Special Event: The Bigger Picture

It was time for the biennial NS Guider's Conference. The theme this year was The Bigger Picture and if you look for the hashtag #GGCNSBiggerPicture2015 on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, you can find lots of posts and pictures of all the goings-on!

We started on Friday with the opening ceremonies, which was MCed by Brenda Harvey. Our Twinning Leads, Lashauna and Janice, showed us a great SVG tourism video that got everyone on their feet and dancing.


Then we played Family Feud with #twinning2020 questions about our partner country, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Questions included: Which countries are paired with which provinces? What sports are most popular in SVG? What are the most important agricultural products in SVG? What are the names of the levels of Guiding in SVG? What are the 5 areas of focus in the SVG Ranger program? 

After the opening ceremony was over, we went back to our room and hung out with some young Guiders who are mostly university students. It was lots of fun and we got to meet some new people, which is a great reason to attend Conference!

There were dozens of sessions to choose from on Saturday and I enjoyed all 4 that got. 

Music for the Musically Challenged
I love singing campfire songs so it's always nice to learn some new ones, and there are always new ones to learn. 
Black Socks: I knew this one, but I learned new actions to go with it but they are on Becky's Guiding site if you scroll down.

Make New Friends: Again, I've done this in a round but not with actions. I can't find the actions but I'll try to describe it. Standing in a close circle, everyone puts their right arm in front of the person beside them. Then they take their left hand and hold the hand of the person two to their left. Everyone should have the same arm crossed over top all the way around the circle. The leader starts with both of her arms on top of the other arms. Then when you start singing, you bring your arms over the person's head and this goes around the circle until everyone has their arms around each other. Then you can go back the way you came you'll end up as you started. 

Herman the Worm craft

I Let Her Go Go: We learned this when we "travelled" to Curacao!

Herman the Worm: Always a fun one. We changed the people Herman eats into a Spark, a Brownie, a Guide, a Pathfinder, and a Ranger. We were also given a simple craft that could be done by the girls when you teach them the song.

It's Not Hard: This was new to me and should be fun to teach to my girls.

Singing in the Rain: I did this as a girl, and it's an old standby of mine, especially if we're camping in the rain!

Dum-Dum-Da-Da

Dum-Dum-Da-Da: This one was completely new to me. Here's a Youtube video which shows it being sung and with slightly different actions. I love the way this camp director uses a "Ready" call and repeat to settle everyone so he doesn't have to yell over them. I may need to try it!

Rain Storm

Canadian Girl Guides (yell)

Good King Wenceslas with Barnyard Choir: A video of us singing this at Conference closing! You could use any easy song to do this with the girls, like Jingle Bells.

It Isn't Any Trouble: On the fourth verse, you can just make a laughing sound and then you can sing it through and each line will end with S-M-I-L-E, then G-R-I-N, then L-A-U-G-H and then the last line you would laugh.

Say Why: One I never sang as a girl, but love it now that I've learned it as an adult. We sang this at our last camp!

It's a Small World: with Guiding verses

T.I.R.O: I've never heard this one before and it was another fun action-type song. Here's a video, because I could never describe it! The only difference is that we put our right leg in front of the neighbor's left, which put us even more off balance!

And then we ended with Linger and Zulu Farewell (Go Well and Safely).

SUPER GUIDER GREATEST HITS
Two of our Guiders got to attend the Super Guider Conference in Ontario last year and brought back some of their learnings to share. They also gave us each a flash drive with more info on it, because it's hard to condense two days worth of sessions into 75 minutes! 

Mary Louise talked about outside activities and easy ways to incorporate outside activities into your meetings and we had a fun game of Oh Deer. The space wasn't large, but it was perfect for Guiders who really don't want to have to run!

Caira talked about communication. We played a game where you draw on each other's back and the front person then has to draw it on paper (a form of telephone). Then we played in pairs (back-to-back) and one person had to describe it to the other using only words and the other person had to draw it. Then we did the activity where you say something mean and squirt out toothpaste. Then you say something nice and have to put the toothpaste back in the tube, showing how hard it is to take something back once it's been said. 

This was a great session and I can't wait to delve into all of the information on my flash drive.

