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

Special Event #2: Self-Esteem Camp (Residential)

Discovering You: Stay Fit and Healthy (DY3)



Irish Girl Guides Health Promotion Challenge for Brownies (IGHP)

  For our Fall camp, we decided to focus on the Stay Fit and Healthy square of Discovering You. We found a Health Promotion booklet from the Irish Girl Guides website. We chose the Brownie level, since their Brownies are aged 7-10, which the majority of our girls fall into. This booklet has lots of great activity ideas!

We stayed well on schedule for this camp, which isn't always the case! We had great weather too! We had two options for the camp--either come for both nights and stay the whole weekend, or come for the day on Saturday (9 am to 7 pm). We had 2 day campers and 21 full campers.


FRIDAY

6:30-7:00—Arrival

7:00-7:30—Orientation

I print out the participant instructions from Safe Guide so that I remember everything we need to tell them. We have a "No Running" rule at camp, and if you're caught running inside, you have to sit on the floor where we caught you until we let you up. And you'd better hope we don't forget about you!

7:30-8:30—Icebreaker Yay You! Game (IGHP#1)--This game was simple but very rewarding. Just say your name and something you're good at, and then everyone claps and says, "Yay, (your name)". It really makes you feel good to have a room of 25 people cheering for you!

Throwing ball game with 4-5 stuffed animals--Start with one beanie baby sized stuff animal. You say a person's name and then toss the toy at the them. Keep going until everyone has caught the toy and it is back at the first person. (We have the girls duck down once they've had the toy, to make sure everyone gets it once and no one gets it twice.) Then you have to throw to the same person you threw to the first time, and then more and more stuffies get added to the game until 5 of them are going at once. Then slowly remove them until one is left. There are lots of giggles with this game.

Draw for Secret Buddies (DY1#5)--We do this every Residential camp and the girls love it! Everyone draws a name and for the weekend, secretly do nice things for your buddy. This year we had a stack of notepaper for them to use, and they burned through it, writing secret messages to their buddies!

8:30-10:00—Campfire


9:15: Mug-up—granola bars and hot chocolate--We don't have nut allergies this year, so we made homemade granola bars (so good!). Here's the recipe:
Homemade Chewy Granola Bars

1 C brown sugar
2/3 C peanut butter
1/2 C light corn syrup
1/2 C butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla

3 C oats
1/2 C sunflower seeds
1/2 C coconut
1/2 C raisins (I didn't use these)
1/3 C wheat germ
2 T sesame seeds
1 C chocolate chips

Stir together first 5 ingredients. Add remaining ingredients and stir. Press firmly into a 9x13 pan. Bake at 350°F for 15-20 minutes, until lightly browned on top. Let cool for an hour (or until completely cooled) and then cut into 24 bars.

10:00-11:00—Get ready for bed

11:00—Lights out

SATURDAY

7:00 Wake up

8:30-9:30 Breakfast—Eggs (scrambled or boiled), mini bagels, fresh fruit. Milk, juice, ketchup, jam, butter.

9:30—10:30 two activities (20 minute activities)

AM1 Box Oven—The girls lined the cardboard boxes with tin foil and got them ready to be used for lunch. One charcoal briquette gives off about 35°F of heat, so use 10-12 briquettes to get an oven heated to 350°F.(OC#3)

AM2 T-shirts (DY3#5) We had the girls each bring a plain, light coloured T-shirt. They used fabric pens to decorate the front, and then wrote positive messages on the back of each other's shirts, but didn't sign their messages. We left the shirts in the activity room for them to write on all weekend.
AM3 Hygiene activity—After a brief explanation of what hygiene is, the girls brainstormed lists of good hygiene and bad hygiene and then drew a picture of one or the other. (DY3#1, IGHP#4)

AM4 Create a commercial. We gave each group one of the following topics--fitness, healthy eating, sleep, anti-bullying--and had them create a commercial promoting the topic. We took a videocamera and after they rehearsed their skits, we filmed them. (DY3#2)

10:30-10:45: Snack—hummus, pita, cheese, baby carrots, water

1045-11:30: Two morning activities

11:30-12:00: Go outside--We had finished earlier than we planned, so they girls had free time to play outside. We'd brought rope for skipping, and frisbees, and they had a lot of fun.

