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 #7: Valentines for Vets

You and Others: Learn How to Plan (YaO3)

You in Guiding: Be Involved in Your Community (YiG4)

Event Planning

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

7:00-7:15: Horseshoe--We had 3 new girls join after our Bring a Friend night, so that was great! We started off explaining to the new girls a bit about Guiding. Then we had 2 girls who had brought in treats they'd made for the Tasty Treats badge and present what else they had done for the badge.

7:15-7:30: Our meeting next week falls on Remembrance Day so we decided to spend the night working on Remembrance Day activities. We handed out the Peace badge worksheet that we'd created a few years ago for them to fill out and bring back to earn the Peace badge.

Then we talked about what Remembrance Day was and what veterans were. 

7:30-8:00: -Valentines for Vets (Guider Cara on the Brownies Meet blog has a great write-up on Valentines for Vets)--We gave them lots of supplies so each could make a Valentine that we could send to Valentine's for Vets. Since Valentines need to be sent early in January, this seemed like a good time to do Valentine's for Vets, with the war time/Remembrance Day theme.

We gave them preprinted verses that they could glue in the cards (we took them from theValentines for Vets site), and a preprinted label that said "4th Hammonds Plains Guides" to glue on the back, and lots of stamps and stickers and pretty paper that they could use to decorate the cards with. (YiG4#3)

#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

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!

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.

Special Event: Tent Camping

After the permission slips and kit list went out, @Jenn_Boot posted this picture showing dishes in mesh bags drying on a line, and I thought it was a perfect illustration to our parents as to why we ask for dishes in mesh bags at camp. So I sent an email to them, showing them this picture and giving them a link to the 64th Guides blog post on How to Pack for Camp. We have a number of first year Guides who have never been tent camping and I wanted to ensure the parents knew that there were reasons for everything we put on the kit list.

I kept a close eye on the weather all week, and no matter how many times I looked at it, there was going to be rain on Saturday, and we most likely wouldn't be putting the tents away dry. But there's no point cancelling because the food and supplies are already bought, and as long as you're dressed properly, the rain shouldn't be a problem.

Our Quartermaster had a great idea for packing her van with supplies--cookies boxes! Each box was filled with supplies for each activity and marked on the outside so it could be found easily. They stacked up neatly for transport and we could use them for the campfire when we were done! I need supplies for box ovens? Pull out the box and inside is wide, heavy duty tin foil, duct tape and scissors, empty pop cans, foil pie plates, and grills! It was very handy and organized.

6:30 Arrival--Most years, we scramble to get the tents up as everyone is arriving and it's total chaos, because that's the way it's been done in the past. This year, I thought it through and it's not like it's getting dark soon after we arrive. We have time to have orientation, get the girls organized into tent patrols, and then have them set up their own individual tents.

I wanted to get my tent set up first though. I arrived early, and started peacefully setting up my tent by myself. It was going well at first, but then I put one of the wrong poles in. I pulled it out, and then another Guider arrived and I was talking to her as I put the pole back in, and didn't I put the exact same wrong one in! So frustrating! But I did eventually get the tent put up properly.

As the girls were arriving, the parents weren't leaving, so one of the Guiders gathered all the girls and took them to the far end of the campsite and played Stella Ella Ola with them, trying to give the parents the hint!

7:15 Orientation (BC#4, BC#5, BC#9)--I can never remember everything, so I printed out the Safe Guide Tenting in Established Campground. 

Participants should be instructed on:

 Location layout and out of bounds areas

 Emergency procedures and what to do if lost

 Campfire safety (hair tied back, no loose clothing, no reaching across fire, no rambunctious play near the fire)

 What to do if clothing catches fire

 Proper hygiene

 Cooking, stove, fire and food safety guidelines

 “Leave no trace” guidelines

 Disposal of waste (garbage, food, grey water)

 Night time trips to toilet

 Wildlife sightings or encounters

 Expectations for behaviour

 Any facility specific rules

We also discussed what program we'd be working on, which included the following:

Beyond You: Explore the Outdoors and Nature (BY2)

Basic Camper (BC)

Campfire Leading (CL)
Exploring (E)
Outdoor Cooking (OC)

We handed out Camp Challenge Booklets, which I found on the Canadian Guider blog. For each activity that they completed, they could earn a bead. We thought about giving them strings to tie the beads to, but we ended up giving them little mesh bags to store them in that they could pin to their hats if they wanted.

