cut the amount of meetings in half. We are also going to take a tour of our local animal shelter and then to earn our Red Robin Award the girls are going to collect supplies to be donated to the animal shelter. I feel like Welcome to the Daisy Flower Garden journey is a bit more age appropriate. It also seems like the meetings are more coherent versus 3 Cheers for Animals which at times to me, feels disjointed. The Flower Garden journey also seems to be more hands on for the girls and I feel will hold their attention more. Luckily for our troop, we will start the Garden Journey in late winter / early spring and the church I attend has decided to start a community garden so all of our plants, worms and possibly Labybugs will be donated to the community garden. I have zero experience with anything other than the Journeys so I cannot compare them to what was done prior to the Journeys. I do think some changes need to be made so they are more age appropriate. The Journey In a Day seems overwhelming as a leader and for the girls. It seems like that would be information overload and I am not sure how much the girls would absorb. And how in the world would you the Gardening Journey in a day? Anyway, sorry for the long comment!!

I appreciate comments both long and short! I did not believe in the Journeys program since I felt it was age inappropriate and required too much overhauling, therefore never did one until I was forced to for my troop to earn the Bronze. Anything that needs that much tweaking to make it work tells me that it is not working! We are volunteers and the program should not have to be modified, which takes up so much more of our time. You may want to join the Daisy Girl Scout Facebook group. They have amazing resources and can help you answer how to do the Journey in a Day. You really do not have to do it, so I would not stress over it.

The irony of Journeys is that they were originally designed to accomplish two goals: (1) provide girls with the specific experience and background skills needed to tackle higher quality Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards since too many girls simply had no clue how to approach a quality project; and (2) to give leaders the type of “turnkey” program they were begging for to reduce the amount of time they were spending coming up with ideas and resources for troop meetings. After struggling for years in a love/hate relationship with Journeys, I have come to appreciate the good parts and I simply ignore or modify the rest.

As an educator for over three decades, I know how to make a program work for my students. The Journeys was a complete disaster, in my opinion, because leaders could not figure out what to do. They had to redo the entire thing and use other resources to get it done. Plus it took forever! Back in the mid 1990’s, my school district adopted a new math program. My two co-teachers and I had the teacher guides over the summer to go over them, and then we met to see how to approach it. We all agreed it was a poorly written program. It took five years and abysmal test scores, plus a consultant who cost $5000, to finally get rid of a program we teachers had been saying all along was bad. We had to rework the entire thing and use outside resources to teach.

The Journeys Program reminded me of that experience. Leaders disliked them. And in my opinion, if you can do a Journey in a Day, what is the point of the program?

Don’t forget the Girl Scouts of River Valleys. They have amazing Activity Plans for EVERY level (including Cadette, Senior, and Ambassador) which break down the Journeys into two 3-4 hour blocks, plus the final Take Action Project. girlscoutsrv.org

(Not my Council, just a big fan of their resources!)

They do have amazing things! Thanks for the reminder!

I think it’s interesting that the VTK has shortened the journey plans for the original journeys from 10 meetings to six. I’ve tried journeys as they were intended, and by the time the year was over they had forgotten what they learned at the beginning. More successful was one I did over two long days on two different weekends, with the TAP being decided on but accomplished later. I do think it’s possible to plan a JID but it needs to be a long day, and especially for older girls the TAP likely would be done later. But when I saw a program being advertised to do the outdoor journey virtually in 4 hours I was really irritated.

Deborah, I have been irritated by the Journeys program since 2008 when I first discovered it as a new leader of kindergarten Daisies. As an educator, it felt so age inappropriate the way it was written. Sixteen years later, leaders are still complaining. I have always been of the opinion that Journeys were a way for the GSUSA to make money. Since you need to do one to earn the metal awards, then the program must be purchased. There are Facebook Buy and Sell groups that do virtual Journeys and then your troop only has to do the TAP. It took a few months for my troop to earn their Bronze Award, we never completed the Silver Award, and we did two Senior Journeys for my girls to earn the Gold Award. Those two were done over the summer over the course of three days.

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Brownie Quest (Brownie Journey)

• Edit source

Brownie Quest Girls Books

Brownie Quest is part of "It's Your World-Change It."

• 1 In this Journey, you will:
• 3.1 Discover Your Special Talents and Qualities
• 3.2 Discover Values of the Girl Scout Law
• 3.3 Discover Your Family's Values
• 4.1 Connect as a Team
• 4.2 Connect with Your Family
• 4.3 Connect with Your Community
• 5.1 Choosing a Project
• 5.2 Planning a Project
• 6 Resources
• 7 Take-Action Project ideas

In this Journey, you will: [ ]

• Find out how to take care of yourself, your family, your Girl Scout sisters, and your community—do an activity with your family to chart everyone’s special talents, play games at your troop meetings to learn how to work together, or do a fun “clue hunting” activity to learn the Girl Scout Law.
• Plan a Take Action project, such as visiting a nursery school to read to younger children or teach them a game, creating a school skit about healthy eating, or making a presentation to your city council about fixing a broken sidewalk by your school.
• Earn 4 leadership awards: Discover Key; Connect Key; Take Action Key; Brownie Quest Award. If you're a Girl Scout volunteer, go to Volunteer Toolkit for complete meeting plans and activity instructions. 

