You in Guiding Program

World Guiding badge

You in Guiding: Learn About Guiding (YiG2)
You in Guiding: Learn About WAGGGS (YiG3)
You in Guiding: Be Involved in Your Community (YiG4)

We took two meetings to work on the World Guiding badge (WG), which also tied into You in Guiding (YiG2=Learn About Guiding, YiG3=Learn About WAGGGS, YiG4=Be Involved in Your Community) and the NS 100 Challenge.

Meeting #1
Vote on fun activity: After these two meetings, we'd have spent four meetings in our meeting room, working on programming. We gave the girls a chance to pick a fun activity (swimming, bowling, pottery) as a reward for working so hard for four weeks straight.

Third-years perform LBP skit with props (10 min): Our third years had been working on their Lady Baden Powell Award, so they presented a skit they'd worked on to learn about Lady Baden Powell and teach the other girls too. (YiG2#1, WG#1)
 
Slide show on World Centers (Power Point doc) (15 min): This presentation was passed on to me from another Guider, but I'm not sure who created it in the first place. There is a lot of writing on the slides--I just give a general overview of what each says. (YiG3#2, WG#6)

Discuss CWFF and tell girls to bring at least 100 pennies next week (5 min). (YiG3#3, NS100)

World Center Countries Promise and Law sheet (15 min): We had a sheet that had the promises and laws from the World Center Countries (but I'm not sure where we got it from). We read them out loud and then noted how they were different from our promise and law. This activity could be improved upon--made into more of a game somehow. (YiG3#5, WG#2)

World Centers snack (10 min): Snacks again! We had Swiss cheese and chocolate (Our Chalet), hummus and pita (Sangam), salsa and tortilla chips (Our Cabana), shortbread cookies (PAX Lodge).  (WG#4)

Meeting #2
World Flag puzzle (15 min): I made puzzles for the patrols a few years ago and we reuse them every year. We discuss what each of the parts mean, and then they have to assemble the puzzles. This year, after explaining what each piece meant, they had to assemble them in the order that as I called out the meanings.  (YiG3#4)

Facts about Japan (10 min): We held this meeting after the tsunami in Japan. We talked about the information that was on the Japan page from the 100 in 100 Challenge (which we had done the previous year. Unfortunately, this page no longer exists. It had lots of great info!). We used the pennies we were collecting and rolling to send to CWFF for Japan. (WG#5)

Collect pennies and roll them (10 min): We had pennies that had been collected all year and a lot of penny rollers. The girls do this quite quickly--it's much easier than having a leader roll all the change we collect! (YiG4#5)

World Center fortune tellers/cootie catchers/origami:  (15 min) The girls always love a chance to do some crafting/coloring/folding (WG#7)

Tent Camping--Back to Basics

Outdoor Cooking

Outdoor Adventures

ordered from E-Patches and Crests



Basic Camper

For spring camp, we tented at a local provincial campground. We didn't want to plan anything "extra" to do, other than camping activities. We planned for the girls to earn the Outdoor Adventure (OA) and Outdoor Cooking (OC) badges, along with the Basic Camper (BC) badge and a Spring Camping crest.

We arrived at camp on Friday evening and all the girls helped to set up the tents. (BC#3)  We invited the other Guide unit and the Pathfinder unit from our district, so we had 23 girls and 5 leaders. 

Once all the tents were up and organized, we had our group orientation meeting. We talked about the boundaries of the camp and where they were allowed to go. The campground wasn't open to the public yet, so we were the only group there, which was nice. (BC#4, BC#5)

Then we played an icebreaker game I found on Becky's Guiding Resource Center called Part-to-Part. The leaders played too. I'm not sure we did the "move down and go the other line" part of the game quite right, but it was fun and there's nothing like getting into someone else's personal space to get to know them!

