50 Fun Ideas to Make Your Troops Virtual Meetings More Engaging
50 Fun Ideas to Make Your Troops Virtual Meetings More Engaging
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Time to read 13 min
Virtual meeting ideas can be difficult. You have to be very creative and plan ahead. In the past few months virtual meetings have become the new norm for many of us. So because of that the ideas and creativity just keeps rolling in.
I have posted 2 previous blog posts with ideas for your meetings, be sure to check those out after this one.
This is a collection of over 50 ideas coming from leaders like you that have doing the same thing you are doing now, Inspiring our girls to be leaders of tomorrow.
Fun Virtual Meeting Ideas
Glow Stick Dance Party
Deliver glow sticks to your girls before meeting. Gather some favorite songs from girls to have ready to go in playlist before meeting. Then turn down the lights at everyones house and have a fun virtual dance party.
Using Emoticon to Share Mood
At the beginning of virtual meeting ask everyone to put their current mood emoticon in the group chat and then we talked about why everyone was feeling their emoticon.
Skittle and Milk Rainbow
Having the kids using things that they have around their home. Skittles or M&Ms and milk. You can make the M&Ms or Skittles to melt to create a beautiful rainbow.
Start every meeting with some type of icebreaker
Icebreaker can be anything from scavenger hunt for a certain color, share something you are proud of, something that starts with the same letter as your name, talk about what you did for weekend and more.
Virtual Unchopped cooking challenge
Make recipes using anything the girls have in their houses. The rule for this “cooking” contest was just NOT to use three ingredients. They could not use tortilla chips, cheese, or salsa and have theme to make Nachos. They could use anything else in their fridge and pantry and come up with a creative and fun recipe. They have to take a bite of their creation and it has to be edible. Then share recipe over zoom.This is a picture is of one leaders daughter and her nachos. They were made of graham crackers for the chips, bananas for the peppers or olives, marshmallows and chocolate chips for the salsa and caramel sauce for the cheese. YUM!
Play Virtual Bingo Game
If you have never have played virtual bingo this site will allow you to make and generate your own virtual bingo game which is really cool.
Fleece Blankets for Hospitals
You can find out who is in need of blankets, especially children hospitals it would be great to donate to them. Joann Fabrics has an additional 15% coupon for all troop leaders. Before virtual meeting, you can deliver the fleece and instructions to the girls. Get some ready to make kits right from Joann Fabrics. Then at meeting girls can cut and tie the blankets together. Then leader can go around and collect and wash the blankets before delivering to the hospital or other organization.
Exercise with Parents
Have girls make up a keep fit routine with family. They were then challenged to perform their routine online during meeting. Of course get the parents taking part.
Germ Experiment
You will need 2 bowls of water. Then put dish detergent in water. Then add pepper in water which represents germs. This will show the importance of washing hands!
Mug Treat
You will either need to tell parents what they need or deliver a box of Betty Crocker Brownie Mug Treats to each girl prior to meeting. During meeting plan to take a few minutes to make the treat then sit back during meeting and eat treats together while chatting.
Read “Here Come the Girl Scouts!”
Purchase the kindle version of “Here come the Girl Scouts!” Share screen through Zoom and read book and they could follow along.
Learn more about the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Teach the girls about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and women in government, Take a a look at her childhood, what and who inspired her, and cover all of the glass ceilings she shattered. Talk about Ruth’s signature collars and necklaces because she was well known for wearing them. What most people don’t know is that they often reflected her moods when she wore them and had subtle meanings. If you are interested in some amazing kits like this one contact Jamal Frangie Rubeiz from Fancy Girl Tea Party.
First Aid Ideas
If you are working on a first aid badge have a school nurse or another nurse come to virtual meeting. Have her talk to the girls what she does as a nurse. Have girls bring a doll and first aid supplies with them and have nurse teach girls how to treat their dolls for a cut, an animal bite, a burn and a sprained finger. If you want more ideas for first badges be sure to check out these activity booklets
Baby Photo Guess
Ask the girls to have a photo of them as a baby, cover their face on screen with the photo and every one gets to guess whose who.
