Meeting #6: Halloween Party

Event Planning (EP)

6:30-6:50 Patrol Time--Since we wanted the friends to experience what a meeting was like while also having a party, we had Patrol Time and gave them Halloween Word Search and Spot the Differences sheets to work on. I found these easily through Google. (EP#7)

6:50-7:00  Horseshoe--Again, to give the friends a sense of Guides, we started with Horseshoe.

7:0-7:10 We had a Costume Parade with the Sparks from down the hall. Lots of great costumes! (EP#7)

7:10-8:00 Halloween Fun!

Wax Museum--One girl is It. The rest need to create a pose and hold. It walks around and tries to catch people when they move. When It has her back turned, the statues need to change their position without getting caught. (EP#6)

Relay Races--Each team has an empty bowl by their line and and a bowl with candy corn at the other end. Each team has one spoon. They had to transfer the candy corn from one end to the other using their spoon. They couldn't pick it up off the floor if they dropped it--that way they could eat it at the end! (EP#6)

Halloween Skits--Each group came up with skits on the Dos and Don'ts of Trick or Treating.  Is anything more Guiding than making up skits?! (EP#6)

8:00-8:25 Food and Fun!

They put on music for a dance party and set out food to eat. They had Sugar cookies to decorate, brownies, cupcakes, fruit, veggies, chips, pretzels, and punch!

The girls did a great job organizing everything and everyone had a lot of fun. (EP#4)

8:25-8:30--Clean up and closing. We gave out treat bags that had Halloween pencils and erasers. In the friends' bags, we also put in Guide bookmarks, Guide registration magnets, and a piece of paper that told them to talk to their parents if they wanted to register.

Meeting #5: You and Others: Learn How to Plan

You and Others: Build Skills in Communication (YaO2)
You and Others: Learn How to Plan (YaO3)

Even Planning badge (EP)

6:30-7:00--Patrol Time. They had a worksheet to work on, planning things they want to achieve in life. (YaO3#3) (Worksheet, Word doc)

7:00-7:20--Horseshoe. We discussed their worksheets and each girl shared one of things she'd planned for her life and how she would achieve it. Then we talked about planning the Halloween party. At an earlier meeting, we'd asked if they wanted it to be a Bring-A-Friend night and they did. (EP#1)

7:20-7:50--Invitations. We planned what needed to be on each invitation, and then they decorated them. (EP#2)

7:50-8:00--We played a memory game from the Leaders' Ladder. We read a poem, and they had to listen for everything that was wrong in the poem. (Leaders' Ladder, p54) (YaO2#1)

8:00-8:20--Party Planning. First we brainstormed ideas for the activities. Then we had them think about how long each activity would take and what were similar ideas. They settled on games (Wax Museum), relay races (candy corn bowls), Halloween skits (dos and don'ts for trick or treating), dance party, and food.

Then we had to brainstorm the food. They came up with a list of food, both healthy and non-healthy, and then decided on who would bring what. (YaO3#1, EP#3).

8:20-8:30--Closing

Thinking Day Postcard Exchage

I've heard about the Thinking Day Postcard Exchange for a few years but had never signed up because they used Yahoo Groups and you had to create a Yahoo ID and that seemed like an extra step that I wasn't quite prepared to do. (Yes, I can be lazy). 

Then Hollah Guiding did a meeting on the Postal badge and they used the Postcard Exchange and it seemed like a fun idea. The idea is that you send one postcard to each group to tell them about Guiding in your corner of the world, and you will receive one back from them. 

I signed up around the end of September and the database went live the second week of October. Bonus: they weren't using Yahoo Groups this year!

I got the email with the link to the database on a Wednesday evening. I didn't have time to check it out that night and by the next morning, I'd had 4 requests to exchange!

We're planning to send 2 postcards per girl, to ensure everyone gets at least one. The thought is to do one domestic and one international, and we've got lots of great exchanges set up. Countries include England, Scotland, Germany, Jspan, Singapore, Australia, plus lots of US states and Canadian provinces. 

