Meeting #15: Curacao Twinning/Cultural Awareness

Curacao Twinning Challenge

Cultural Awareness (CA)

Patrol Time: They continued working on songs for the Carnivale Song contest.

Craft: To get ready Carnivale, we made Carnivale masks! We pre-traced glasses onto fun foam. The girls cut them out and they hot-glued a chopstick onto the side to be the stick to hold them to their faces. Then we had jewels and sparklies and feathers for them to decorate them. They had a great time! (CA#1, CA#5)

Song Contest: Next up was the song contest and they did a great job on them! They incorporated facts that they'd learned in the previous meetings and made up tunes. There were funny ones and raps and overall, I was very impressed with their creativity. (CA#1, CA#2, CA#5)

Food: Finally we had come Caribbean food to end the night.

Pumpkin Pancakes: We used the recipe from the Twinning Challenge but we had some difficulty cooking them. The batter was quite wet and they were still wet once they were cooked. But the girls ate them and the flavour was good.

Fried Plantain: We fried up slices of plantain. Some girls like it and some girls didn't. Though they look like bananas, they taste a lot like potatoes. Deep-fried, they're like potato chips!

Iguana soup!--This was mentioned in story we'd read, so our Cook Master whipped some up for the girls to try. She added green food colouring to chicken and made chicken noodle soup and we told them it was Iguana soup. Once they tasted it, a number of girls insisted it was chicken noodle soup, but we never told them the truth.

Sunchis: I had made these meringues (scroll down) the week before, but then we had to cancel for snow. I didn't think they'd last another week, so I took them to work for people there to eat. They were good and quite sweet and the girls would have liked them, I'm sure. Our girl who moved away had lots of foods she couldn't eat, so they would have been good for her, but since she wasn't at this meeting, I wasn't as concerned at making sure we had enough that she could try.

So now we're done with Curacao! When we told the girls, they said we hadn't flown back yet, so we may need to fly them down the hallway next week to get them back to Nova Scotia!

Special Event #3: Winter Hike

Beyond You: Explore the Outdoors and Nature (YiG2)

Since we had to cancel our meeting due to snow, we arranged for a hike on Saturday. We had a girl moving away and we wanted a chance to say good-bye to her before she moved to New Mexico.

It was cold and there was lots of snow on the ground, but it was sunny and there wasn't much wind at all, so it was a beautiful day for a hike.

We had one girl who started complaining about 15 minutes into a 2 hour hike, but we got her through it. We stopped every 15 minutes or so for a water break, and at the halfway turnaround point, we stopped for a snack.

As we walked, we looked for interesting things along the way. We saw a river that was still running, and dogs, and animal prints in the snow, and ducks swimming in the water. (YiG2#1)

On our return, our complaining girl walked at the front and stopped complaining, and said that the snack break was enough and her legs didn't hurt anymore. We think knowing how far she had to walk back helped her--though she did declare that she was never going on a hike again!

We had a great time in the beautiful outdoors!

Meeting #13: Traveller/Cultural Awareness

Traveller badge (T)

Cultural Awareness badge (CA)

Curacao Twinning Challenge

6:30-7:00: Patrol Time--In Curacao they have Carnivale in February, much like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. One thing they do during Carnivale is have a song contest, so we had the Patrols create songs and we're going to have the contest next week.

7:00-7:15: Horseshoe--During Horseshoe, we discussed various organizations that can help travellers. The girls came up with travel agencies, and we talked about Expedia that they used last week. Then we also discussed places like CAA, the Government of Canada Travel website, and Embassies in other countries. (T#1)

7:15-7:30: Airline tickets: We taught them how to read an airline boarding pass and the departure board. We had a sample ticket to show them how to read them, and then we handed them each a boarding pass to Curacao. There were 5 different flights, with different gates, and different seats. We called the flights and boarded by seat number (Now boarding rows 15-30). They also had to show their passports from last week, just like boarding an airplane. (T#3)

Boarding Pass Sample
Departure Board
Curacao Boarding Passes

Once we had them all lined up, two Guiders flew them out of the room and down the hall while two of us decorated the classroom with a couple of posters and leis and grass skirts so when the girls came back into the room, they were in Curacao! Their tables were now their "hotel rooms" and their chairs were their "beds". They totally bought into it, and whenever I said "table" by mistake, they'd reply "You mean our hotel rooms!"