TWINNING 2020
After lunch, I did a session with our Twinning Leads, Janice and Lashauna. They talked about the Twinning Resources on the NS Girl Guide page and what's been done so far and then what's in store leading up to Thinking Day. 

Then we did an activity from the WTD Activity pack. The theme this year is Connect, and we did #3: Connect with How I Learn. I like making origami, so I had a lot of fun with this activity. I'm a visual learning, so the heart origami where we only got to look at instructions, was my favourite way to do it. 

Finally we made some Caribbean punch from the Let's Meet SVG: Culture Sharing Activity.

PROMISE AND LAW
My next session of the day was on the Promise and Law and activities to incorporate activities into our meeting. I'm not good at touchy-feely stuff, so this was a good session for me to stretch my comfort. 

One activity was there were papers hanging on the walls with various places like Outdoors, Community, Friends, School. Then we had to write down things we can do each place that relate to the Promise and Law. 

BRIDGING
The last session of the day was a chance for Guiders of each branch to get together and discuss and share ideas. 

Cats on a bus

After our supper banquet, the Rangers led a number of games for the Guiders. There were 5 or 6 activities, and we rotated through 4 of them. We did the back drawing game of telephone, a drama game called Get on the Bus, a version of Headbanz, and Pictionary. They all did a great job running the activities--they'll be great leaders in the future!

All in all, it was a great weekend! I met lots of people, learned lots, and had lots of fun. Thanks to the Conference Committee for putting on such a great event. See everyone again in 2 years! 

Special Event: Camp in a Year (Residential)

Nova Scotia Brownies 100th Anniversary Challenge

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

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

Discovering You: Discover What's Important to You (DY1)
Discovering You: Discover Your Creativity (DY2)
Discovering You: Stay Fit and Healthy (DY3)

 

Beyond You: Try New Things (BY3)

Campfire Leading badge (CL)

For our camp we completed the NS Brownie 100th Anniversary Challenge (full disclosure--I helped create the challenge!) and we had our theme as Camp in a Year. The two dovetailed nicely together and we had a wonderful time!

FRIDAY

7:00-7:30 Arrival

7:30-8:00 Orientation and Ice Breaker: The girls played the Human Knot as we waited for our last girl to arrive. Then we went over the rules and the plan for the weekend.

8:00-9:00 Glow Stick Ring Toss (4 groups)—

This was really fun. We had two different versions of the game--2 groups had a hoop made out of bracelets and 3 necklace pendants to throw into the hoops. The other 2 groups have 4 water bottles with necklace pendants in them and used bracelets to try to throw onto the water bottles. (STEM #2)

Supplies: 5 bracelets/hoop, 3 necklace pendants/hoop, 8 water bottles, 8 necklace pendants, 6 bracelets 

While we were outside, we also lit sparklers, then had our countdown to 1915 New Year's, and sang Auld Lang Syne.

9:00-9:30 Mug Up—Apple juice and Sprite in plastic champagne glasses. Appetizers of crackers, cheese and turkey kielbasa. They had a choice of either straight apple juice or apple juice mixed with pop.

9:30-10:00 Campfire—We had a campfire sing-a-long. (CL#1) We sang:

Fire's Burning

Buddies and Pals

Ging Gang Gooli

Sharks

Barges

On My Honour

Taps

10:00-11:00 Get ready for bed

11:00 Lights out

SATURDAY

7:00-8:00 Wake up and make valentines. Each girl made 2 valentines to give to the girl sitting on either side of her at breakfast.

Supplies: card making supplies or premade valentines 

8:00-9:00 Valentine’s Breakfast--Pink pancakes and fruit

After breakfast, the girls did their duties before we started our stations.

9:00-11:30 Four stations, 30 minutes each

STATION 1: Birthday boxes (SERVICE #1) (YiG4#3) Each group will make create 1 box with the supplies needed to have a small birthday party. 