We're planning to do the Postal badge in early January, as a lot of groups want a 2015 postmark. 

I'm having lots of fun getting requests and making requests. Having to turn down requests isn't fun (for example, not wanting to double up on states), but I have also been denied and I completely understand why, and it's just part of being at least slightly unique. The more unique, the more you'd have to turn away. 

After a week we have almost reached our quota, but sign-ups are on-going and there are lots of groups willing to trade. It seems like a great program and has been going for years. There is even a crest that goes with it!

Meeting #4: International Day of the Girl

You and Others: Learn About Leadership in a Group (YaO1)

Discovering You: Discover What's Important to You (DY1)

International Day of the Girl Challenge (IDotG)

6:30-7:00 Patrol Time--I made up a worksheet for them to create their Superhero. While they were working on this, we collected dues and cookie money and health forms. (Superhero Worksheet Word Doc)

7:00-7:15 Horseshoe--We talked about what International Day of the Girl is. I tried reading the information from the Challenge, but it uses a lot of big words that we had to rephrase to help them understand. Then each girl shared her Superhero that she created. (DY1#6)

7:15-7:40 Literary Heroes--Before the meeting, as leaders we brainstormed books that we had at our houses that we could bring in. We had Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Anne of Green Gables, Dear Canada Diaries, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Trixie Belden, Sheree Fitch. Before we showed the girls what we had brought, we asked them to name books that were written by women or had girls/women as main characters. Well, our girls are great readers! They came up with most of what we brought and then so much more. (DY1#6)

As I wrote them down on the white board, another leader wrote each one on a slip of paper. Then we had the girls draw a slip of paper and describe the book/author without using the title or character names. They seemed to have a lot of fun with this.

7:40-8:010 Real life heroes: I knew our girls wouldn't sit still to have us read them stories about the real life heroes in the challenge (Roya Shams and Danika Bax). Malala Yousafzai had just won the Nobel Peace Prize, and so I looked for a story about her and found a good one on Time for Kids. So we gave each Patrol one person to read about and then present it to the rest of the group. They all wanted to do skits, of course! They did a pretty good job of conveying the message for each girl, with a little summary at the end.  (YaO1#4 or YaO1#6)

8:10-8:20: How Are You a Hero?--We didn't have time for each girl to create a sheet on her own, but we worked together to come up with ideas about how we are Every Day Heroes in our Guiding and non-Guiding lives.

8:20-8:30 Closing--We cleaned up the room and then sang Taps.

The meeting came together really well and I think the girls had lots of fun.

Meeting #3: Understand the Promise, Law, and Motto

You in Guiding: Understand the Promise, Law, and Motto (YiG1)

Patrol Time: Promise Crossword (from Ontario Leader Ladder p76) (YiG1#1)

Horseshoe

Patrol Leader Speeches and Elections: We will have three patrols this year, so we needed 6 girls to run, which included 2nd years. We only had 3 girls who wanted to be Patrol Leaders, and 4 who wanted to be Seconders, which meant 1 girl was going to miss out. Only the girls who were running for Patrol Leader had to give a speech. (YiG1#3)

While the votes are counted, we played the reef knot game.

Reef Knot Game (Ontario Leader Ladder p45): We hid the rope as the girls arrived, around the room and down the hallway. We had about 35 pieces of rope for 11 girls. They were in 3 groups, and they could go out and look one girl at a time, and had to tie the knot before the next girl could go look. Once all the rope was found, they measured their ropes against each other to see whose was longest. (YiG1#5)

Handshake Dance--this is the activity from the Program Book. Since we have a small number of girls, we played like musical chairs and had eliminations and a winner. Our Junior Leader picked "All About That Base" for the song for them to dance to. (YiG1#4)

Election Results: We named the Patrol leaders. As we named the Seconders, they got to pick the Patrol Leader to work with. Then we drew names and filled out the Patrols. Our 2 first years picked different Patrols, which I was happy about.

