Special Event #2: Self-Esteem Camp (Residential)

Discovering You: Stay Fit and Healthy (DY3)



Irish Girl Guides Health Promotion Challenge for Brownies (IGHP)

  For our Fall camp, we decided to focus on the Stay Fit and Healthy square of Discovering You. We found a Health Promotion booklet from the Irish Girl Guides website. We chose the Brownie level, since their Brownies are aged 7-10, which the majority of our girls fall into. This booklet has lots of great activity ideas!

We stayed well on schedule for this camp, which isn't always the case! We had great weather too! We had two options for the camp--either come for both nights and stay the whole weekend, or come for the day on Saturday (9 am to 7 pm). We had 2 day campers and 21 full campers.


FRIDAY

6:30-7:00—Arrival

7:00-7:30—Orientation

I print out the participant instructions from Safe Guide so that I remember everything we need to tell them. We have a "No Running" rule at camp, and if you're caught running inside, you have to sit on the floor where we caught you until we let you up. And you'd better hope we don't forget about you!

7:30-8:30—Icebreaker Yay You! Game (IGHP#1)--This game was simple but very rewarding. Just say your name and something you're good at, and then everyone claps and says, "Yay, (your name)". It really makes you feel good to have a room of 25 people cheering for you!

Throwing ball game with 4-5 stuffed animals--Start with one beanie baby sized stuff animal. You say a person's name and then toss the toy at the them. Keep going until everyone has caught the toy and it is back at the first person. (We have the girls duck down once they've had the toy, to make sure everyone gets it once and no one gets it twice.) Then you have to throw to the same person you threw to the first time, and then more and more stuffies get added to the game until 5 of them are going at once. Then slowly remove them until one is left. There are lots of giggles with this game.

Draw for Secret Buddies (DY1#5)--We do this every Residential camp and the girls love it! Everyone draws a name and for the weekend, secretly do nice things for your buddy. This year we had a stack of notepaper for them to use, and they burned through it, writing secret messages to their buddies!

8:30-10:00—Campfire


9:15: Mug-up—granola bars and hot chocolate--We don't have nut allergies this year, so we made homemade granola bars (so good!). Here's the recipe:
Homemade Chewy Granola Bars

1 C brown sugar
2/3 C peanut butter
1/2 C light corn syrup
1/2 C butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla

3 C oats
1/2 C sunflower seeds
1/2 C coconut
1/2 C raisins (I didn't use these)
1/3 C wheat germ
2 T sesame seeds
1 C chocolate chips

Stir together first 5 ingredients. Add remaining ingredients and stir. Press firmly into a 9x13 pan. Bake at 350°F for 15-20 minutes, until lightly browned on top. Let cool for an hour (or until completely cooled) and then cut into 24 bars.

10:00-11:00—Get ready for bed

11:00—Lights out

SATURDAY

7:00 Wake up

8:30-9:30 Breakfast—Eggs (scrambled or boiled), mini bagels, fresh fruit. Milk, juice, ketchup, jam, butter.

9:30—10:30 two activities (20 minute activities)

AM1 Box Oven—The girls lined the cardboard boxes with tin foil and got them ready to be used for lunch. One charcoal briquette gives off about 35°F of heat, so use 10-12 briquettes to get an oven heated to 350°F.(OC#3)

AM2 T-shirts (DY3#5) We had the girls each bring a plain, light coloured T-shirt. They used fabric pens to decorate the front, and then wrote positive messages on the back of each other's shirts, but didn't sign their messages. We left the shirts in the activity room for them to write on all weekend.
AM3 Hygiene activity—After a brief explanation of what hygiene is, the girls brainstormed lists of good hygiene and bad hygiene and then drew a picture of one or the other. (DY3#1, IGHP#4)

AM4 Create a commercial. We gave each group one of the following topics--fitness, healthy eating, sleep, anti-bullying--and had them create a commercial promoting the topic. We took a videocamera and after they rehearsed their skits, we filmed them. (DY3#2)

10:30-10:45: Snack—hummus, pita, cheese, baby carrots, water

1045-11:30: Two morning activities

11:30-12:00: Go outside--We had finished earlier than we planned, so they girls had free time to play outside. We'd brought rope for skipping, and frisbees, and they had a lot of fun.

