The theme for World Thinking Day in 2006 is Adolescent Health and how it connects with the WAGGGS triennial theme, ’Our Rights Our Responsibilities.’ The two sub-themes to be stressed are "The Right to be Me" and the "The Right to be Happy." The WAGGGS official Thinking Day site has a program packet to help you explore this topic, but I am going to offer you our school's plan of action and some ideas.

The troops at our school do a school-wide activity, with each troop presenting one booth per every five girls in attendance. That's the extent of the instructions. It's up to each troop to decide what to do for booths within the theme. The only other details that need to be attended to are reserving a space for the event (we use the school cafeteria), collecting ideas from troops as they come up with them to avoid duplicating efforts, and breaking the girls into teams to rotate through the stations.

As far as booths, here are some ideas to get you rolling:

~Healthy foods and food choices (four food groups and all that)
~Dental Health (proper brushing for starters)
~Stethoscope activities
~Physical fitness activities (running, jump rope activities, hopscotch, yoga)
~Invite in guests who work in the health professions (nurses, doctors, firemen, dentists, EMT workers)
~Health-themed Swaps (see link for ideas)

Last year we asked each troop to do one food booth in lieu of treats. It's generally a good rule of thumb if each troop thinks about doing a crafty activity and an active activity to keep the activities varied.

In addition to the yearly theme, Thinking Day is a good time to educate the girls about WAGGGS, the world centers, and the meaning of the World Trefoil pin, among other things. Some of the troops could dedicate their booths to these kinds of topics as well as the current theme. This year we are going to do some group activities too and work on mixing not only troops but age levels.

If doing your own thing at your school is not your thing, keep a look out for your neighborhood and council events related to Thinking Day.