For Patrol Emblems, we went through our existing badges to try to use them up. We had 4 Poppies, 4 Forget-Me-Nots, and 3 Bluebells. We explained to the girls that we were "Using our Resources Wisely" and they didn't seem to mind. One girl was missing, so we let the group of 4 pick first. Then we let the next group pick and whichever picked Forget-Me-Nots would be the group that the missing girl would be in.

Be Prepared activity: We set up three stations around the room. The girls would go to each location and write down what they'd need to Be Prepared at each location. When they were done, we discussed their lists. They came up with some creative ideas, like an air-conditioned RV for the desert! (Supplies: Signs for around the room and papers for the girls Word Document) (YiG1#2)

Promise, Law, Motto game from the Guide Active Living Toolbox (other levels can be found on the NB Active Living page). We'd say the first part of a line of the Promise and Law and they'd have to find it around the room and do the activity that was with it, like hop on one foot, etc. All of this is in the Toolbox. (YiG1#1)

Closing

It was a lot of little activities, but it went nicely from talking to active and back again.

First Meeting: Begin Again!

I can't believe I'm starting my third cycle through the Guiding program--Year Seven of being a Guide leader!

6:30-7 Arrival and paperwork--we let the girls arrive and choose their tables to sit at. We only have 11 girls this year, and they split into two tables, which ended up being all the girls from one school at one table (2nd and 3rd years) and all the girls from another school at the other table (1st and 2nd years). I gave them the same puzzle to do this year as we did last year, and a couple of them actually finished it this year!

7:-7:15: Ice breaker games: They wanted to play the Yay! You! game, where everyone says their name and then something they're good at, and then everyone else says, "Yay! (insert name)". 

Then we played a game called Zip/Zap. The person in the middle would point at someone. If she said "Zip" they had to name the person on their left, and if she said "Zap" they had to name the person on their right, and if she said "Zip Zap" everyone had to change places in the circle. We only have 2 new girls this year, but they're twins so that makes it more difficult to figure out their names! We also have a new leader this year, so it was helpful for her to learn everyone's names.

7:15-7:30: Talk about Guide Program and LBP: We spent a few minutes explaining the Guide program to the new girls, and then discussing the Lady Baden-Powell Challenge and what needs to be done for the third years to complete the program.

7:30-7:50: Guide Uniform—Beetle game. We thought we play a game to emphasize what was expected for uniforms. We gave each girl a paper doll and the instructions. You had to roll a 1 to start, and you could draw/colour a shirt on your girl. Each person could roll once and then pass to the next girl at her table. The die went around the table until a girl rolled all her numbers (2-pants, 3-scarf, 4-sash, 5-program book, 6-indoor shoes). The first girl to dress her girl won! (Supplies: die for each table, Paper doll, instructions)

7:50-8:10: Activities for the year—We discussed with the girls what we had planned and what they wanted to do.

8:10-8:30: Campfire and closing--we sang some songs and then sang Taps.

Meeting #27: First Aid badge

You and Others: Learn About Safety (YaO4)

First Aid badge

Fit for Life challenge (FfL)

Guest speaker night! We invited the EMS to come present at our meeting. We gave him the First Aid badge requirements and he did a great job going over them with the girls. He complained a little that the badge is out of date, and I told him to just cover what is relevant. (FA#1-10, YaO4#1)

After his presentation, he took the girls out in groups to see the inside of the ambulance, which was exciting.

Once he was done, one of our leaders did a short presentation on Disease and Injury Prevention, and then we put together Be Prepared kits with the girls who haven't done that yet. (YaO4#2, FfL:G).

Fairly easy night and a lot of programming covered!

Meeting #26: Performing Arts badge

Performing Arts badge (PA)

One of our Rangers wanted to present a meeting for the Guides on the Performing Arts badge so this is what she did.