7:30-7:40: Dance--We did a Welcome Dance on the Island, called "I Let Her Go Go" which was recommended on the Girl Guides Blog about the Curacao Twinning Challenge. The song was fairly easy for the girls to learn. The clapping and turning took a little bit to get onto, but it was a lot of fun. (CA#4)

7:40-8:00: Curacao Trivia--We read a story written by Wendy Baker that was posted in the Girl Guide Unofficial Facebook page. The story has trivia questions at the end. We asked each Patrol (hotel room) a question and they could confer with each other. If no one in that group could answer, the other Patrols could steal the question. The winning Patrol got to take home the decorations--leis, grass skirts, posters. (CA#1, #3, #6)

8:00-8:15: Dance--Caimarusa (links to mp3), again recommended on the Girl Guides Blog and explained by Guiding with Jewels. We listened to the song twice, then sang it ourselves, and then played the game. We had 24 girls tonight, so we had to sing an extra half verse of the "la la las" to get everyone through. While we enjoyed both dances, this was the favourite of the two. (CA#4)

8:15-8:30: We were going to sing some campfire songs, but they wanted to work on their songs for the contest, so they spent a few more minutes working on their songs before we had our closing.

Meeting #12: Curacao Twinning Challenge/Travel Badge

Curacao Twinning Challenge 

Travel badge (T)

You in Guiding: Learn about WAGGGS (YiG3)

In looking at the Curacao Twinning Project, I thought there was a way we could incorporate the activities in the Travel badge and the Cultural Awareness badge. So we're going to spend three meetings on Curacao and hopefully earn a bunch of program!

(As an aside, has anyone else noticed that the Travel badge skipped #5 and only has 7 requirements?)

6:30-7:00 Patrol Time: Fill out a Child's Canadian Passport application. I printed off a copy for each girl to fill out. They fill out so few forms on their own that it took them a while to get through this. Not many had finished by the time we called horseshoe! (T#4)

7:00-7:10 Horseshoe

7:10-8:10 Once girls completed filling out their passport applications, we gave them a Passport to Curacao, with a number of activities to complete. We set up stations and let them wander on their own and complete their passports at their own pace. A few of the stations required leader guidance. We took their picture so they could glue them into their passports.

Curacao passport (Word doc)

Station one involved deciding which attractions to do while in Curacao (T#2) and then figuring out the costs in Curacao money and converting the costs to Canadian money (T#6).

I researched the attractions ahead of time and printed them off for the girls to pick from. They also need a calculator to help with the currency conversion.

Curacao Attractions (Word doc)

I printed off the first four pages of the Twinning Challenge and the girls had to look through the pages and find the answers to the questions. (T#2)

I found this mapping activity on the internet. It was a way for the girls to learn a little bit about the island and where it is in relation to Nova Scotia.  (T#2)

Since we have WiFi at the school, we brought in four laptops that we set up so the girls could learn how to book things on Expedia and get an idea of how much flights and hotels cost.

We let girls work in twos to find their flights.  (T#2)

There was also a flag in the passport that the girls could colour when they finished the other stations or were waiting for a station to be free.




8:15-8:30 Learn the Promise and the language. The final two pages in the passport had the Curacao promise written in Papiamentu and the translation. We read the Promise in English and discussed the differences between their Promise and ours. (YiG3#1)

And finally, I found a song in Papiamentu called Fire's Burning. The English translation isn't anything like ours but the rhythm fits with ours. So we learned to sing it in Papiamentu. We're going to do it the next few meetings, and hopefully we'll know it well enough to teach it to our District at our Thinking Day party.

