Monday, December 9, 2013

The Season of Giving

We started our meeting tonight with newspaper skate tag.  We gave the girls sheets of newsprint to put under their feet and had them "skate" across the floor with the paper under their feet.  One girl was "it" and had to try and tag the others.  It was great fun and the girls had a fabulous time giggling around.  What was even more fun for them was that we had three moms there as volunteers tonight, so their moms were also skating around!

After we finished skating and the wiggles were firmly out of the girls, we started putting together the birthdays in a box.

Here's the link to the checklist we used:
http://www.albertagirlguides.ca/Documents/AB/Birthday-Party-in-a-Box-Checklist.pdf

We asked the girls to either buy some of the requests in the box or go door to door and ask for donations from neighbours, friends and/or family.  Many families just decided to go to the dollar store and pick up some necessities.

I also asked my church to donate.  The church in and of itself created four birthdays in a box.

Then my coleader and I packed up a bunch of them in boxes before we set the girls upon them.

The girls packed 8 together, and my coleader and I packed 7 before our meeting.

Then we wrapped them all and they'll be getting into the local food bank on Wednesday.  Some lucky boys and girls whose families use the food bank will be able to have modest birthday parties.  AWESOME.

In our little unit of 10 girls - we made 15 Birthdays in a Box.

After we made a huge pyramid of the packed boxes and took some pictures of the girls goofing off around them we calmed them with a soothing cup of camomile tea.  We one-lumped or two'd with proper etiquette (for the Mouse Around the House challenge) and tried to be proper ladies while lifting our little fingers.

Finally we sang our closing song, gave the girls the bag they decorated last week with their banana bread, a candy cane, a Christmas ornament, some pictures of what they've been up to this year, markers and lip balm and sent them home tired but happy.


See you again in January - we're done early this year - December's too busy with everything else anyway!




Birthday Party in a Box
Alberta’s 100th Anniversary Service Project for 2013
Birthday Boxes for Food Banks
Alberta is celebrating 100 years of Guiding and we want to share in
our celebrations. What better way than to make “Birthday Parties in a Box”
for your local Food Bank.
Sadly, because of various reasons, there are many children whose birthdays
will pass without any celebration. Receiving that special gift, enjoying a slice of
birthday cake after blowing out the candles, and the knowledge that someone
remembered you and took the time to let you know they care can make a difference.
The Birthday-Party-in-a-Box Service Project can provide normalcy, joy, and hope in
the lives of those who may not otherwise have a birthday celebration.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

A wonderful wintery day!

We continued with our program of the Being Healthy Keeper today.  We opened with a group activity with hula hoops and jumping.  Jumping takes an incredible amount of energy!  A good thing to wear off when you're dealing with five and six year old girls.

The trick with Heartbeats is to have the girls understand how exercise effects their heartrate.  So we started by putting our hands over our hearts and counting beats for 10 seconds.  We talked a little about all the things we can do to get that heartrate up!  Running, jumping, swimming, dancing and snowmobiling took the top spots by the girls.

We put on some Kidzbop (Funkytown) and divided the girls into two teams.  I spread out four hula hoops on the floor in front of each team and we jumped through them five or six ways.  Then we spent four minutes just running around in follow the leader.

The we stood in a circle again and measured our heartrate.  The girls noticed (surprise!) that it was faster than it was before.  We explained that the heart is a muscle - just like those in our arms and legs and it's important to exercise it every day for at least 20 minutes.

Having worn them out we divided our Sparks into two groups.

My co-leader took one group and made banana bread, then decorated some shortbread cookies with icing and sprinkles.




My group made some vaseline and Kool-Aid lip gloss and then decorated some gift bags for their banana bread (they'll go home next week).

Then we switched out.

We finished a minute before the end of our hour.

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Band-Aids and Handwashing

This week my coleader and I tackled handwashing, wound tending and how to put on a band-aid.

We started by having all our little Sparks wash their hands for the right amount of time.  We used a version of "twinkle twinkle".

Twinkle twinkle little star
Look how clean my two hands are
Soap and water rub a dub
Scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub
Twinkle twinkle little star
Look how clean my two hands are.

The girls then were able to practice cleaning a wound, putting on Polysporin and then a band-aid.  Being always careful to not touch the pad in the centre of the band-aid.  We had them bring stuffies from home to practice on, but the girls didn't want to put the band-aids on them, so we had them put a band-aid on my coleader's arms.  

We sang a song called twinkle twinkle little Spark, and talked about how a good night's rest helps us the next day by not being a grump.

We wrapped up the night with a craft.  It's a bird.  It's a plane!  It's band-aid man!


Saturday, November 23, 2013

Water water everywhere!

We learned about clean, dirty and water that is dirty but looks clean.  

After a rousing sing along of listen to the water and Sparks Can Jump we learned about the water cycle and how water makes its way into our homes.  Yay!

Since today was the last meeting where we were working on our In My Community keeper we pinned them onto the girls as they left.  There were a whole lot of very proud Sparks that went home :)

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Lest We Forget

It's that time of year again, Remembrance Day.

My coleader and I (since our meeting day falls on a Monday) decided that we would encourage the girls to go to the town's Remembrance Day ceremonies.

If they went, in uniform, they got a special crest - the girl guide crest that has three poppies on a field of blue, with the words Remembrance Day.

The girls got to help lay a wreath at the foot of the cross as well as get a photo taken with 10 mounties in full red serge.


We only had about half the girls show up - the school made this into a five-day long weekend - but I hope those that did can keep remembering.

Enrollment

In Sparks, as with in all levels of Guides, the enrollment ceremony is a big deal to the girls.

For our enrollment ceremony, we built a long rainbow out of Bristol board, and taped it together.  We trimmed the sides with hot pink, and built clouds to go on either end.


We made cute clouds with blue paint, sparkles, and each girl's name on our side of the rainbow.  New Sparks sat at the other end.  We called them over the rainbow to play with the Sparks one by one, and recited a little poem as they walked along the rainbow.

As she walks to Rainbow's end
We hope that she will find a friend
Promise to share with all her heart
She is ready to be a Spark.

The girls then recited their promise, got pinned with their 1-year pin and Sparks enrollment pin, got handed an enrollment certificate as well as a small piece of paper with their earned badges on it, got a photo taken, then sat down on their cloud in Rainbow's End with the other Sparks.

It took a bit of time, but the kids were impressed with themselves, and the parents really liked it.

The badges they got were the "Being a Spark" Keeper, the "Cookie Raising" 1 (or 2) keeper, and, if they attended the District Camp,  the Alberta Camp Challenge with Summer and Fall as well as three of the five WAGGGS Regions Challenge Badges and the Send them to Sangam Challenge Crest.

Each year, a new beginning....

Hi!  I'm a guide leader in Alberta - I deal with the smallest guides - Sparks.

This is just a blog talking about some of our ideas, meeting ideas, and field trips.
If you're looking for more ideas, don't forget to check out the Leader's Guide and the Girl's Guide to Sparks.  There are some fabulous ideas in there.