6:30 - 7:00  Patrol Time: Character Study--The girls were given a sheet with a number of characteristics that they had to define for their character. (Character Study)

7:00 - 7:15  Horseshoe

7:15-7:30 They continued to work on their character study sheets (PA#8)

7:30 - 7:50 Skit planning--once their character studies were complete, they created skits to showcase their characters (PA#1)

7:50 - 8:20 Skit presentation -- They came up with some pretty interesting skits!

8:20 - 8:30 Clean-up and closing

 If we combine this with other activities we've done this year (puppets (PA#7), mime game (PA#4), and song performance (PA#6)), they've done enough to earn the badge.

Third Year Homework

Discovering You: Understand How to Be Responsible (DY4)

You and Others: Learn How to Plan (YaO3)

Beyond You: Discover Your Community (BY1)

We have six girls working on their Lady-Baden Powell award this year, which means they all need to finish their program squares. One girl started in Grade 5, so only had 2 years to complete the program work. (Luckily, she attended Kwa-hee, the provincial Guide camp over the summer, and they covered a lot of things that she didn't have). Another girl transferred into our unit in January and missed some programming that way, and then some missed an item or two along the way.

I put together packages for them to complete on their own. The first page of each booklet had the list of activities they needed to complete.

You and Others: Learn How to Plan #2: Create a poster to advertise cookie selling! (YaO3#2)

You and Others: Learn How to Plan #3: Plan what you want to achieve in life. We had done this activity before and it's just taken directly from the book. (YaO3#3 )

You and Others: Learn How to Plan #4: Money Management. I found this activity in the Science Activity books from the Government of Canada. This is from the first booklet. (YaO3#4)

Discovering You: Learn How to Be Responsible #1: Be a responsible citizen. I found this activity on the Technology Student website. (DY4#1)

Discovering You: Learn How to Be Responsible #5: We had done this activity before, where the girls had to take care of a sock puppet they had made. We changed it so that they could look after a stuffed animal for a week and fill in the chart. (DY4#5)

Beyond You: Discover Your Community #5: Create a time capsule. It was obviously too late to start a time capsule, so we came up with an activity to imagine you are creating a time capsule. (BY1#5)

Meeting #25: BAA Challenge

BAA Challenge

In the UK, many units create challenges and sell the crests to raise money for trips and such. There is a Guiders Forum where they advertise these challenges, and most are willing to ship overseas if you pay through PayPal. My Pathfinder helps out in our unit and loves sheep, so I suggested that they lead out this challenge as a meeting for our Guides. And it seemed fitting to do a meeting about sheep the week before Easter!

Brownies in the UK are aged 7-10, which covers most of the ages of a Guide unit (9-11), so when using Challenges from overseas, I usually do the Brownie requirements.

Patrol Time: We gave the Guides outlines of sheep and had them decorate them and then create a field on a large sheet of paper for their flock of sheep. (Sheep Template)

7:10-7:30: Shaun the Sheep videos

We watched two Shaun the Sheep videos. I have a projector that we connected to my laptop and pulled up the videos on YouTube. The girls found the videos funny--we were only going to watch one, but everyone liked it so much and the girls were all sitting quietly, so we watched a second one. They're only about 8 minutes long.

7:30-7:50: Wool

We talked to the girls about wool and why it keeps you cool when it's hot and warm when it's cold, and dry when it's wet. (Info from How Stuff Works)

Then we made a craft. I bought a skein of wool yarn that we could pull apart into the wool fibers. Then we glued that onto a sheep body template and used clothespins for legs and the sheep turned out really cute! (Sheep Template)

7:50-8:10 Snack!

We made sugar cookies shaped like lambs. We gave them icing, mini marshmallows, and chocolate chips so they could decorate their cookies, which they all love to do!

8:10-8:20

To close out the night, we sang the Humpty Dumpty Rap and asked the girls to start with Nursery Rhymes about sheep. We came up with Baa Baa Black Sheep, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Little Bo Beep, and Little Boy Blue. Then we did other nursery rhymes, though it's surprising how few nursery rhymes the girls actually know. Luckily, I know lots of words to lots of nursery rhymes, so even if they can only start them, I can usually finish them!