We also gave them little pouches from the Dollar Store that hung around the neck, and in the pouch was a pencil, a pen, a notebook, and their mesh bag for beads. This way, they would have all the tools they needed to work on their challenge books when they wanted.

8:00 Set up Tents--Once all the administration was out of the way, it was time to start camping! We let the girls divide themselves up into four groups of four and a group of five. We had five tents and five leaders, so each leader guided the girls on setting up their tents, letting them do it all and offering advice when needed. It was much smoother and less chaotic than usual--this was definitely the way to go! There were no parents jumping in to help them--they did it all themselves and gave them a sense of accomplishment. (BY2#4, BC#3)

8:45 Campfire! I love campfire. I learned some new songs to teach the girls. I found Sierra's Song Book when I was looking for the lyrics to D-I-S-C-O. I looked for some songs that I didn't know and downloaded the mp3s, figured out which ones I liked and put them on my iPod and listened to them a few times each morning on the way to work so that I could learn them. I taught them Moose Song and Sixties Party. The girls from the other unit knew Hippo Song so I had them lead that for us too. Another good site for lyrics (and campfires in general) is Guiding with Guider Dusk. (CL#1, BC#3)

Sixties Party is one of those songs that's really fun to sing and teach, but be careful, because the girls loved it and if we heard it once, we must have heard it 60 times over the course of the weekend!

For mug-up we made nachos in the fire. We had small tin foil pans (one per girl) and put tortilla chips and cheese in them and covered them in foil and threw them on the hot coals to melt the cheese. Then our Quartermaster passed out salsa and sour cream to go with it, and everyone loved the snack!

10:30 After campfire, we dug a spit pit for teeth brushing and then got the girls ready for bed. We reminded them to change EVERYTHING, head to toe, before bed. There's no way to guarantee that they listen to us, but we stress it every year!

Within 5 minutes of everyone being in the tents, we heard our racoon friend banging into the garbage can, looking through tin foil scraps for food. One of these years, we'll remember to weigh down the garbage can lid on the first night!

SATURDAY

7:00 Wake up! The girls were to get dressed and roll up their sleeping bags before coming out to get breakfast ready. Though it wasn't raining yet, we were expecting rain for the day so we strung up a tarp and poles to extend our dining shelter/kitchen, to give the girls somewhere to cook and stay dry. 

 8:00 Breakfast--We had four campstoves for the girls to divide up into 4 cooking patrols. We made the patrols in the order they arrived, so whoever was ready to cook formed a patrol. There were 5-6 girls in each cooking patrol, and we had three meals we'd be cooking on stoves, so for each meal, two girls were responsible for setting up and lighting the stoves, and then taking them apart when the meal was over. Even if both burners weren't needed at each meal, each girl got a chance to light a burner and figure out how to get the stove working. (BY2#2, OC#1, OC#5, BC#3)

The girls made pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Each stove only had one frying pan, so they cooked the bacon first, and then each girl cooked her own pancake.

In the Challenge Booklet, the girls could eat with chopsticks (found at the Dollar Store) or blindfolded (we brought scarves for them). Of course, some girls went with both options!

9:00 Clean-up After breakfast was clean-up. We told each patrol that they were responsible for their pots and pans as well, and that they had to make sure that everyone took a turn on clean-up within their Patrols. (OC#7, BC#3)

(At this point, we were already behind schedule. I don't know what we were thinking, only allowing 1 hour for breakfast and clean-up, when it always takes 1.5-2 hours!)

Program--We had planned to have four stations that they could rotate through, but with the rain, we realized we really only had 2 good dry spots for teaching and learning. It made the groups bigger for teaching, which isn't always ideal, but we seemed to manage okay. One group went under the tarp on one side of the dining shelter and the other group went under the alcove of trees on the other side of the dining shelter.