We tasked each tent with coming up with two to three songs for campfire that night. The girls helped to start the fire and we had a great sing-a-long.  After mug up, we went to an open field and looked ath constellations, using star charts that we had printed off from the internet before we left. (OA#6, BC#7)

The girls were doing all of their own cooking for the weekend. We had four camp stoves for them to use, so they made themselves eggs (scrambled or boiled) and toast for breakfast. They were all responsible for their own dishes and clean-up. (OC#1, OC#5, OC#7, OA#3, BC#3)

Then we split up into two groups to play some games. Half went with one Guider to play a Red Light/Green Light game to help them learn what they need to know for their badges. I got the idea from Becky's site, but I adapted it to what we needed (and realized it is very close to the game I made up for the Endangered Species Wide Game I did a couple of years earlier.) (OA#7, OC#6, OC#7, OC#8, BC#4)

Red Light/Green Light

The other half played the Smells of Camp Kim's Game, again from Becky's site. We found small vials at the dollar store and covered them with electrical tape, since film cannisters aren't as prevalent. I filled them with lots of different things from my kitchen. (OC#6, OC#7)

After a snack, the girls got into groups again and they were each given a topic and they made up skits on how to Be Prepared in the following situations:

• If you’re lost, stay in one place because this helps people find you.
• Wear clothing appropriate to the weather, including footwear that will protect your feet and a hat to help prevent heat loss or protect you from the sun.
• The buddy system helps keep track of where people are during camp.
• Know the camp’s address, emergency phone numbers, and how to give directions to the camp. (BC#9)

For lunch, the girls cooked Kraft Dinner and hot dogs on the camp stoves again. (OC#1, OC#5, OC#7, OA#3, BC#3)

After the dishes were done and camp was cleaned, they spent some time playing in and near the river. The river was shallow and they were allowed in up to their knees. Some found tadpoles, one girl found a snake in the long grass, some skipped rocks. (BC#8)

Then we split them into two groups and they used trail signs (rocks, sticks, grass) to lay a trail that the other group then followed. (OA#4, OA#8, BC#6, BC#8)

Next, we made box ovens that we were going to use to cook our supper. We lined file boxes/paper boxes and lids with tin foil, poking a hole through the handle part for ventilation. We had found some small grills at the dollar store that we propped up on empty pop cans filled with water. We started the charcoal in tin foil pie plates. We cooked pizza on English muffins and they were delicious! It was our first time trying box ovens, but we will be doing them again and again, I'm sure! (OA#5, OC#3, BC#3)

During down times throughout the day, we played some Logic Games and Minute Mysteries. The girls loved these!

The next morning we broke down camp. The girls had to have their gear packed before they were allowed to come for breakfast. After breakfast and the tents were put away, we had our closing. We always do "Two Apples and an Onion", where everyone says two things they liked about camp (apples) and one thing they didn't like (onion). We also handed out their badges and crests and sang a few songs. (BC#10)

We had great weather for the weekend, and I would say it was a successful camp!

Camp Schedule

Residential Camp--Water Badge

Water for Life Challenge
(edged in blue for Guides)

Water badge

Beyond You: Learn About Our Environment (BY3)

For fall camp, we did the Water for Life Challenge (no longer active as of 2016), the Water Badge, and this also tied into Beyond You Square: Learn About Our Environment #3.

The following is our camp schedule, with programming parts expanded out.

Every residential camp, we do secret pals--the girls and leaders all pick a name, and have to do acts of kindness throughout the weekend. They can make a craft, wash her dishes, any sort of thing, and try to keep it secret. We use this for the Discovering You: Discover What's Important to You #5.

We know the girls like to craft, so we have four or five hat craft examples, but let them make whatever they want at craft time. Some of them do the hat crafts, but most like to do their own thing (and then copy what the other girls are doing!) The craft table is available at all times, though sometimes it is hard to keep them away from it! There are a lot of crafts made for their secret pals.

Friday

6:30 Arrival

7:30 Camp rules and Ice breaker game

WfL #4: Discussion of the Water for Life Logo and why Girl Guides are promoting Decade for Action

http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/wdlogo.html

The Water for Life Decade Logo depicts a fountain of water painted in dark blue. The fountain consists of two cupped hands rising out from an ocean of water represented by two horizontal broad wavy lines. In a point-line style the water streams out of the fountain in both directions, portraying water that is harnessed 'for Life'.

The words "Water for Life 2005-2015" appear below the artwork.
The Water for life decade logo will be available in the six official United Nations languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

Girl Guides is promoting it because it’s a United Nations initiative, and Girl Guides/WAGGGS helps promote UN initiatives that affect children/girls/women around the world.

8:30 Campfire and Mug Up

10:00 PJs

11:00 Lights out

Saturday

8:00 Breakfast and cleanup

9:00 Discussion of: source of water in community: WfL #1/WB #2 (We had to do some research about our local watershed)

uses of water: WfL #2

ways to conserve water: WfL #2/WfL #5/WfL #14/WB #3

          Skits about conserving water: WfL #3 (After our brainstorming session on how to conserve water, the girls split up into groups and created skits about conserving water. They always love creating skits!)