CHORUS:

Hump-ty Dump.
Hump Hump De Dump-ty Dump-ty
Hump-ty Dump.
Hump Hump De Dump-ty Dump-ty

Verse 1:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king's horses and all the king's men said
OOH! AIN'T THAT FUNKY NOW!

(chorus)

Verse 2:
Little Jack Horner sat in a corner
Eating his pudding pie
He stuck in his thumb,
and pulled out a plumb and said:
OOH! AIN'T THAT FUNKY NOW!

(chorus)

Verse 3:
Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet
Eating her curds and whey
Along came a spider, who sat down beside her
and said:
OOH! AIN'T THAT FUNKY NOW!

8:20-8:30 Closing

Meeting #20 & #21: Healthy Eating Badge

Discovering You: Stay Fit and Healthy (DY3)

Healthy Eating (HE)

Fit for Life challenge (FfL)

6:30-7:00--We asked the girls to come up with ideas for a healthy snack for next week. They came up with lots of good ideas. We had sort of already thought about smoothies, so when they mentioned that, we grabbed onto and they all thought it was a great idea. So we let them "plan" it, even though we steered them towards what we had already planned. :)

7:00-7:10--Horseshoe

7:10-8:00 Canada's Food Guide (DY3#3)

I ordered copies ahead of time of Canada's Food Guide. It was free and it was nice to have a copy for each girl that we could talk about together.

This webpage (http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetailsKids.aspx?p=335&np=284&id=1431) explains why the body needs proteins, carbs, and fats (HE#6)

We picked up flyers from the local grocery store for each girl. They cut pictures out of the flyers of foods they like that they could eat in a day to make up the right number of servings in each food group and glued them onto construction paper to make a collage.  (HE#2)

We handed out a journal sheet for them to record their diet for a week (HE#1, FfL#B)

8:00-8:30 Enrollment--we had 2 girls who missed enrollment in the fall and another girl who joined our unit in January who needed to be enrolled. It was just a simple ceremony--we did horseshoe for the parents, said our promise, enrolled the new girls, and then everyone got presented with badges.

Meeting #2

6:30-7:00 Patrol Time

Each Guide designed an ad for healthy food/healthy living (HE#3, DY3:#2)

7:00-7:30 Horseshoe

Discuss their food journals and see who achieved their food intake. They had to have returned their food journals in order to earn the badge. (and can return it at any time in the future)

Display their ads for other patrols to see.

Talk about why smoking is bad for you. (FfL#C)--this discussion actually lasted quite a while and the girls all had interesting thoughts on the subject.

7:30-7:50 Food Labels

Health Canada has a PowerPoint that explains food labels, so we went over this with the girls. (HE#4)

We were discussing the ingredient list on labels, our Junior Leader remembered a fun video to watch, so we found it on YouTube and showed the unit. Animaniacs--Be Careful What You Eat

7:50-8:20 Smoothies--we had frozen fruit and frozen yogurt (FfL:E#1)

8:20-8:30 Closing

Meeting #24: NS Membership Challenge

I Am Growing Guiding in Nova Scotia Membership Challenge

You in Guiding: Learn About Guiding (YiG2)

Nova Scotia created a Membership Challenge to help with their goals of retaining and increasing membership. The pink part is earned through doing activities and the blue part is earned by increasing membership in your unit.

As Guides, we needed to do 8 activities to earn the pink crest. We had done a number of activities as a unit through the year to complete this--just through our normal unit activities--and we used this meeting to reinforce what we did to earn this challenge and then do a couple of activities specifically for the challenge.

