Meeting #23:You and Others: Learn How to Plan

You and Others: Learn How to Plan (YaO3)

Discovering You: Discovering Your Creativity (DY2)

Cookies are here! We're having a District Cookie Blitz on Saturday, so we wanted to spend a meeting on cookie selling.

6:30-7:00: Patrol time-Life Plans We gave them forms to fill out for things they want to accomplish in their lives.  (YaO3#3 Worksheet (Word doc)) 

7:00-7:25: Horseshoe At Horseshoe, we got each girl to tell us one thing from their Life Plans. And then they handed their sheets in to get credit for doing the program work. (YaO3#3)

7:25-7:45: Make up skits on proper and improper selling etiquette. We divided them into groups of three and they had to do 2 short skits--one showing what not to do when cookie selling and one showing the proper way to sell. (DY2#3)

7:45-8:`5: Create a power point or poster to advertise Girl Guide Cookies. (YaO3#2)  Each leader brought a laptop for the girls to work on, plus we had two large pieces of Bristol board and a number of small pieces of poster board. We had the girls draw for if they would be working on the computer or with markers. We also downloaded clip art for the girls to use from the Girl Guides of Canada site. 

Once everyone was done, they all showed everyone what they had created. The posters looked fantastic and we will be using them at all the locations for the cookie blitz on Saturday. The girls who did the PowerPoints did a great job too. 

Meeting #22: Pottery Night

Discovering You: Discover Your Creativity (DY2)

Another easy night! We brought in someone to teach the girls pottery. They each got a clump of clay about the size of their fist and learned to make pinch pots. They could shape them however they wanted, and as usual, I was blown away by their creativity. (DY2#6)

They also took a small piece of clay and made pendants that could be worn on a necklace. Then they used under-glaze to colour them. Our potter took all of their creations to fire in the kiln and we'll be getting them back in a few weeks.

Of course, I forgot to take pictures of the girls working. I will try to remember to take pictures of their creations when we get them back.

Meeting #21: Art Production Badge Part 1

Art Production badge (AP)

Discovering You: Discover Your Creativity (DY2)

You and Others: Build Skills in Communication (YaO2)

Our meeting was cancelled last week due to a snow day. We were supposed have done this last week and then do the second part this week. Unfortunately, with March Beak and cookies coming up, our next available week to complete this will be the first week in April! Stay tuned!

6:30-7:00:  Patrol time--Create a picture based on a dream using pastels. On their Patrol Time sheets, we told them what they were to do, and they had to come to the front to get their paper and pastels once they understood the instructions. We wanted to make sure they were reading and understanding their instructions! And one group didn't read all the way through and started drawing all six pictures on the back of their Patrol time sheet! (AP#1, YaO2#5)

7:00-7:15: Horseshoe

7:15-7:20: Song to learn Primary and Secondary colours. I wasn't at the meeting for this part so I don't know the exact lyrics, but it was sung to If You're Happy and You Know It, and went "Yellow and blue make green". As the leaders sang the song, they mixed paint and let the girls say what the colour was. (AP#3, DY2#4)

Edited to add: I found the lyrics to the song. It's from "Barney and Friends": Mix a Color lyrics.

7:25-7:45: We gave the girls small plates and they each got to create one colour from the paint (blue, yellow, red, white, black). (AP#3) Using this colour, they created a print using stamps and dry pasta. I got the dry pasta idea from this blog: E Is for Explore (AP#4, DY2#4)

7:45-8:15: Create a sculpture using clay. We gave them 6 different colours of clay/plasticine and popsicle sticks for shaping and let them be creative--and they came up with some great designs.  (AP#2)

We kept all of their creations because when we do the second half of this badge, we're going to have an art gallery for the parents to see all of their creations (AP#7). 

This was a great meeting. The girls got to complete a lot of program work, but they also got to sit at their tables and talk and create. I don't plan crafts enough (and I'm trying to work on that!), but I always love watching the girls create and interact.

Hike #5: Night Hike

With all the hikes we`re planning this year, we`re trying to come up with different things we can do to make them interesting. So we decided to have a night hike on the Rails to Trails, a nice wide flat trail that would be easy to navigate in the dark. We invited the other Guide Unit in our District to join us.

The weather forecast all week was not favourable and we discussed whether we`d have to cancel, but then Friday morning, the forecast changed and we had a beautiful night. We met at 6:30 and planned to be out for 2 hours.

We gave the girls glow bracelets to brighten up the night and small Kleenex packs to put into their first aid kits. The kit list included a filled water bottle, a snack, their first aid kits, and their log books. They needed to wear hats, mitts, and layers. The layers were important, because it wasn`t as cold as anticipated and most people shed a layer on the way.

We stopped every 15-20 minutes for water breaks, and at the halfway point we stopped and had a snack. The clouds cooperated and opened up some for us, so we did some star-gazing and found Orion, and had a beautiful view of the crescent moon aligned with Venus and Jupiter.

Our hike was timed beautifully, and we got back just at the pick up time and we hiked 5 km, which is what we hoped to cover on the hike. We`re now halfway to our goal for the hiking challenge.

Meeting #19: Canadian Guiding Badge, Pt 2

Canadian Guiding badge (CG)

You in Guiding

6:30-7:00 Patrol time–We gave the girls a number of Canadian Guider magazines to look through and find 5 interesting things that were going on in other units across Canada (basically, one per Guide). We also printed off some copies of Coastlines, the NS magazine, and told them to find the most interesting thing in it. We gave them Nov 2011 (which had a picture of our first hike) and Feb 2012 (which had a picture of our Tae Kwon Do night). They were quite excited to find their pictures! (CG#2)

7:00-7:15: Horseshoe—All of the Guiders in our unit are also involved on the Executive Council (DC, Deputy DC, Treasurer, and Secretary) so we all discussed what our roles are and what we do. (CG#4)

We also asked who had brought back a Guiding Resource to go into their binders. Most girls chose song lyrics. If they brought a Resource, they got credit towards the badge. If they didn't bring it back, they don't get the badge until they do. (CG#6)

7:15-7:35: This badge seemed to have a lot of talking about stuff, and our girls aren't really talkers--they like to do--so we made a card matching game to teach them about Lones, Trefoil Guild, Pathfinders, and Canadians on Foreign Soil units. I glued the facts to the back of old business cards (I have a pile from when my title changed--I became a P.Eng--and then my company changed buildings with a new address). (Facts, Word file) (CG#3)

7:30-7:35: The daughter of one of our Guiders is a Pathfinder and a Junior Leader at the Spark unit down the hall from us. When the Spark meeting finishes, she joins us, and we got her to talk briefly about what her favourite things about Guiding are. She`s quite shy, but she did answer all their questions. (CG#3)

7:35-8:00: Finally, we chose to let the girls plan a hike, since this ties into our work on the Hiking Challenge. First we played the game `I`m Going on a Hike and I`m Bringing...` I love playing this game with the girls. You can only bring something that begins with the same letter your name, but you don`t tell the girls what the trick is. So if Emma wants to bring cookies, we say she can`t come, but then when Cate wants to bring cookies, Sure! It`s fun watching the girls as they figure it out. You go around the circle a few times, emphasizing the words as more girls catch on, to help the other ones catch on too.

Then we got serious and actually planned a hike. The girls helped us make a kit list and gave suggestions for trails to use, and had a very smart idea to have a Bring a Friend hike. We going to do this hike in April, most likely. (CG#8)

8:00-8:20: We ended the night with campfire. Four of our girls had been to a Provincial Guide camp on the weekend and had learned some new songs that they were dying to teach everyone. We also let the girls who had brought songs as their Resources lead their songs too.