10:00 Snack and make buddy burners

10:30 Relay races: WfL #10 We had the girls carry large bowls on their heads, but not with water in them—it was too messy inside and too cold outside (we camped in November). We did this as a relay race, to have the girls learn to balance them on their heads

          Hike to lake

          Cloud discussion while on hike: WfL #29

11:15 Craft/free time

12:00 Lunch

1:00 Duties

1:30 We split up into four stations and spent 20 minutes at each one:

1. water cycle experiment: WfL #50 Water Cycle in a bag (updated link to a similar activity)

2. Tsunami experiment: WfL #38 Tsunami Experiment (updated link to a similar activity)

3. Rain dance: WfL #48 (how to do a rain dance)

4. Plants, animals, insects that live in water: WfL #24/WB #6 (I didn't plan this part. They made water habitats with materials from outside and used coloured clay to make animals that live in and around the water, and tin foil to represent the water)

3:00 Aquifier snack and discussion about aquifiers: WfL #20/ WfL #15/WfL #23/WB#1

Edible Earth Parfait

Discussion of leisure activities and how they can be harmful to environment: WfL #25/WfL #26/WB#5 We did this while they were eating their aquifier.

3:30 Trivia: A review of everything we’ve discussed over the weekend, plus WfL #36

4:00 Free Time

5:30 Supper

6:30 Duties

7:00 Impromptu talent show

8:00 campfire and mug up

10:00 PJs

11:00 Lights out

Sunday

8:00 Breakfast

9:00 Pack up

9:30 Guides Own: WB#8  We’ll sing Barges, reveal our secret buddies, sing Swimming Swimming in a Swimming Pool, discuss our apples and onions (2 things you liked about camp/1 thing you didn’t like), give out badges, sing Go Well and Safely

All together, we did 18 things from the Water for Life Challenge to earn 3 crests (the blue Guide crest, the orange Brownie crest, and the pink Spark crest).

We did 6 things from the Water Badge (page 160 of the Guide Book).

Everything we did over the weekend counted for Beyond You: Learn About Our Environment #3.

You and Others: Learn How to Plan #4

You and Others: Learn How to Plan (YaO3)

For money management, we planned a game of Price Is Right, and the girls loved it. We had about 16 girls at this meeting, and planned it so that each girl got two chances in "contestant row". Prizes were from the dollar store, like yo-yos and silly putty and, of course, toy cars for the car games!

For contestant's row, we brought a group of four girls forward. They got to bid on items we found in flyers, like stereos, tvs, jewellery, clothing, furniture, etc. The girl who won got to bring another girl from contestant's row to play the game with her.

We played The Clock Game because that was always my favourite game! You need a 3 digit price on an item. A picture from a flyer for the girls to see and a stop watch..

Dice Game: This is the car game. We had a picture of a car, and the price had all numbers between 1-6. The girls rolled a die, and if it wasn't the right, they had to say if the real number was higher or lower.

Flip Flop: You need a four digit priced item. For example, if it's $2568. Print out four pages, one with 25, one with 68, one with 52, and one with 86. For the game, we'd tape up the $52 68. The girls would have to decide to flip the first two digits (to 25), flop the last two digits (to 86) or flip flop both. They could tape their decision over the initial price we show them.

Shell game: You need 4 plastic cups and a small rubber ball. Then you need 4 items from the flyers (like jeans, sneakers, $10-80 things) with a wrong price for each. The girls will guess if the price is higher or lower. If they're right, they place a marker in front of one of the cups. If they have a marker in front of the cup with the ball, they win the prize.

Grand Game: you need 6 grocery items (real or pictures). There's a target price, so 4 items need to be less than that number and 2 items need to be more. We started at $0.01 and with each right answer, it moved up ($0.10, $1.00, $10.00) so that if they win the game, they win $10 and each girl gets $5.

Check Out Game: you need 4 grocery items. The girls will guess how much each thing costs. They need to be right within $2 to win. You can be fancy and print out a price for each item to turn over. Use the big paper to write down the guesses and the right prices as they are added up.

For everyone who didn't get to play a big game or who didn't win a big game, they got a small prize of a pencil and a notepad.

