You may have noticed that the sessions in the Girl Scout Journeys are called sample sessions.  That’s because Journeys are designed to be customizable based on the interests and needs of girls in your group.  One way to customize a Journey is to add badges found in The Girl’s Guide to Girl Scouting along the way to let girls learn about specific topics that interest them.

As you probably know, The Girl’s Guides to Girl Scouting contain all of the Legacy, Financial Literacy and Cookie Business badges but you can also add more badge sets to your Girl’s Guides for Girl Scout Brownies through Seniors.  To figure out which ones your girls are interested in, you can use the Badge Explorer on the GSUSA website before you make your purchase at the Girl Scout Shop.  Let the girls take the lead in navigating the site and reading the badge descriptions to their peers.  Each Journey has a badge set that complements the that particular Journey, but that doesn’t mean that other badges won’t work well too.  The Badge Explorer is also great for looking ahead to the next grade level and seeing what is in store for them as they continue in Girl Scouting.

Another way to get girls exploring badges is to give them an at home challenge to work with their parents to identify three badges that sound fun.  This will get their parents involved and give them a chance to share their unique interests with the group.  Of course older girls could do this exploration on their own.

Some of you may be asking, “What about Girl Scout Daisies and Ambassadors?”  There are also great ways to expand their Journeys too!  Check out this post to get some ideas about how to connect with parents and community partners to broaden their experience.