12:00-12:30—Charcoal--We brought the box ovens outside and lit the charcoal. While we waited for the boxes to heat up, we played one more game.

Food Mail game--We used 4 empty cookie boxes and labeled them for Canada's Food Guide: Fruits and Vegetables, Meat and Alternatives, Grain Products, and Milk and Alternatives. Then I had taken flyers and cut out pictures of food and put them on index cards to create "post cards". I distributed the boxes around the campsite. Each group had a pen and had to put a "datemark" on the postcard before they delivered it to prove it was theirs. They had to travel as a group and deliver the mail to the right boxes.

12:30-1:30—Lunch and clean up—Pizza on thin buns, vegetables and dip, pepperoni, cheese, mushrooms, green peppers, pizza sauce (OC#3)

1:30-2:30— (20 min each)

PM1 Bullying—Follow the leader, Snap Crackle Pop--We played both of these games from the Health Promotion challenge. It didn't take as long as the Drug activity, so we also played some Wink Murder. (IGHP#7)

PM2 Drug activity—Krista (IGHP#2)

2:30-3:00 Skipping—(IGHP#5)

3:00—Snack Trail mix

3:00-3:30—Our two oldest girls asked if they could create a scavenger hunt for the rest of the girls, so they ran that activity. They tried to make it too complicated to start, but with a bit of guidance, the girls did a great job leading the activity and the other girls had fun.

3:30-5:00—Relaxation followed by free time (IGHP#8, FG#5)

5:00-5:30—Relationship activity (YaO1#2, IGHP#6) This was an interesting activity and the girls seemed to have fun with it too. My favourite compromise--one girl wanted to nap and the other wanted to go swimming, so they decided they would nap on a waterbed!

5:30-6:30—Supper—breaded chicken strips, cooked frozen corn, salad, rice (brown/white), milk, water, applesauce for dessert

7:15-9:30 Spa night! This girls had a blast with this. We had areas set up around the room and the girls could choose an activity as long as there was space for them. (FG#6)

Foot basins--hot water to soak their feet. I did this and it felt so good after a day of running around at camp!

Manicures/pedicures--We had nail polish (and asked the girls to bring some if they had it). Some did their own and some did each others. One of our third years did fancy designs on a number of nails and had a blast doing it!

Personal Fondues—8 oz soup can with holes punched in over top of a tea light, with a tin foil cup on top filled with chocolate chips. We had strawberries, bananas, and marshmallows for them to dip.

Crafts—lip balm, body glitter, body lotion, foot scrub. The kitchen didn't have a microwave, which changed the plans a little. (recipes will be added soon hopefully!)

10:30—Lights out. The girls were exhausted and went to bed early and easily!

SUNDAY

7:30 Wake up and Pack up

8:30-9:30: Breakfast Yogurt, applesauce, cereal, fruit and juice—Cheerios, Rice Krispies

10:00 Guides’ Own—During Guides Own we did our Two Apples and an Onion, revealed our Secret Buddies, showed the commercials they'd made (YiG4#2), and sang "Say Why" and "Daytime Taps".

Meeting #8: Remembrance Day

You and Others: Learn How to Plan (YaO3)

You in Guiding: Learn About Guiding (YiG2)

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 and discuss Halloween evaluation--We had the Patrol Leaders give us the comments and suggestions from their Patrols. With the size of our unit this year, we're trying to give the Patrol Leaders more responsibility and reduce the number of other girls who are talking. They had some good comments about the party--more than just sweets for food, games were fun, not enough supplies for the craft.

7:15-7:30: Guides in Wartime minibooks--I got this idea from Owl and Toadstool. Guider Lee Anne sent me the files that had the little pictures and the posters with all the information. She'll willingly share the files with other Guiders if you comment on her post or send her an email.

She also sent me a video on how to make the layered book we used. I got coloured  cardstock from the Dollar Store and they turned out really pretty! When they finished the books, they glued them into their lapbooks. (YiG2#6)

7:45-7:55--Discussion of Guides in wartime--Once they finished their books, we talked about what they learned.

7:55-8:15--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 the Valentines 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.

As we were starting to explain what we were doing, one girl asked, "Why do veterinarians need Valentine's?" Oops! We should have explained that first. :)

8:15-8:30--We had time to sing a few songs before we did our closing.