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.

Meeting #18: Canadian Guiding badge Part 1

Canadian Guiding badge (CG)



You in Guiding: Learn About Guiding (YiG2)

Discovering You: Discover Your Creativity (DY2)



To help the girls earn their You in Guiding square, we decided to work on the Canadian Guiding badge.

6:30-7:00--Patrol Time -- Decorate a divider for your binder/folder to collect resources.  Each girl has a binder they bring to the meetings, where they can store their badge work that they do at home, or put any handouts we give them. As part of this badge, they are going to start a Resource section in their binders where they can add songs and games and crafts. For the Patrol Time, we gave them dividers (I got a pile of them that were going to be thrown out at work) and they decorated them to start their section. Materials Required: Dividers, markers

7:00-7:15: Horseshoe--At Horseshoe, we discussed what a Resource was and gave them the link to Becky's Guiding Resource. They were tasked with bringing back at least one resource to add to their binder. (CG#6)

7:15-7:45—We gave the girls facts about history of Guiding and asked them to make up a game, skit, poem. They all chose to do skits, and they came up with some really inventive ones. One group had facts about what the uniform used to look like, so they did a take off of Little Red Riding Hood, where Little Red became a Girl Guide and described her uniform to her Grannie.

Another group did a montage of a number of little facts, including one girl being a rocket, another Roberta Bondar and a third was a box of cookies. Roberta Bondar "rode" the rocket, taking the cookies with her to outer space!

The girls drew pictures to create props and costumes and did a fabulous job all around on the skits. (CG#1, YiG2#2, DY2#3)
List of Canadian facts (Word doc)

7:45-8:15--Valentine's Day craft--Since it was Valentine's Day, we thought we'd let the girls do something fun. We started with this craft idea.

We changed it up some though, We used feather boas from the Dollar Store--one boa gave enough for 4 girls. We cut the styrofoam balls in half, so they each had half a ball to cover. And we used real candy hearts instead of stickers, because that's what we could find. The girls had a lot of fun making them and they turned out really cute.

We ended the night with heart-shaped cookies.

Extra: Thinking Day Party

Besides being a Unit Guider, I'm also the Deputy DC for our District, so I helped plan our District Thinking Day party. (And I forgot my camera, so we don't have any pictures of the event!)

We rented ice time at a rink and the girl and their families came and skated for an hour. We had a great turnout--almost 100 girls and their families came for the skate.

After the skate, we went upstairs to the community room and had a pizza party (members only)! We had pizza and juice boxes for everyone.

Each unit was instructed to make hat crafts/SWAPS to bring and trade. Each girl had three and everyone walked around and interacted. There were some really great crafts.

Then we made large cheques for each unit to present how much money they had raised for CWFF, totaling approximately $300.

Finally, we all sang "Happy Birthday" to Lord and Lady Baden-Powell and ended the party with cupcakes for everyone. (We had each unit bring cupcakes for themselves.)

Meeting #17: Thinking Day Activities

You in Guiding: Learn About WAGGGS (YiG3)

Do you ever have one of those meetings, where nothing goes as planned and everything takes way longer than you anticipate? Yeah, we had one of those meetings. The girls had fun though, so I guess that's what counts!

6:30-6:50: Patrol time. We planned to play charades later in the meeting, so we asked the girls to come up with ways they can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (save energy).

6:50-7:10: Horseshoe. They were very unenthusiastic in their singing, so I made them redo it! And then their circle collapsed as they went along, so I made them redo it a third time! We'll see next week, if they remember to do it right the first time. We talked about what we had planned for the night and about the upcoming Thinking Day skating party, and then we updated their books with what they'd completed recently.

7:10-7:45: Hat crafts: For our District Thinking Day party, each girl is bringing 3 hat crafts to SWAP with other girls in the District. We decided on these butterfly SWAPS. We had them paint the puzzle pieces, which took a little longer than we expected. Since the theme is "we can save our planet", we thought using puzzle pieces for our SWAPS would fit the theme.

One of our leaders also has a small photo printer, so she took a unit photo and printed them out so they could be attached to the SWAPS.

7:45-8:00:  We did the CWFF activity from the World Guiding Goes Tartan challenge (p14). It was interesting to hear what their thoughts were on who to give the money to. I would say that one they most often wanted to fund was the HIV/AIDS clinic in Honduras. I touched briefly on what AIDS was (a disease that can be transferred through bodily fluids, like blood), without going in depth. (YiG3#3)

8:00-8:20: We finished up the butterflies, curling the antennae and gluing them on and adding pins and tags.

The butterflies took much longer to make than we anticipated--especially the painting. We had Thinking Day pennies that needed to be rolled, as the girls returned their CWFF banks from a month ago. The rolling would only take 5 or 10 minutes--we just didn't have time! We also wanted to play charades, as the craft and charades would complete a section of the Climate Change Challenge, which we started a few years ago.

Halloween Ideas

Halloween ideas? In February? Out of season, I know, but I've received a pile of information from a fellow Guider, and I'm going to try to get it all added, once I can get it categorized.

HALLOWEEN ADVENTURE

Beyond You: Explore the Outdoors and Nature

This is such a great idea--I can't wait to try it out! You send the girls out trick or treating and they need to use compasses and directions to figure out how to get the houses. If the girls wouldn't be self-conscious, you could do this any time of year, but as a Halloween party would be safest. (BY3#3)
Halloween Adventure (Word doc)


OPERATION BLACK CAT

This is another Halloween scavenger type adventure, where the girls have a booklet of activities to complete and go out into the neighbourhood to specific addresses to trick-or-treat.
Operation Black Cat Prep Info (Word doc)
Operation Black Cat booklet (PDF)
Fun Fall Word Search (PDF)

Meeting #16: Skating

Discovering You: Stay Fit and Healthy (DY3)

Last year, Halifax hosted the Canada Winter Games, and as part of the facilities, they installed a temporary outdoor skating oval on the Halifax Commons. When it wasn't being used for the Canada Games, it was opened up for free to the public. They had a trailer where they offered free skate rentals. The Oval was busy and the line for skate rentals could be over an hour.

The public rallied to have the facility installed permanently, and after some negotiations, it was arranged, and now Halifax has free outdoor skating in the winter!

We went as a unit last year, and it's such a great outing--it's free, it's fun for girls, it exposes them to activities available in the city, it's great exercise. We live in a suburb about 30 minutes from downtown, so we're not right next door.

We went again this year, and again, the girls had a great time. What I love most is watching the girls who are good skaters going slow and helping the girls who aren't as strong skaters, because 1) the weaker skaters are getting out there, unafraid and unembarrassed at their lack of skill and 2) the stronger skaters are showing leadership and empathy in helping their friends.

For girls who haven't earned it yet, this counts as DY3#6. It also counts as #8 for the Outdoors in the City badge.

The happy skaters! I forgot my good camera so we'll have to make do with the cell phone picture.