Earn a Fun Patch While Learning about Voting
Girl Scouts has the Suffrage Centennial patch you could work on earning. To learn about voting watch a video such as “Election Day” from Sesame Street or “You Choose: Presley Talks about Voting” from PBS Kids. Then have a conversation with parents or troop leader about voting.To research a woman from the suffrage movement, challenge each girl to read a book about a famous figure from the suffrage movement. At next meeting they can share what they learned with rest of troop.
Ideas for the 3 Cheers for Animals activities
As a leader you can make videos reading the stories from 3 cheers for animals. Then put together short lessons afterward just to get them thinking about the story and some things they can take away from it. Also give them an “at home task” like practicing turning off lights when they leave the room or turning off water while brushing teeth. Here is an example of how one leader did it.
Refuse, reduce and recycle Activity Teach your girls more about plastic and how important it is too recycle. Here is an Plastics Service Project activity put together by another leader that you can use with your girls at your next virtual meeting.
Ice Breaker Talk
Use 2-minutes on a timer to share High’s and Low’s point of our week.. It is a really great way for everyone be able to speak and get a moment to share a little of their life that they don’t get too in person.
Virtual slumber party
You could do sleep mask decorating, facials, bingo, cookie catchers, virtual breakout rooms, yoga, paint nails, scavenger hunt and more!!
Onward Movie and Sleep Over
Virtual camp over where everyone comes to meeting in jammies, everyone can put up an indoor tent or just sleeping bags. Have them make snacks at home to share and then enjoy the movie Onward.
Virtual Talk Shows – This virtual talk shows takes learning and makes it fun. Students take the place of characters, concepts, or even a time period in a virtual talk show. Each student takes the “hot-seat” to answer questions showing their comprehension of an idea from the viewpoint of a person or idea being studied in class.
Doodling Girls love to doodle and with the features available in zoom and google teams you can set it up so everyone can doodle together. Maybe you come up with a theme and girls work together to doodle and draw out that theme. Team building activity where everyone works collaboratively.
Bag of Mystery
This could be a great way to start or end your meeting. Put something in a brown bag before meeting that girls cannot see. Then show them bag and start giving clues to see if they can figure out what is in bag. Once they guess or give up show them what is in bag.
Go Noodle
Wow, I thought Youtube was cool. If you want some brain breaks during meeting check out the number of Go Noodle videos that the girls will love. There is everything from stretching, dancing, learning something new while moving. Check out Go Noodle, its all free.
Drawing By Direction
Teaching girls how to draw is always a fun way to spend a meeting. You can find some great drawing guided tutorials on either the Art Hub for Kids or Cutest Drawing on YouTube. Just share your screen and follow along.
Say a Joke
What if you have everyone bring a joke to the next meeting to share. You can do them all at the beginning or spread them out throughout the meeting.
Person, Place, Animal or Thing
This game you can use this simple spin an online letter die that will select a letter of the alphabet randomly. Once letter is shown everyone must come up with a person, place, animal, and thing that all begin with that very same letter. To make it easier to hear everyone, instead of shouting it out, put it in the chat, so the first person to chat the 4 answers first wins.
Lip Sync Fun
This is just a fun activity you can pick any song that your girls love and have everyone perform without actually a single note coming from their mouth. Time to give the best performance of your life!
Taboo Game
Just like a number of other games you can play an online version of this in your troops virtual meeting. Split your online group into two teams. Every girl will need this link to Play Taboo so they are able to get their card and give clues. During a round one player on each team gives clues to team. They are trying to help team guess main word. They can not say the word that is directly listed on card. Give teams points for correct answers and be sure to set a time limit for game.
Mad Libs
We all love mad libs on paper and doing them as a group in a circle. This is a easy and fun activity to do virtually as well. You can pick on online and do it all together as a group or everyone does own and shares the final story. Fill in one of these online versions they are great!
I Spy
This is a fun way for girls to be observant of what is going on in other girls backgrounds. You can have everyone take turns spying. Depending on age make it harder by not adding persons name at beginning of statement. So for examply you can say “I spy something orange.” then girls take turns guessing what the object is and can say what background they saw it in. Or you can be more specific and say “I spy something in Michelle’s background that is tall.”