Supplies: Cake mix, frosting, candles, cups, paper plates, decorations, party favours, napkins, small toy for birthday child (we got Beanie Boos, since our girls love stuffed animals so much), wrapping paper to decorate boxes, cookie boxes

STATION 2: Brownie History (HERITAGE)—One of our leaders still has her Brownie badges on a piece of yellow felt so she brought that and the girls had to guess what they thought the badges were for and then they searched through the Brownie Badge Archive from the Ontario Girl Guides that had been printed off to find out what they really were (YiG2#6)

STATION 3: Fractals (STEM #3)

In 1915, Waclaw Sierpinski describes the Sierpinski triangle for the first time, though the pattern had been used in decorations for years before.  Fractals are self-similar patterns that can be found in many places, but nature is a great place to start looking.  The Sierpinski triangle is the simplest fractal to recreate.

• Dots are the midpoints of the edges, half way between the corners.  Connect the dots as shown below to form a new triangle, pointing down.  Colour it in.
• You are now left with three white triangles.  Find the midpoints of each of these three triangles, connect them, and color in the resulting triangles (pointing down).
• Each of the 3 triangles now turns into 3 smaller triangles, leaving 9 small white triangles.  Connect the midpoints of each of the 9 white triangles to form 27 smaller triangles, pointing downward.  Colour them in.
• Continue this process if you wish, as long as you have patience.
• When you are done, cut the big triangle out and write your name on the back.
• Next join your fractal triangle with 2 other fractal triangles to form a bigger triangle.
• Then add 2 more groups of 3 triangles to form a bigger triangles made of 9 triangles

Supplies: Pre-printed triangles, markers/colour pencils (BY3#4)

STATION 4: Campfire songs (ARTS #1) For each of the four groups, I prepared a different set of songs from 1915 or earlier. With each group, we sang/learned all 7 or 8 songs in the set, and then each girl chose a song to lead at campfire that night. Then we practiced what they need to do to lead a song (say the name of the song, divide the group if it's going to be in rounds, explain if there are repetitive parts in the song). (YaO1#5, CL#2, CL#3, CL#6) (Songs with lyrics, Word doc)

9:00-9:30 STATION 1

9:30-10:00 STATION 2

10:00-10:30 Easter Snack—Snacks were put into Easter baggies (one of our Guiders has everything you'd ever want) and hidden outside for them to find.

10:30-11:00 STATION 3

11:00-11:30 STATION 4

11:30-1:30 LUNCH Cinco de Mayo—Tacos in a bag. We've started taking the camp stoves to residential camp as well as tent camping, to give the girls more exposure to using them. 

Cook hamburger on camp stoves, chop tomatoes and lettuce, grate cheese. Everything goes into a Ziploc bag with tortilla chips, salsa, sour cream

After lunch, we had a pinata for them. We had mostly non-candy--stickers, pencils, notepads, plastic rings--plus Welch's gummy snacks, chocolate bars, and rockets. They were told to take one of each non-candy thing and then they were allowed to have 2 food products. 

We lined them up from youngest to oldest, to take away the fighting over who got to go first. For the first time through, they were blindfolded and got to take one swing. The next time through, they weren't blindfolded but again, just one swing at the pinata. I think they all got 3 chances to hit it before it broke enough to spill its content. 

1:30-2:30 Quiet time/Free time--Now is the time that they can hang out in the bunk room. We also set out craft supplies for them to do with as they please and to make presents for their secret buddies.

2:30-3:15 Afternoon snack—Eid al-Fitr. We have a Muslim girl in our unit and wanted to include a holiday that's important to her as well. I emailed her mom for suggestions and they offered to bring the date squares for our snack. The date squares were DELICIOUS and every girl tried them and most of them loved them.

Date squares, carrots, cucumbers

3:15-4:15 Outside games  (ACTIVE LIVING #2) 

Playing Mousetrap

We organized some outdoor running games and had a beautiful afternoon for it. We started with some tag games, then played Mousetrap and Pip, Squeak, Charlie. Then we got some ropes and balls out and let them play some games on their own. 

If it had rained, we would have done some inside, since we had a fairly big space in our building. If we hadn't had a space, we would have played board games instead.

(DY3#4)

Supplies: jump ropes, hula hoops, balls

4:15-5:00 LBP Time line: I took the story of LBP that is in the BC Lady Baden-Powell challenge booklet and created 12 milestones in LBP's life, while also adding in when she visited Nova Scotia. I made 4 sets for the relay race. First, I read the story out loud to them, and then they had a relay race where they had to gather the 12 colour-coded pieces, and then put them into order. (LBP Relay race, Word doc) (YiG2#1)

5:00-6:30 Supper—Halloween-inspired food. We had Mummy dogs (crescent roll hot dogs), spider dogs (each end of the hot dog was sliced into four and then boiled, which makes the "arms" curl up), plus a pasta salad.