5 Activities from I Am Growing Guiding Challenge:

1. Participate in a bridging activity with at least TWO different levels of Guiding.--our Halloween parade with Sparks and Brownies
2. Do a service project in your community while wearing your uniform. --Feed NS
3. Participate in a large Guiding activity such as a District or Area camp, or day camp. --Thinking Day skate
4. Participate in a community event such as Remembrance Day, a community parade or fair -- we attended Remembrance Day as a District

3 Activities from I Am Keeping Guiding Strong Challenge

1. Share your Unit activities: send a photo (make sure everyone has a photo release), a poem, or an article describing one of your Unit activities to your District, Area or Provincial PR person.--my fellow Guider and I have tweeted a number of our activities to @GGCNovaScotia. Camp, Feed NS, Screen Printing, Thinking Day--whenever we do something fun, we try to remember to tweet it. We learned well from our session on Social Media at the NS Guider Conference!
2. Plan a joint activity with another Unit. -- Campfire with the Sparks

So that left us with one activity from each section to work on.

6:30-7:00 Patrol Time--we asked the girls to think of things they can do as they grow with Guiding, in Pathfinders, Rangers, and as an adult. (Make a list of Guiding things you want to do when you are older. Share the list with your Unit.)

7:00-7:15: We discussed what they came up with. International trips--both as independent groups and on National sponsored trips; Canada Cord, which counts as a high school credit (and then we had to explain what a high school credit was and why you would want one!); Chief Commissioners' award; Junior Leaders in younger units; scholarships; camps. (YiG2#3)

One group misinterpreted the instructions and came with things that they've already learned and how these skills will transfer into every day use, which was also interesting to hear!

7:15-8:00 Write a song about Guiding. 

We asked them to break up into groups of 2-4 and make up a song about Guiding. They were all very creative and wonderful. One of our other Guiders recorded them, and when she sends them to me, I'll put them up here. 

8:00-8:20 Games

We played Fruit Basket, which we had planned to play when we were doing the Healthy Eating badge, but ran out of time. They had a lot of fun with this game. After they played with fruit for a while, we changed it up to be animals.

8:20-8:30 Closing

#22 Cookies Rising

Discovering You: Understand How to Be Responsible (DY4)

 

6:30-7:00 Patrol Time: One of our Guiders is also our District Commissioner. Her term is up in June and it was recently announced that she will become our new Area Commissioner. For Patrol Time, I gave the girls construction paper and stickers and asked them each to make a Congratulations card for her. We kept the activity a secret from her and presented the cards at Horseshoe.

7:00-7:10 Horseshoe: I love how creative our girls are! They made some beautiful cards for Guider Wendy and she was surprised that we pulled it off without her knowing about it. 

7:10-7:30 Taking the Temperature Activity (memberzone login)--We did this a few years ago and it was the last piece of programming that we needed to do for our third years! (DY4#4)

7:30-8:15 Cookie Rising activities:

Business/GGC--We used the Taking the Temperature thermometers and then used them to discuss cookie selling. I used the cookie selling tips from the book (You and Others: Learn How to Plan #2), changing some from positive to negative, and the girls ran from one side of the room to another in various ways--hopping, jumping, crab walk, etc--to say if it was a good thing to do (Cold) or a bad thing to do (Hot).

Financial--We talked to the girls about how much money our unit will earn this campaign and then talked about all the ways that we as a unit use the money. We also talked about the portion that goes to District and what District spends money on.

Social--We played the Alphabet game from the badge activities.

8:15-8:20 Songs and closing

Special Event: Lady Baden-Powell Award Workshop

This workshop has evolved over the years. A number of years ago, some leaders would hold a 2 night camp for girls working on their LBP award. Our first year doing this, there was a one-night Spark camp on a Saturday, so we took the Friday night for our LBP girls. The next year, we booked a grocery store community room for a Saturday, and we really liked how that worked out. There's a kitchen, so we can have lunch, and we get about the same amount of time as the overnight, but it's much easier. And the Community Room is free!

We use the workshop to do a Major Community Project (#4) and Learn about Lady Baden-Powell (#2). It's also when we can talk to them about what they have left to do and give them ideas about how they can complete it.

We have 8 third-years so we opened it up to them (whether they were planning to do LBP or not), plus the one third year in the other Guide unit in our District. We only had 4 confirm, so then we opened it up to our 9 2nd years as well. We ended up with 8 girls attending, which is a nice number.