Healthy Eating Badge and Discovering You Square

Discovering You: Stay Fit and Healthy (DY3)
Discovering You: Understand How to Be Responsible (DY4)

Healthy Eating badge

We took two meetings to cover the Healthy Eating Badge and parts of Discovering You: Stay Fit and Healthy and Understand How to Be Responsible. We were also working on the NS 2011 Anniversary Challenge and the Nfld Fit for Life Healthy Living Challenge.

(Abbreviations--HE=Healthy Eating badge, DY3=Discovering You Stay Fit and Healthy, DY4=Discoverying You Understand How to Be Responsible, FfL=Fit for Life Challenge, NS100=NS 100 Anniversary Challenge)

We had previously volunteered at the Feed Nova Scotia (HE#8).

Meeting #1
15 min: Discuss Canada's Food Guide and why each section is important. (HE#6, DY3#3)

10 min: List the things you ate today for breakfast, recess, lunch, afterschool snack, and supper. Categorize them into Canada's Food Guide. (HE#1, DY3#3, FfL#B)
Sheets to print for each Guide to fill out

15 min: Discuss who achieved the recommended servings for the day. (HE#2, DY3#3)

10 min: Food label activity printouts (HE#4): I got these from http://www.nourishinteractive.com/
Food Label Worksheet
Sample Labels

10 min: Healthy snack with NS food (NS100#16b): We like to have snacks and eat at our meetings quite often! We had rolls from a local bakery, cheese, and blueberries.

Meeting #2
20 min: Design an ad for healthy food/healthy lifestyle. (HE#3, DY3#2): Each patrol worked together to create their ad.

5 min: Smoking is bad for you (FfL#C)

20 min: Taking the Temperature activity from the GirlEmpower Challenge (DY4#4)
GirlEmpower Challenge

15 min: Brainstorm what you would need in a Be Prepared kit for different activities. (DY4#2): We gave each patrol a different activity and had them come up with what would be required.

Endangered Species Badge

Endangered Species

We did this as a Wide Game at camp a couple of years ago, and it was a lot of fun. We had two units of Guides at camp, so we had about 22 girls to do the game with. We were in a large private camp, so we had a lot of space, and each activity was in a separate area.
We did a refresher of First Aid in the morning so the girls would be prepared for the afternoon, though we didn't tell them that they would require the information later.

We started after lunch with a Scavenger Hunt.  Each team got points for the number of items they found. The collection of items was saved for later in the Wide Game.
Scavenger Hunt list

We had four stations set up: True/False, First Aid, Semaphore, Animal Habitat and a small story to get the girls from station to station.
Wide Game story

True/False: We had one leader here, though she said it was a lot of talking to do it four times, so depending on how many leaders you have with you, you might want to have 2 here to trade off. The girls lined up and they each held a coloured stone in each hand. Right hand=true, left hand=false. If they answered correctly, they took a step forward. When someone got 5 right, the team earned a point, and everyone reset to the beginning. Some of the questions are geared towards our province of Nova Scotia, so you may need to change these up.
True/False questions

First Aid: The girls got a point for each correct ailment they treated, including the initial 4-hand carry. When they got to the First Aid station, they each pulled a piece paper with an ailment on it and the other girls had to treat it, e.g. broken finger, nosebleed, sprained ankle, bleeding cut, puncture wound...

Semaphore: When the girls arrived at the Semaphore station, we taught them how to do A-G in semaphore. Then they split up into two groups and had to send the answers to the questions--Endangered Animals in Canada, Endangered Animals of the World, Endangered Plants in Canada, and bonuses of Endangered Animals in NS and Endangered Plants in NS. Again, you'll need to change these to your own province. Because we only taught A-G, I used codes to match up the answers to the semaphores.

For the Semaphore flags, I made them using red and white bristol board, covered in laminating paper from the Dollar store, and attached to molding we had in the garage, or you could use a dowel or other such thing.
Page 62: Leader Ladder
Semaphore Positions
Semaphore Codes

Animal Habitat: For this, the girls created a habitat for animals in a shoebox using the items they collected in the Scavenger Hunt. I'm always blown away by how creative the girls are! They did this activity near the kitchen, so they also got to have their snack while they were crafting.

Finally, we all met up together and had a trivia contest to finish the game. One girl from each group would step forward and the first one whose hand went up got to answer, and they rotated through so everyone got to try to answer questions. I had put in some pop culture trivia to make it fun for them, but they didn't like that at all! I got so much grief from them over it!
Trivia Questions