Learn more about how to earn your Take Action Award — and help your community — with the Girl Scout Take Action Guide.

Journey: Brownie Quest

• Computer Expert (Brownie Try-it)
• My Best Self (Brownie Try-it)
• Dancer (Brownie Try-it)
• Home Scientist (Brownie Try-it)
• My Family Story (Brownie Try-it)

Discover Key [ ]

Discover your special talents and qualities [ ].

My troop did the ball toss game mentioned in the Brownie Quest Leader's Guide, followed by the girls sitting down to fill out their "Discovering Me" star, which worked fine.

• Teambuilding Spinner . If I did it again, I might modify a spinner like this one from Laura Candler to ask the girls different questions. (Note: While this link says it is for team-building, it seems more useful as a get-to-know-you activity.)
• Conversation Starters for getting to know each other.
• I am Posters. My troop made I Am posters. On thick scrapbook paper, I put a picture of each girl. Then using magazines, they cut words that describe them and their talents. I made sure each of them had the words I Am at the top of the poster.

Discover Values of the Girl Scout Law [ ]

• Girl Scout Law Scavenger Hunt . After looking around in vain for a Girl Scout Law Scavenger Hunt, I finally made up my own File:Girl Scout Law Scavenger Hunt.docx . You should be able to do this in most meeting places, but look at the location hints to make sure they all fit. The file includes: a scavenger hunt list (pages 1-2; print one copy for each girl); pictures to cut apart and hide around the meeting site (pages 3-12; print these double-sided, so the words end up on the back of the appropriate picture; print enough to have a copy of each picture for each girl); a key at the end to know where to hide the pictures (pages 13-14).
• Girl Scout Law letterbox . Another similar idea I had for this was to do it as a Girl Scout Law letterbox set.
• Girl Scout Law Game . Have the girls make up their own rules for this game using the printable board game, some game markers (whatever you want to use), and some dice.

Discover Your Family's Values [ ]

Connect key [ ], connect as a team [ ].

Hula Hoop team-building . We did the hula hoop team building activity from the book, which the girls thought was fun. We did it around the circle once in both directions (and then they wanted to do it again).

I also did another hula hoop activity I learned from an office team-building years ago. The girls stand in a circle and hold out only their index fingers straight. Place the hula hoop in the middle on their fingers -- they can't curve their fingers around it to make it easier to hold! Then, without anyone losing touch with the hoop, they have to lower it to the ground and back up again. It sounds easy, but it's a lot harder than it sounds! (And it was even hard to do with 20 adults!) They have to work together and pay attention to what others on the team are doing.

Saving Fred activity. Help Fred the gummy worm get to his 'life preserver' using only paper clips.

Connect with Your Family [ ]

Make A Family Star that shares why and how the Girl Scout Law is important in your family.

Help lead your family in healthy habits, leading a family talk about healthy foods (how does healthy food help us, use a food pyramid), and come up with family exercises that would help your family lead a healthy lifestyle (like taking a walk every day).

• help mom or dad go grocery shopping and prepare a healthy meal.

Connect with Your Community [ ]

• Me on the Map activity to show the different circles of inclusion between me, family, neighborhood, community, town, state, country, world, etc.

Take Action Key [ ]

Choosing a project [ ].

Project Ideas:

Collecting gently used items from your home (clothes, toys, books) and donating to support a local cause.

Making braided chew ropes for dogs

Bake and donate dog biscuits

Collect for The Pencil Project

Collect for Message of Hope Foundation

Planning a Project [ ]

Resources [ ].

Girl Scouts Brownie Quest official page (includes PDFs and printouts)  http://www.girlscouts.org/program/journeys/your_world/brownie.asp

Girl Scouts of New Jersey have a 4-week journey program on their website www.gsnnj.org/About-Us/GSLE/Girl-Scout-Journeys/Documents/Brownie%20Quest%20Activities%20Program.pdf

Girl Scout Law word search

Take-Action Project ideas [ ]

Having trouble figuring out possible Take-Action projects? Look for ideas on the Take Action Project ideas page.

• 1 WOW Wonders of Water (Brownie Journey)
• 2 Junior Badges
• 3 Trailblazing (Cadette badge)

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Thursday, October 02, 2014

Brownie quest - discover key.

• Sang the Brownie Smile Song.
• Searched to discover the values of the Girl Scout Law with a scavenger hunt. - Discover Key, Step 2 completed!
• Discovered the girls' special talents and qualities by creating personalized I Spy jars. - Discover Key, Step 1 completed! (This also fulfills Senses, Step 1.)
• Handed out Discovering Family bag to be completed at home and returned at the next troop meeting.
• Share Discovering Family bags. - Discover Key to be earned!