6:30-7:30 Quiet time/free time--More time on their own

7:30-9:00 Campfire

The girls all did a great job leading their songs at campfire that night. (CL#7, CL#8)

9:00-9:30 Mug Up – Christmas Eve. We roasted marshmallows over the fire and then everyone got Smore mix as well (Teddy grahams, mini marshmallows, and chocolate chips). Plus hot chocolate, which was much needed on the cool October night!

9:30-10:30 Get Ready for bed

10:30 Lights Out

SUNDAY

7:00 Wake up

8:00-9:00 Bags must be packed and outside before campers are allowed to have breakfast. Once finished breakfast, they can help clean the building.

Breakfast: Muffins, fruit, boiled eggs

9:00-10:00 Clean up

10:00 Guide’s Own Oh, they were so intrigued by the stockings! We filled them as though we were in 1915, with oranges, chocolate, a small toy (rubber duckie), and their earned badges. We started by singing Buddies and Pals, revealing our Secret Buddies, singing Say Why, sharing our Apples and Onion (2 things we liked about camp, 1 thing we didn't), singing Softly Falls, opening our stockings, and finally singing Daytime Taps.

Meeting # 18: Cookies Rising

Cookies Rising (CR)

You and Others: Learn About Leadership in a Group (YaO1)
You and Others: Learn How to Plan (YaO3)

Patrol Time: Goal Setting (Financial)--I gave them the information on how many cases of cookies we had to sell and how much money our unit would earn. Then I gave them a list of activities we can do from now to the end of the year and had them choose what they wanted to do with the money. (Budgeting, Word Doc)

Horseshoe--We talked about what they had planned. 

Business (Etiquette)--Dos and Don'ts relay game--I modified a game the girls suggested last week. I wrote a number of things you should and shouldn't do while cookie selling onto clothespins. Then we gave them pieces of cardboard that had DO and DON'T written on them. The clothespin were put in a pile and they had to run up and pick a clothespin and put it in the right spot on their board. There were 3 of each item (one for each patrol), and they couldn't use the same one twice. Once they had finished, we went over each item and talked about why it was a Do or a Don't.

Social (Teamwork)--I searched for some new Team Building activities and found a booklet from 4-H Club. (Team Building Activities, PDF). We chose Team Body Spelling (YaO1#2): 

1. Divide into two teams. Decide on 1 or 2 judges. 

2. Three people at a time form the first letter with their bodies on the floor. We had the girls choose a word and they suggested G-U-I-D-E-S

3. Once accepted by judge(s), the 3 must run back to team, and next 3 leave to form 

the next letter. 

4. The winner is the team that finishes the word(s) first and sits down. 

GGC (Public Relations)

Make Cookie signs--We had the girls work in groups of two to make posters that we can use while cookie selling. (YaO3#2)

Special Event: Fall Camp - Reindeer theme and Feeling Good badge

Reindeer Challenge

  

Feeling Good badge (FG)

Camp Out badge (CO)

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

Discovering You: Discover Your Creativity (DY2)

Discovering You: Stay Fit and Healthy (DY3)

Beyond You: Explore the Outdoors and Nature (BY2)

Beyond You: Learn About Our Environment (BY4)

Friday:
6:30: Arrival

Pick Reindeer Name – The Patrols were all Santa's Reindeer names. The girls picked the name out of a hat when they arrived.


Make buddy burners -- Girls were asked to bring a tuna can, so once they had settled and picked out their bunk, they tightly rolled the cardboard into the tin cans while waiting for everyone to arrive. Once all the cans were done, we melted wax and poured it into over the cardboard to make buddy burners.


7:30: Camp rules and Ice breaker game
Safety/Fire Drill (CO#5, CO#6, CO#9)--We went over the safety rules. For the fire drill, I took an idea from another Guider and on Saturday we put up a picture of fire so that when someone found the picture, they were to call out "Fire" and everyone needs to go outside.

