What a great night with the girls! We worked on the requirements towards earning the Pet Badge. Due to some of the activities, we didn’t break out into our normal rotations. The girls observed how to make homemade dog treats. They helped mold the treat and we were able to bake the treats while we continued on with the other activities. We then had a discussion around what we should or shouldn’t do for various pets. The last part of the meeting, the girls began their research about a pet. I asked the girls to keep working on this at home. Part of the research is thinking about how much it would cost to have a particular pet. The Pet Smart website is a great research. It has a section that is dedicated to helping you learn more about a certain pet. The girls can then look up the costs surrounding their particular pet. I did ask the girls to bring this back to the next meeting or snap an image of what they have finished and sent to us. If they misplaced their research document, you can e-mail and will send another one out. These are some of the questions that they thought about:
- How much space does this pet need?
- Does it need to be inside or outside or both?
- Do you need anything special for it in either of these places (cage, leash, etc.)?
- How much food does this pet need?
- What might it cost to buy the food?
- What kind of human contact does this pet like?
If you have time, it would be great to take them to a pet store and look around. If you are unable to go, you can take a virtual tour of a PetSmart store.
We then had a conversation about various things that may or may not be good for certain pets.
If the girls would like the recipe for the dog treats, here it is:
PUMPKIN Dog Treats
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
- 4 tbsp molasses
- 4 tbsp water
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon (optional)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Mix pumpkin, molasses, vegetable oil, and water together in a bowl
- Add the whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon to the mixture and stir until dough softens
- Scoop out small spoonfuls of dough and roll into balls on your hands (wet hands work best)
- Set the balls onto a lightly greased cookie sheet and flatten with a fork
- Bake approximately 25 minutes until dough is hardened
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| Helping with getting the supplies into the classroom! |
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| We used the talking stick and shared what pet we have had home or one that we would like to have! |
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| We worked on starting our research about a pet. |