Meeting #11: Christmas Party

6:30-7:15: Gingerbread man craft--Last year, we decorated gingerbread men, but this year we had a Guide who doesn't eat grains, so we wanted to find something she could do. This was a really cute craft. Trace two gingerbread man on sandpaper (I pretraced them before the meeting). Rub a cinnamon stick over the sandpaper and then cut out the gingerbread man. Glue the two pieces together. Decorate with wiggle eyes, buttons, pom poms, fabric paint, rick- rack, etc. (We had glue guns for the girls to use to help the decorations stick). Then punch a hole in the head and add a ribbon to hang from the tree. 

7:15-7:40 Presents--A few weeks prior, the girls asked if they could do a Secret Santa. We tried to talk to them about how it might be nice to do something for others instead--bringing food for the food bank, donating toys--but no matter how we tried to direct them, they wanted a Secret Santa. And since the program is girl-led and we gave them all their options, we went with the Secret Santa. But we added a caveat--they had make something themselves.

We didn't draw names beforehand. Everyone brought a present and set it under a small tree we had set up. Then each girl drew a number. Then we had a second draw, so it didn't matter which number the girl drew in the first place. When her number was called, the Guide got to choose a present from under the tree, but not open it. Once everyone had a present, then they all opened them at the same time. 

We had a couple of girls who forgot to bring a present, so they couldn't participate in the present opening. We told the girls and sent an email to the parents in advance of the party.  It's tough, but we feel part of being a Girl Guide is learning responsibility. 

7:40-8:00: Treasure hunt (Scroll way down to Social Studies section) -- We drew a map of the school area we could wander through - our room, the hallways, and the cafeteria - and marked off where we hid the foam snowmen. The snowmen treasures were hidden while the girls were working on their craft. Each patrol got a map with a spot marked for each girl. They shared the map and each girl got a turn leading their group to the next hiding spot. This was a great activity--the girls had fun and they got to practice reading a map! (Exploring badge #4)

After they found their snowmen, we let them decorate them with markers.

8:00-8:30 Food--We supplied the food for the party. Cheese, crackers, juice, and cupcakes. It's not a party without food!

And that finished out the term. We're planning to spend the month of January working on the Twinning Challenge, using it to earn the Travel badge and the Cultural Awareness badge too! A great way to lead into Thinking Day.

Meeting #10: Enrollment

You in Guiding: Understand the Promise and Law and Motto

Last week, we gave the girls a choice of Enrollment themes: World, Campfire, or Hogwarts. Each theme got votes, but Hogwarts was the winner.

We found the outline for the Hogwarts Enrollment in two places: NB Girl Guide site and AB Girl Guides Bright Ideas.

We gave the girls chopsticks to use as wands.

We didn't make hats or capes for the girls. The leaders wore capes (we have a leader who works at a university who got them for us).

We had a sorting hat with walkie talkies and it worked really cool. (We had 18 girls being enrolled).

The 2nd and 3rd years lit candles as they recited the promise.

We had the cauldron with Dragon Spit (vinegar) and Ground Unicorn Horn.

We used the first hour to set up the room and rehearse the ceremony. Then the parents arrived at 7:30 and we did the ceremony. The whole thing worked really well and was a lot of fun!

Meeting #9: Communication

You and Others: Build Skills in Communication (YaO2)

Event Planning (EP)

6:30-7:00: Patrol Time--We let them work on their Friendship Bracelets. They have lots of fun doing this--we have a hard time getting them to put them away!

7:00-7:15: Horseshoe

7:15-7:35: Enrollment invitations--We gave the girls cards and supplies and they each designed an invitation to bring to their parents, inviting them to enrollment the following week. They do love gluing and creating! (EP#2)

7:35-8:15: We played a written game of Telephone. My daughter has a game called Scribblish that I used to set this up. You start with a sentence and then draw a picture of it. You fold down the sentence, pass the picture to the person beside you, and they have to write a sentence that goes with the picture. Fold down the picture, and the next person has to draw a picture that goes with the sentence. It's a lot of fun and the girls loved it! We played this within patrols. (Word File with Scribblish papers: Scribblish) (YaO2#6)

8:15-8:30: Some songs and Taps