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 #20 & #21: Healthy Eating Badge

Discovering You: Stay Fit and Healthy (DY3)

Healthy Eating (HE)

Fit for Life challenge (FfL)

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

7:00-7:10--Horseshoe

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meeting #2

6:30-7:00 Patrol Time

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

7:00-7:30 Horseshoe

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

Display their ads for other patrols to see.

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

7:30-7:50 Food Labels

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

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

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

8:20-8:30 Closing

Meeting #19: Fitness Fun badge

Fitness Fun badge (FF)

Discovering You: Stay Fit and Healthy (DY3)

Beyond You: Try New Things (BY3)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meeting #16: Thinking Day Hat Crafts

Discovering You: Stay Fit and Healthy (DY3)

Fitness Fun (FF)

Fit for Life (FfL)

For Thinking Day, our District is having a skating and pizza party. After skating, we are doing a hat craft swap, so each person is required to bring 3 hat crafts to trade. We had voted on the hat craft we would make at a previous meeting.

We set everything they needed out for them to make the backpack and book.

We told them they didn't have to make one complete one themselves--that they could divide up who made the pencils and who made the books and who made the backpacks, especially since we didn't have enough glue guns for everyone to use them at the same time.

And they turned out quite nice, if I do say so myself!

This took up most of the meeting. They needed to make 4 each--one to keep for themselves and 3 to trade. We gathered up the traders to keep o make sure everything will show up on Thinking Day.

Then we handed out a month calendar and asked them to keep track of how much exercise they did for the month. We asked them to get 20 minutes a day, 3 times a week, which isn't really much, especially since they should be having gym twice a week. They'll need to bring it back filled out and we told them that we'd rather they bring it back with less than the required amount than for them to falsely fill it out. This calendar will used for three pieces of programming! (DY3#4, FF#2, FfL:A)

And we finished the night with campfire songs and closing.

Meeting #8: Fitness Fun badge

Fitness Fun badge (FF)

Discovering You: Stay Fit and Healthy (DY3)

Beyond You: Try New Things

We had a guest presenter at our meeting--she's a Ranger leader, our Area Active Living advisor, and a fitness instructor. She worked on the Fitness Fun badge with the girls (DY3#6)

6:30-6:45: Patrol Time. We didn't have a lot of time, but we have a sleepover coming up so we asked the girls to choose from three Challenges we're thinking about doing.

6:45-6:55: Horseshoe. We found out the results of the sleepover planning, which was that they liked the idea of all the challenges and there was no one challenge that won out over the others, so we're no farther ahead and we still have to make a decision!

7:00-8:20: Our guest took over. We did yoga for half an hour. (FF#3 & #7, BY3#3)

Then she discussed with the girls ways to change their daily routines to add more fitness (walking more, taking stairs when you can, playing outside instead of watching tv). (FF#1)

Then we went over different ways to stretch various muscles--some we had done during the yoga session. (FF#4)

Finally, we learned the proper ways to do squat, lunges, push-ups, and crunches. She stressed to the girls that there is no such thing as "girl push-ups" and "boy push-ups", but rather beginner and advanced. I thought this was a great point to make. (FF#6)

She was a great presenter and I think the girls really enjoyed it. I know they enjoyed getting their badges!

Healthy Eating Badge and Discovering You Square

Discovering You: Stay Fit and Healthy (DY3)
Discovering You: Understand How to Be Responsible (DY4)

Healthy Eating badge

We took two meetings to cover the Healthy Eating Badge and parts of Discovering You: Stay Fit and Healthy and Understand How to Be Responsible. We were also working on the NS 2011 Anniversary Challenge and the Nfld Fit for Life Healthy Living Challenge.

(Abbreviations--HE=Healthy Eating badge, DY3=Discovering You Stay Fit and Healthy, DY4=Discoverying You Understand How to Be Responsible, FfL=Fit for Life Challenge, NS100=NS 100 Anniversary Challenge)

We had previously volunteered at the Feed Nova Scotia (HE#8).

Meeting #1
15 min: Discuss Canada's Food Guide and why each section is important. (HE#6, DY3#3)

10 min: List the things you ate today for breakfast, recess, lunch, afterschool snack, and supper. Categorize them into Canada's Food Guide. (HE#1, DY3#3, FfL#B)
Sheets to print for each Guide to fill out

15 min: Discuss who achieved the recommended servings for the day. (HE#2, DY3#3)

10 min: Food label activity printouts (HE#4): I got these from http://www.nourishinteractive.com/
Food Label Worksheet
Sample Labels

10 min: Healthy snack with NS food (NS100#16b): We like to have snacks and eat at our meetings quite often! We had rolls from a local bakery, cheese, and blueberries.

Meeting #2
20 min: Design an ad for healthy food/healthy lifestyle. (HE#3, DY3#2): Each patrol worked together to create their ad.

5 min: Smoking is bad for you (FfL#C)

20 min: Taking the Temperature activity from the GirlEmpower Challenge (DY4#4)
GirlEmpower Challenge

15 min: Brainstorm what you would need in a Be Prepared kit for different activities. (DY4#2): We gave each patrol a different activity and had them come up with what would be required.