As leaders, we came up with the idea for the project, which the other Guide unit had done in previous years. It's an activity kit for the emergency waiting room. In the Guide unit's case, they had a grant for doing community projects, so they bought all of the supplies and the girls just assembled them. We were concerned about the rule that you can't buy things to donate (but you can buy things to make something to donate), so we thought if we booked a Community Room that was next to a dollar store and had the girls bring money from home to buy the supplies, that would cover it. Though most of the supplies we did "transform" in some way. :)

We started the morning by explaining the project to the girls, showing them a couple of examples, and then we had them brainstorm what they wanted to put in them. Then we went through the list and determined how much each thing would cost and how many bags each thing would make (i.e. a 24-pack of crayons cost $1.25, and if we were putting 3 crayons in each bag, we could make 8 bags from each package).

Then we found a common multiple (in our case it was 48) and figured out how many of each thing we would need to buy. We added that up and rethought some of the things (do we need crayons and coloured pencils and markers?) so that the cost per bag was about $1. We determined we could probably make 96 bags. Then we divided up the items between the girls, knowing they each had $10 to spend and factoring in tax--each girl could buy $8.50 worth of supplies. 

I really had fun teaching the girls this part--how to budget and plan. They complained a little (math on a Saturday?!) but they definitely felt ownership of the project.

Now everyone took their list and we walked over to the dollar store and they had a lot of fun shopping and picking out the right stickers and colouring books and pencils.

Back in our meeting space, they got to work dividing everything up--crayons dumped into a bowl, colouring books separated into sheets, construction paper cut in half, pencils sharpened. We had Girl Guide stickers from Guide House (our Provincial office)  and we made stickers that said "Get well soon from Hammonds Plains Girl Guides" (or something like that), so some girls put those onto the ziploc bags. 

Then they got busy filling the bags! We put a list on the board to remind everyone what to put in each bag. I forgot to take a picture, but it was great to see the 90 activity kits they made to donate.

Once the bags were completed, we took a break for lunch. The shopping plaza we were at had a pizza place in it, so we ordered pizzas. Yum! Plus we bought some carrots and cucumbers at the grocery store. 

After lunch, we worked on some Lady Baden-Powell information. We have a folder of information that we photocopy for them each year which has some worksheets and LBP information. There is also a skit that requires props. We divided the 8 girls into 2 groups, and each group worked on creating a set of props for the skit. They will present the skits to the unit in the coming weeks.

We also talked to them about the other parts of the Award that they need to complete and how to complete it. Since it was Thinking Day, we finished our workshop with cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday, and then Taps. Then it was time to go. They did a great job and worked diligently for the 6 hours we were together. 

For our third-year girls who couldn't attend but still want to earn their LBP, we gave them information on how to complete the service project and gave them 3 weeks to return 10 bags to us before we donate everything to the hospital. We gave them the folders of LBP information, and asked them to create posters about LBP for our Thinking Day skating party instead of doing the skit.

Meeting #19: Fitness Fun badge

Fitness Fun badge (FF)

Discovering You: Stay Fit and Healthy (DY3)

Beyond You: Try New Things (BY3)

Ever have one of those meetings where things you expect to happen don't happen? We had one of those nights. We'd invited a fitness instructor to come teach the girls yoga and work on the Fitness Fun badge. When she didn't show up, we had to improvise! Luckily, we are active leaders and could muddle our way through the badge--it's just always nicer when you can have someone knowledgeable come and teach the girls!

We asked the girls to come to the meeting dressed to work out, and to bring a water bottle and a yoga mat or beach towel. I brought extra beach towels for the girls who would inevitably forget.

6:30-7:00--While waiting for our non-existent guest to arrive, we moved the tables out of the way to give us a big space for working out and the girls enjoyed having some "unstructured" time.