Station 1: Compasses--I wasn't involved in this station so I don't know everything they did. We had enough compasses for everyone to use. The Guider made a demonstration compass out of cardboard, which was great for showing them how to use a compass so everyone could see. Once they learned how to use the compass, she got them to turn and face a certain direction, to see who could find it on their own. Then they started wandering, though I'm not sure what their activity for that was. (BY2#3)

Station 2: Knots--Again, this wasn't my station, so I don't know the ins and outs and which knots were taught. I do know that she printed out the Knot Quick Reference from e-patches and crests. One of the Challenges in the booklet was to tie as many reef knots in a minute as you can, and they did this. They learned how to tie a noose. We gave them each about 1 m of rope--again, the Dollar Store has some good soft rope for $1.50 for 15 m. (BY2#4)

Station 3: Camp clothing--at OAL Training, one of our Guiders got a set of "mittens" made out of various materials--denim, fleece, microfleece, polyester, flannel, wool, nylon, cotton--that you dip in water and hang up, and then check back on to see how quickly they dry. The girls all got small squares of material on a safety pin to make a hat craft to remember this by. The nylon and wool dried fairly quickly, and the denim was still wet on Sunday morning. (BY2#2, E#8)

She also showed them how to make and use fire starters, though they didn't make them themselves. One that was new to me was a cotton make-up remover pad dipped in paraffin wax. To use it, you rip it and then light it on fire. She gave one to each of them to put in their Be Prepared kits.

Station 4: Box Ovens--I taught the girls how to make their box ovens that we would be using later that day. Basically, we lined bankers boxes/paper ream boxes with tin foil, and used duct tape on the outside of them to hold the tin foil in place (we didn't put duct tape on the inside). Both lid and base needed tin foil and make sure that no cardboard is showing. Poke holes through the tin foil where handles to box are. Inside, we used two pie plates, one upside down and the other right side up on top of it to hold the charcoal. We used four empty pop cans (you can put water or rocks in them for weight) and a small grill (from the Dollar Store!) (OC#3)

10:00: Two Stations--Knots and Compasses

11:00: One Station--either Clothing or Box Ovens. While we were doing these stations, the compass Guiders were setting up 5 compass courses for the girls to do later.

11:30: Snack: Smores to go--Baggies with Golden Grahams cereal, Teddy Grahams, chocolate chips, and marshmallows. Since it was raining and cool, they also got hot chocolate to go with it. Some of the girls had the idea to put their marshmallows into their hot chocolate--good idea! Then they put their chocolate chips in too--bad idea! We wanted a quick clean-up of the mugs, but the chocolate chips stuck to the bottom.

11:45: One station--Clothing or Box Ovens

12:15: Compass Trails--the girls followed their compass trails in groups--using directions and steps, i.e. take 20 steps NW. They had 5 or 6 directions to follow, and at the end of the trail, they found a baggie with beads in it for each of them. (E#5, BC#6)

12:45: First Aid and Fire Safety--I had the girls line up across the field. I used the same game we used last year, because we're doing the same badge (Outdoor Cooking). I would read the statement and if they agreed, they took two steps forward and if they disagreed, they stayed still. They couldn't move until I had read the full statement and then said Go so they all moved at the same time. If they went early, they went back to the beginning to restart. If they were wrong, they had to take two steps back. If they made to me, I gave them a candy and they went back to the beginning to try again. They each got two candies by the end, either way. Most girls made to me at least once. (OC#6, OC#8, BC#4) First Aid and Fire Safety Facts (Word doc)

1:00 Lunch Time--They made hot dogs and Kraft Dinner on the camp stoves. Some girls had never seen fried hot dogs before and one girl got concerned when there was a "red line on my hot dog!" It was just where it was cooking. They also had veggies (cucumbers and carrots) and dip to go with lunch. The rain had stopped by lunch, though it was still cloudy at this point. (BY2#2, OC#1, OC#5, BC#3)

2:30: Free time after lunch clean up. I also handed out folders to them, which contained information on how to plan a campfire, and a list of songs that we've sung (the index and table of contents to my personal song book that I created of songs I know and love). They had a planning sheet and they could plan their campfires during free time and we would give them a warning when they had 15 minutes left and had to plan.