31 comments:

Thank you so much for sharing this!

Just starting as a Brownie leader - you are a life saver!

Your ideas are great! Thank you, and for explaining so simply. I like the Quest book but I like one quick reference page during the meetings--not fumbling through the book.

Thank you for creating the Brownie law keys. I plan to use them with my multilevel group of scouts(brownies, juniors and cadettes) who have seemed to have "forgotten" the law. You've made my job so much easier!

Great job! This was very helpful in planning m meetings! I am new to being a leader for m daughter!

This is wonderful! In the past I have found that using a 4" x 6" note card works great for recipe cards. A template can be made in a Word document or PDF.

Thank you so much for sharing this... life saver, time saver, AWESOME!!

Hello there, is there any way you can send me an editable copy of the keys? I just need to print out certain ones and I would like to print the same law/key on same page....thank you

Hi! Thanks for your interest in my Girl Scout Law keys! I think the file may already be in the format you need, as I have all of the lines of the Law grouped together in order on the first couple of pages and then each line separate (five of the same key to a page) on subsequent pages.

Thank you very much! Do you have how you finished the remainder of the journey? Is this just the first "badge" of the 4 badges in the Journey?

Yes, this is only the first badge of the Journey...the Discover Key. This particular key was more or less completed in one meeting. The Discovering Family bags were only passed out at the end of the meeting to be completed at home and returned the following meeting. Only after sharing the bags was the Discover Key officially earned and awarded. So, one meeting, plus a teeny bit of another meeting. I shoot for an hour for our meetings, not including snack time. In order to pull it off, I have to have everything organized and sorted ahead of time. I do a lot of prep work at home and then get to the meetings about thirty minute early to set up tables, etc., just so. While the girls did complete Brownie Quest last year, I got behind on my blog posts. I'm going to attempt to add the rest of our Journey in the next couple of weeks. I finished the Connect Key post this evening...http://bluehouseschool.blogspot.com/2015/09/brownie-quest-connect-key.html.

Also, was all this done in one meeting? How long are your meetings? Thanks!

Thank you so much for documenting your meeting! I appreciate you helping other leaders with your ideas!

Thank you so much for this! I am a leader for a 2nd year brownie troop, and this year we are adding some first year brownies to our troop. This step by step will make this so easy to do! I appreciate that you shared all of your hard work, and the printables to go with it!

What size jars did you use for the I SPY craft? It's awesome but wondering what size jar I need to look for

Hi, Jennifer! The jars are recycled Peter Pan peanut butter jars...regular-sized ones. I also made one with a JIF jar for my sample to show the girls.

I'm just curious what type of items did you have for the girls to put inside the I Spy jars and also was there a link for the printables that I missed somewhere?

Thanks for your interest in our I Spy jars. If you scroll up to the pic of the jar, there's a link in the caption to a printable checklist, which includes the items I used for the jars. There's also a link at the beginning of the paragraph just above that pic. Enjoy!

Thank you!!!

I love the keys and am going to use them this week for our meeting. I am filling in for our leaders who are both out this week. Do you have a pattern for the envelopes? I may have missed it, you have so much great information. Thanks!

I don't, sorry. I was afraid of copyright infringement with the Brownie Elf graphic. I just folded and glued orange paper to make the envelopes. Manila envelopes or similar would likely work too. Maybe draw polka dots or a bold border around the edges with a marker to make them stand out a little more.

Thanks. I completely understand, but I had to ask! I have been looking to download the clipart, I would think I would be able to get it from our local council, but have not had success. I will think of another way to decorate them.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!!

LOVE what you are doing here! Do you have a PDF of the Brownie Quest Map you are using? Or did you just create it yourself?

The poster-size map came with the Brownie Quest leader book packet. (It folds.) I think there might be a much smaller version in the girls' book as well.

The links for the I spy checklist, Discovery bag, and recipe cards is no longer available. Are you able to re-post a link in another format? ~ Jenn B.

My apologies. I have uploaded the files to Dropbox and have updated the links on this page. Please, let me know whether they work for you. I haven't used Dropbox before. Enjoy!

Thanks for sharing! My troop loved your ideas!

You're quite welcome. Thank you for the warm comments. I'm so glad your troop enjoyed these projects. Happy scouting!

Thank you for the ideas! Our troop loved the keys. I had them printed out on cardstock and had the girls cut them out themselves. They loved searching the room for the envelopes. I had them numbered and let them figure out to put them in order and what was the meaning behind the keys. It is fun to watch them as a group and how they problem solve.

Wow, I'm not sure what happened, but I'm just now seeing this post. Thank you for your warm comments. I'm so glad you and your girls enjoyed the keys. It was such a fun meeting for my troop. Happy scouting!