12:00-12:30—Charcoal--We brought the box ovens outside and lit the charcoal. While we waited for the boxes to heat up, we played one more game.

Food Mail game--We used 4 empty cookie boxes and labeled them for Canada's Food Guide: Fruits and Vegetables, Meat and Alternatives, Grain Products, and Milk and Alternatives. Then I had taken flyers and cut out pictures of food and put them on index cards to create "post cards". I distributed the boxes around the campsite. Each group had a pen and had to put a "datemark" on the postcard before they delivered it to prove it was theirs. They had to travel as a group and deliver the mail to the right boxes.

12:30-1:30—Lunch and clean up—Pizza on thin buns, vegetables and dip, pepperoni, cheese, mushrooms, green peppers, pizza sauce (OC#3)

1:30-2:30— (20 min each)

PM1 Bullying—Follow the leader, Snap Crackle Pop--We played both of these games from the Health Promotion challenge. It didn't take as long as the Drug activity, so we also played some Wink Murder. (IGHP#7)

PM2 Drug activity—Krista (IGHP#2)

2:30-3:00 Skipping—(IGHP#5)

3:00—Snack Trail mix

3:00-3:30—Our two oldest girls asked if they could create a scavenger hunt for the rest of the girls, so they ran that activity. They tried to make it too complicated to start, but with a bit of guidance, the girls did a great job leading the activity and the other girls had fun.

3:30-5:00—Relaxation followed by free time (IGHP#8, FG#5)

5:00-5:30—Relationship activity (YaO1#2, IGHP#6) This was an interesting activity and the girls seemed to have fun with it too. My favourite compromise--one girl wanted to nap and the other wanted to go swimming, so they decided they would nap on a waterbed!

5:30-6:30—Supper—breaded chicken strips, cooked frozen corn, salad, rice (brown/white), milk, water, applesauce for dessert

7:15-9:30 Spa night! This girls had a blast with this. We had areas set up around the room and the girls could choose an activity as long as there was space for them. (FG#6)

Foot basins--hot water to soak their feet. I did this and it felt so good after a day of running around at camp!

Manicures/pedicures--We had nail polish (and asked the girls to bring some if they had it). Some did their own and some did each others. One of our third years did fancy designs on a number of nails and had a blast doing it!

Personal Fondues—8 oz soup can with holes punched in over top of a tea light, with a tin foil cup on top filled with chocolate chips. We had strawberries, bananas, and marshmallows for them to dip.

Crafts—lip balm, body glitter, body lotion, foot scrub. The kitchen didn't have a microwave, which changed the plans a little. (recipes will be added soon hopefully!)

10:30—Lights out. The girls were exhausted and went to bed early and easily!

SUNDAY

7:30 Wake up and Pack up

8:30-9:30: Breakfast Yogurt, applesauce, cereal, fruit and juice—Cheerios, Rice Krispies

10:00 Guides’ Own—During Guides Own we did our Two Apples and an Onion, revealed our Secret Buddies, showed the commercials they'd made (YiG4#2), and sang "Say Why" and "Daytime Taps".

Meeting #8: Remembrance Day

You and Others: Learn How to Plan (YaO3)

You in Guiding: Learn About Guiding (YiG2)

Event Planning

6:30-7:00: Patrol time--We gave the girls evaluation forms so they could evaluate the planning and execution of the Halloween party we had. Party Evaluation form (Word doc) (YaO3#1, EP#4)

7:00-7:15: Horseshoe and discuss Halloween evaluation--We had the Patrol Leaders give us the comments and suggestions from their Patrols. With the size of our unit this year, we're trying to give the Patrol Leaders more responsibility and reduce the number of other girls who are talking. They had some good comments about the party--more than just sweets for food, games were fun, not enough supplies for the craft.

