Caroline Horn received the Gold Award at a banquet sponsored by the Girl Scouts of Central Indiana on June 7. Caroline received the award for creating book activities for 3-5 year old children to help them prepare for school, and to support the parent child bond.
Caroline’s project was inspired by her work with the children at Breaking Free, and a visit to Sheltering Wings in Danville, Ind. She learned that children in domestic violence situations often have not been exposed to the basic learning opportunities to prepare them for school. She decided to create book activity bags that the children at Sheltering Wings could check out and complete with their mothers.
Caroline selected activities that would not only spark the children’s interest in learning, but also promote positive opportunities to strengthen the parent-child bond. She hopes this will contribute to the children’s emotional development in addition to preparing them for school. Caroline was advised by Patty Koors, a kindergarten teacher at Immaculate Heart of Indianapolis.
Each book bag includes a popular children’s book
in both Spanish and English, a letter to parents and a page of related fun, educational games and activities. Caroline also created a website where the activities can be shared with other parents of young children.
Caroline will be visiting Strong Missions in Alajuela, Costa Rica in July. She will donate children’s books in Spanish and activity pages to support their efforts to create a reading program for young children in the San Jose area. She will be traveling with her aunt, Dana Stone, who was her Spanish language consultant for her project.
Caroline will be a senior at Zionsville Community High School.
To earn the Gold Award, the highest achievement in Girl Scouts, a girl must identify a need and develop a sustainable lasting benefit to the community. This involves at least 80 hours of her work, ongoing consultation with a project advisor, enlisting community volunteers, and her own fundraising efforts. She must have her project approved in an application/interview process with the Girl Scout Council and finalized in an exit interview and presentation. About 5.4 percent of eligible Girl Scouts earn the Girl Scout Gold Award.
To learn more about Caroline’s project, visit her website: www.booksmarthealthyheart.com