Campfire badge planning sheet

Cat's Songbook

3:15: Campfire planning time And the sun came out! The girls all changed into shorts and t-shirts during free time. (CL#6)

3:30: Make cupcakes--They used a mix, and each group made 8 cupcakes in their box ovens. (OC#3)

While they were cooking, we let them go play in the river. They were supposed to keep the water to midpoint of their rubber boots. We kept a close eye on them and spent most of the time yelling at them. :) When they came out, if both of their feet were still dry, they got a bead for behaving. We gave out very few beads. :)

4:15: Mini campfires--We split the girls up into 5 groups and each group went with a leader, and got to lead a 15-minute campfire program (no actual fire was involved). We told them they didn't have to do it (but then they wouldn't earn the badge). Four or five girls indicated that they didn't want to do it, but once we got into the smaller groups, everyone lead their campfire and everyone earned the badge! (CL#6, CL#7, BC#7)

5:15: Free time The girls could come to us during free time to get credit for their Challenge Booklets and collect their beads.

6:00 Supper--We had tacos in a bag. The girls cooked up the hamburger and added taco seasoning to it, and then put it in a baggie with lettuce, tomato, cheese, sour cream, and salsa and ate right out of the bag. (BY2#2, OC#1, OC#5, BC#3)

While we ate supper, I asked each girl what her favourite hike we'd been on this year was and why. It was hard to choose, because we'd done a lot of fun hikes! (E#6)

After supper, they got to decorate and eat their cupcakes. There was vanilla icing, and chocolate icing, and sprinkles!

8:00 Campfire--By the time everyone had eaten and gotten all the dishes cleaned up, it was time for campfire again! We sang our international folk songs (My Aunt Grete--Netherlands, Tongo--Africa) and historical folk songs (Land of the Silver Birch, Happy Wanderer), plus lots of other favourites. (CL#2, CL#3, BC#7)

Campfire snacks was campfire cones! We had seen them on Pinterest and thought they looked delicious. Unfortunately, some of them were in the coals for too long and got burnt--we think they didn't have enough marshmallows in them and the chocolate burned too quickly. The girls liked them, but I think they actually prefer Smores! I liked my campfire cone. :)

10:30 Get ready for bed

SUNDAY

7:00 Wake up time again! We woke up to rain again, but it stopped fairly soon after we got up. Not enough that we were going to be able to get the tents dry before we packed up though. The girls had to get dressed and packed up and move their gear out of the tents before they could come to breakfast.

8:00 Breakfast--easy breakfast for Sunday morning. Cereal cups with milk, strawberry pop tarts, and fruit. When they finished eating, they were to take their dishes and pack them away too.

9:30: Strike camp--Each patrol took their tent down and packed it away, with the guidance of a leader. There were five Guiders and 5 girl tents, so we were each responsible to take one home to dry out. (BY2#4, BC#3)

10:30 Guide's Own--We started off by singing If All the Raindrops, using the first verse, plus the one about mosquitos and the one about Black Flies. Then we did our Two Apples and an Onion, with everyone saying two good things and one bad thing about camp. The most common bad thing was the outhouse, and I don't think anyone complained about the rain we had. Then we gave out badges and crests that were earned at camp, plus our Cookie All Star crests which had arrived the week before. Then we moved around the campfire and sang Linger and Daytime Taps (which can be found in the Guide Handbook). (BC#7, BC#10)

Parents started arriving around 11, though pick up wasn't until 11:30.

It was a great camp, and the girls were awesome. We didn't have any complaints about being wet, almost all of the girls came properly dressed in rain boots and coats. As Guiders, we boggled at the parents who would send their daughters for a weekend of outdoor camping with no indoor shelter, and still not provide them with the proper gear.

We covered a lot of program, though we probably scheduled a bit too much into the weekend. We didn't have a lot of down time, but then again, the girls didn't complain about that either. We didn't get a lot of requests for "When's Free Time?", which I guess is a good indication that they were enjoying what we were doing with them.