Playing Animal Name Game

Buddy System (CO#6, CO#9)

Pick secret pals (DY1#5)--We always pick secret pals for the weekend (including the leaders).

Ice Breakers: I found a document on line that has lots of great ideas for ice breakers. (Ice Breakers) We played Animal Name Game and Bunny Bunny, except I changed Bunny Bunny to Rudy Rudy and we played with a stuffed reindeer.



Pass out weekend activity books including zentangle pages and blank word search pages
(Reindeer Activity Book, PDF)

Mug up!

8:00: Mug Up – Reindeer Themed Snack -- Our quartermaster had fun with the Reindeer theme and we had lots of fun reindeer food. Mug up was a wagon wheel with pretzels and m&ms, plus apple slices. I believe she used a kitchen torch to lightly melt the chocolate to make things stick, but you could just as easily using icing.

8:30-9:30 – Campfire (CO#7): We tried to choose songs that fit with our "Feeling Good" theme.
Fire's Burning
Buddies and Pals
Ging Gang Gooli
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Singin' in the Rain (though we changed Rain to Snow)
Everywhere We Go
Magalina Hagalina
On My Honour
Softly Falls the Light of Day
Taps

9:30 PJs
10:30 Lights out -- At lights out, we read them a story from Relax Kids: The Wishing Star. They really liked this and asked for it again the next night. (FG#5)


Saturday
7:00 – Wakeup

8:00 Breakfast and cleanup: Breakfast was pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, orange slices, bananas, and juice/milk.

For the morning, we set up 5 stations. We ended up only having 4 leaders available to run the stations, but Station #3 could run on its own.

Great-to-Be-Me jars

Station 1: Create a ‘Great-To-Be-Me’ jar –  the girls were requested to bring empty plastic mayonnaise/peanut butter jar for this activity. We gave them scrapbook paper, stickers, ribbons, etc and they all turned out beautifully! (Jar labels, Word doc) (FG#1, FG#3, DY3#5)

Station #2: Spa Kit creation and marketing slogan  – We made the Spa kits with the following items: Organza Drawstring bag from Dollar Store (get in in the craft section), Mini Nail Polish bottles (x 2 colors), Emery Boards, Q-tips, Cotton balls, plus all of the other items we made – salt scrub, face mask, stress ball.

We then took our ‘Spa Kits’ and went to a Bristol board and wrote out ideas.  If we were going to sell this kit to raise $$ how would we market it?  How much would we sell it for?  Lots of good ideas came out of this.  The biggest theme was that it was home made, and you can relax at home.  The going rate was $10 per kit.

(DY4#2)

Sugar scrub and lip balm, with spa kits in the back

Station #3: Fillers for the Great-To-Be-Me’ jar – We gave them some forms to fill out with questions about themselves, plus some popsicle sticks that they could write ideas for activities they could do when they were bored. (Jar fillers, Word doc) (FG#1, FG#3, DY3#5)

Station #4: Make Mask/Scrub and/or Lip Balm – (FG#6)

Making stress balls

Station #5: Stress Balls – We made stress balls using balloons and flour. These are the instructions we used: Stress Balls. We happened to have cake flour, and found this made the balls squishier than using regular flour, though either will do. To make funnels, we just cut the bottom off of a disposal water bottle.

We also put three layers of balloons on them, and I read them the riot act about how these were not balls that could be thrown around in the bunk room! (FG#7)





9:00-10:30: We rotated through 3 stations.



10:30-11:00 Morning Snack--Cheese strings, carrots with dip, crackers. Again, our quartermaster had fun turning cheese strings into reindeer!

11:00-12:00: We finished the final two stations.







12:00-130: Lunch – Buddy Burners and Camp stoves for Grilled Cheese and Soup. One problem with being a long-time leader is that you forget when you last did things. It felt that we did Buddy Burners all the time, until one of our girls told us that she'd heard that grilled cheese sandwiches on buddy burners were delicious! Oops. We promised her we'd do that at our next camp so here we are.