7:00-8:15:
We started with a warm-up--neck circles, shoulder shrugs, arm circles, ankle circles. (FF#3)

Then we moved on to stretching. Biceps, triceps, quads, glutes. (FF#4)

I've taken kickboxing classes, so we went through some of the moves for that--jabs, hooks, upper cuts, front kicks, back kicks, side kicks, speed bag. (FF#7, BY3#3)

Then another leader knew some yoga, so she took them through some of the easier yoga poses. Some girls knew some moves so they tried those as well. (FF#7, BY3#3)

Then we did squats, lunges, push-ups, planks, crunches and sit-ups. There was a lot of complaining for this one! We tried to walk around and make sure they could do the exercises properly, but if they were having lots of trouble, we didn't insist. (FF#6)

Then as they were lying on their mats/towels, we brainstormed with them how they could increase the physical activity in their daily lives. Ideas they came up with--doing exercises during commercial breaks while watching tv, playing running games at recess instead of just walking around, asking parents to park farther away from the door when shopping, walking or biking to school. (FF#1)

That covered 5 topics from the badge. (DY3#6)

Their exercise journals are due back the next week, and that will cover the sixth topic, which means they won't get the badge until they bring pack their journals! (FF#2)

8:15-8:30--Clean-up and closing

Meeting #18: Screen Printing

Beyond You: Try New Things (BY3)

Discovering You: Discover Your Creativity (DY2)

Double Dare greeting cards

We wanted to complete the Try New Things square, so I was trying to think of things we could do. Then I thought of my cousin-in-law, who recently opened up a print studio with her twin sister, called Double Dare Print Studio, where they make really cute greeting cards, post cards, etc. I wasn't sure what their space was like, so I contacted her to see if they could accommodate showing 20 girls what they did.

Unfortunately, their space was smaller than I thought, but I also knew they did a demo at an art gallery one weekend, so I asked her if their equipment was portable and if they could come to us. She thought that was a wonderful idea!

She figured they'd need about 45 minutes to explain to the girls what screen printing is and how it's done and then they'd have a project that the girls could complete and take home. And since it was coming up to Valentine's Day, we'd finish the night with a small Valentine's Day party, with some games and treats.

6:30-6:45--Arrival
We didn't give them a task for Patrol Time, but just gave Bryanna and Alyssa time to set up their equipment.

6:45-6:55--Horseshoe

6:55-7:45--Screen Printing

They explained to the girls their background in art--they both have fine arts degrees--and then the basics of how screen printing works. (DY2#4)

Bryanna created a design especially for us. They wanted to use two colours, so they preprinted the first colour for everyone so there would be time for them to dry. They explained how they got the design from Bryanna's drawing to becoming something that was capable of being printed many times.

It was really interesting to see how it's done! They showed us how to place the design where you want it and how to make sure each subsequent print would be placed similarly, so they turn out mostly the same.

Then each girl got a chance to put the blue trefoil design onto the gold maple leaf. Once all the set-up is done (the hard part), the printing part is very straight-forward and the girls did a great job making their prints. Then the all wanted Bryanna and Alyssa to sign their prints! It was really cute. (BY3#6)

7:45-8:15 Valentine's Party
Once we finished the screen printing, we got to have treats! I made heart-shaped cinnamon cookies, and we brought icing and sprinkles so the girls (and leaders and guests) could decorate their cookies.

Then we played some games that I found on the internet--Valentine's Minute-to-Win-It. We bought lots of candy hearts and gave them plates and chopsticks.

The first game, they had to see how many candy hearts they could transfer from the middle plate to their own plate in a minute, using only chopsticks. They had fun with this!

The second game, they had a minute to stack the candy hearts as high as they could. Again, lots of laughs and some concentrating for this game. They liked the games quite a bit and we played each one twice. We had some little prizes (pencils, erasers, etc) to give to the winners.

8:15-8:30--We had time for a couple of songs and then we did closing.

Thanks so much to Double Dare Print Studio for coming to see us and teaching us all about screen printing. The girls learned a new thing, and then I realized that this also covers bringing a local artist to your meeting to learn about their craft!

Double Dare Print Studio's handmade design for us