Be a Detective
This is a fun moving game. First pick one girl to be the Detective and have them close eyes, mute mic and count to 30. Then pick another girl to be it. That person will start doing something and everyone else must follow her. Example jump on one foot. When the Detective comes back she has to try to figure out who is It. The person that is It should change activities and everyone else should follower her so the Detective can try to figure out who is starting activity.
Practice Knot Tying
This is an easy activity to put together. And Girl Scouts has a great series of videos that will walk you through how to do each knot. Right on Youtube so you can share the video and girls can work on knots.
Get artistic
Have everyone choose someone to draw. Then draw portraits of one another and share see if everyone can guess who the person drew.
Create a race car
This is an activity that lets kids get very creative. Tell them to gather a pile of found materials around house. Then show each other the race cars you each make.
Watch a TED talk
This would be a cool way to introduce Public Speaking. You could watch a TED talk by youth about whatever topic interest your girls. Then have them come up with their own TED talks to share with group. If you are working on Public Speaking badge check out these ideas.
Virtual Family Feud
There are a lot of versions out there you can download or buy. One of my favorites that I have used at a family event comes from Etsy and its great because it is customizable and can be easily used over and over again. It is a customizable Family Feud game that you can change the questions and answers to fit your needs.
Virtual Jeopardy
There are a lot of versions out there you can download or buy. One of my favorites that I have used at a family event comes from Etsy and its great because it is customizable and can be used over and over again. It is a customizable Jeopardy game that you can change the questions and answers to fit your needs.
Cooking
Camping-style and favorites “at my house” & Baking – over campfires and in the oven/over stove and sharing faves.
Sock Puppet shows
You can have everyone create their very own sock puppets and then put them in breakout rooms to come up with a sock puppet show. If you are able to deliver supplies to each girl. I found a few cute sock puppet sets on Etsy I am sure your kids would love!
Virtual Museum Tours
This is pretty cool because you can go to a museum that you would most likely never be able to go to in person. My all time favorite museum to take a virtual tour of is the Van Gough Museum.
Fun patches with Activities
There are a number of sites with Fun Patches and Activities to go with them. Few of my favorites are Mad About Fun Patches and Making Friends. Do activities for SWAPS, crafts, Hispanic Heritage, Mental Health Awareness, Yoga, and many more.
Family Show & Tell
Ask a family member or family friend who has an interesting job or hobby to come and talk about it and answer questions for about 10 minutes during our virtual meeting.
Candle and soap making
I would recommend if you can drop off supplies to each child then you will be sure everyone has what they need. You can gather supplies yourself or go the easier route and buy kits with everything you need in them.
Escape Rooms
This one I mentioned in previous virtual meeting idea post. However today I have a new resource to check out. Go to http://trevor-hopkins.com where you can find several free murder mysteries to pick from. You can add characters and mix genders as well!
Memory Game
Gather a pile of random things such as comb, toothbrush, pen, penny, etc. Then show the pile of random items on zoom. No one is allowed to write anything down, just look at items for 30 seconds. Then take the pile out of view. Now everyone must write down everything they remember seeing. Now review the items who got the most right. As variation you can remove one item and show pile again see who can list what is missing?
Rock Paper Scissors
Bringing this game into a virtual setting can be fun. The object of game is to beat your leader. You want to see how many rounds you can stay in for. Play begins with one, two, three shoot. Everyone on meeting makes their choice and makes sure everyone can see your hand. If your leader’s choice beats yours, you’re out. If not you keep playing who will be the final winner?
Last Word
You will want to play this game in small groups. If you have large troop you can put into smaller breakout rooms. First determine order that everyone will play, easiest way to keep track of that put in chat box. Then choose a letter and subject. For example fruits that start with letter B. Then set a timer and using order in chat everyone must list an item with that subject/letter. You will keep going till timer goes off. The last person to name something before the buzzer goes off wins the round. If you want to take the thinking out of the categories and words buy your own Last Word board game.
Don’t forget to check out the other 60 virtual ideas I have shared on the blog
I hope your meetings are fun and you found some great ideas in this post. If you have more ideas that you want to share with other leaders send me a email and I can add them into my next list of ideas for virtual meetings.
Enjoy every minute being a leader and continue to inspire your girls!
Virtual Unchopped cooking challenge
Mug Treat
Learn more about the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