7:15-7:30: Guides in Wartime minibooks--I got this idea from Owl and Toadstool. Guider Lee Anne sent me the files that had the little pictures and the posters with all the information. She'll willingly share the files with other Guiders if you comment on her post or send her an email.

She also sent me a video on how to make the layered book we used. I got coloured  cardstock from the Dollar Store and they turned out really pretty! When they finished the books, they glued them into their lapbooks. (YiG2#6)

7:45-7:55--Discussion of Guides in wartime--Once they finished their books, we talked about what they learned.

7:55-8:15--Valentines for Vets (Guider Cara on the Brownies Meet blog has a great write-up on Valentines for Vets)--We gave them lots of supplies so each could make a Valentine that we could send to Valentine's for Vets. Since Valentines need to be sent early in January, this seemed like a good time to do Valentine's for Vets, with the war time/Remembrance Day theme.

We gave them preprinted verses that they could glue in the cards (we took them from the Valentines for Vets site), and a preprinted label that said "4th Hammonds Plains Guides" to glue on the back, and lots of stamps and stickers and pretty paper that they could use to decorate the cards with.

As we were starting to explain what we were doing, one girl asked, "Why do veterinarians need Valentine's?" Oops! We should have explained that first. :)

8:15-8:30--We had time to sing a few songs before we did our closing.

Meeting #7: Fire Station

Fire Safety

We found out that we didn't have the school for this night, which was supposed to be our Remembrance Day meeting. We'll have to do Remembrance Day next week, after the fact. But one of our Guiders stepped up and booked the fire station for us.

We sent them the requirements for the badge before we got there, but the fire fighter who had planned to lead the session wasn't going to be there, so when I arrived first, they had just found out we were coming! But I gave them my book and they did an awesome job!

We started upstairs in a classroom where the two fire fighters who were leading discussed most of the aspects of the badge that they needed to learn. They spent about an hour going over the badge requirements, interrupted numerous times by questions! We have a couple of girls who, I swear, had their hands raised almost the whole time. As soon as a question was answered, they raised their hands to ask another.

(Funny side note--before we started, I told them to make sure they had questions and no stories. A few minutes in, one girl raised her hand and started to tell a story. Before the leaders could say anything, the girls sitting behind her gave her a little poke and said, "That's a story." Hee!)

Then we went down to the station bay where the trucks are. The fire fighters put on their gear and masks, then they turned out the lights and got down to crawl around, to show the girls what they would look like if they were in a fire and coming to rescue them. It is a strange sight and a good thing for girls to see if they were ever in a bad situation.

Finally, they got to go on the trucks. They went in five at a time and I don't know what he was telling them, but he explained a bunch of things about the truck. When they came out, they had water fire extinguishers set up and the girls got to try to spray the extinguishers, which they really enjoyed.

We had an activity planned, in case they finished early, but the fire fighters really seemed to enjoy talking to the girls and telling them all about what they do, that they used the whole 2 hours!

Special Event #1: Wildlife Park Night Walk

My fellow Guiders are shocked--I planned something for fun only. There's no programming that this counts toward!

We booked a night walk at Shubenacadie Wildlife Park and it was really cool. We had a guide who took us through the locked park and she told us lots of interesting things about all the animals. It was fun seeing the animals in the dark--the raccoons and porcupines were up and active. The beavers were quite busy and running around. The moose were up close--when we usually go in the day time, it's always hard to see the moose!

The wolves (grey and arctic) were howling while we were farther away, but they were just running around when we got to their cages.

If you're in Nova Scotia, this is an outing that I would recommend!

(The only programming we covered is #6 of the the Endangered Species badge.)