We also use camp stoves when we tent camp, but we thought it might be good exposure for the girls to use them more than just once a year, so we had them make their own soup on the camp stoves as well. It takes longer when they make their own food, but it also teaches them useful skills.  (BY2#2)

1:30-200: Cleanup

2:00-4:00: Outdoor Activities

Oh Deer game: A running game where they also learn a little something!  (BY4#4)

Land Art & Outdoor Gallery: This was really cool. I always love when we give the girls a free creative activity, because they always blow my mind with their creativity. The leader who ran this says it works better in the spring or summer, when there are more colours available in nature, but I thought the girls came up with some great ideas.  (CO#7, FG-#9, DY2#6)

Clockwise from left: A face (made with moss, leaves, and wood), a cow (sticks make the outline and leaves fill it in), three campfires, a jellyfish (they found the stone with paint already on it)





4:00-6:00: Free Time


Skit preparation (Reindeer Themed)
Bunk Time
Hat Crafts (emery board spa lady, plus a couple other Reindeer Themed or Spa Themed Hat Crafts)
Secret Pal crafts

6:00-7:00 – Supper--spaghetti, garlic bread, caesar salad

7:00-7:30 – Cleanup

7:30-8:30: Skits and Reindeer Nails and Facials (DY2#3, FG#6)

8:30-9:30: Chocolate Fondue--Always a favourite activity! These are just mini buddy burners, with a tea light underneath a soup can. We use foil cups to hold the chocolate chips for melting, and they get strawberries, bananas, marshmallows, and teddy grahams for dipping. We make each girl light her own candle.



9:30 - 10:30 – PJs

10:30 – Meditation story and lights out

Sunday
7:00 – Wake Up & Pack (CO#2)

8:00 Breakfast: Sunday breakfast is always grab and go! Muffins/yogurt/fruit

9:00-10:00 - Reveal our secret buddies, Apples and Onions, give out badges (CO#7, CO#8, DY1#5)

1000 - Home

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 #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

Meeting #15: Ice Rescue/Safety

You and Others: Learn About Safety (YaO4)

Fit for Life challenge (FfL)

Ice safety is an important part of winter life in Canada. We did this topic the last time we did Fit for Life challenge and the girls really enjoyed it so we decided to do it again.

6:30-7:00 Patrol Time
We had the girls finish their What Makes Me Happy lists from last week, and it gave the girls who missed last week's meeting a chance to get it done. (FfL:F1)

7:00-7:15 Horseshoe
We had everyone share what Makes Them Happy. (FfL:F1)

7:15-7:30 Slideshow
I put together a PowerPoint presentation on Ice Safety and Rescues. Most of the information came from the Red Cross website. (Ice Safety Slide Show, PP)(FfL:H2, YaO4#6)

7:30-7:50 Ice Floe game
We got this game from Becky's Guiding Resource. We went to the gym and the girls worked in Patrols (about 5 to a team) to get from one side of the gym to the other. We gave them newsprint papers to stand on and if they ripped them, they could get a new one but would have to start over again. We also made them start over if they put their hands or feet "in the water". They really enjoyed this!

7:50-8:20 Ice Rescue Skits
We asked them to make a skit about rescuing someone from the ice. We had rope and some brooms they could use in their skits. After each skit, we talked about what they did right and what they did wrong. As the skits went on, they remembered more things. They did a great job with the skits!

8:30-8:30 Closing

Meeting #14: Gym Games

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

Fit for Life Challenge (FfL)

We're working on the Newfoundland Girl Guides Fit for Life Challenge this year. There are 10 activities that need to be completed, and we've been doing them here and there. Tonight, we were in the gym because the Sparks needed our regular room, so we decided to have some fun!

6:30-8:00--I looked through some websites (www.gameskidsplay.net and www.dragon.sleepdeprived.ca) to find some new games to try. Sometimes we have the girls pick and choose which games, but tonight we just taught them games, with the hope that they will enjoy some new ideas and will ask for them again. I picked more than we'd need. (Gym Games, Word doc)

We played:
Head Catch
Ball Lose-All (Ffl: D#5)
Caterpillar
Five Pennies (we used quarters)
Rattlesnake (we own a large stuffed snake that we used for this)

8:00-8:20--We returned to our room after the Sparks left and the girls listed and drew things that make them happy. (DY1#6, FfL: F#1)

While they were doing that, we collected their papers and money for our upcoming camp.

8:20-8:30--Closing