Sunday, December 28, 2014

Ice Lanterns

Happy Holidays!

My coleader and I have a sleepover planned for New Year's Eve (and I'll post about that in the new year - should be cool though!) but I thought I'd share with you the ice lantern I made as an example for my Pathfinders.  We are doing the Winter Wonderland badge first thing in January, and they chose lanterns. 

So I have been saving my cans for them for a while now.  I recently filled one with water and set it outside to freeze solid.  Personally, I think that with a little coaching a Spark could do this craft as well!

So here's what you need - frozen ice in a can, a hammer (I chose a rubber mallet - less chance of crushed fingers) and some nails (I have 2" ones).


I then held the nail over the outside edge, hit it carefully with the hammer (I used a towel underneath to prevent rolling).  The trick is to make a hit nail pattern.  The second photo is of my daughter (brownie age) having a turn.



Then you run the can under hot water until it releases the ice, and put a lit tea candle in.


I'm going to bring enough cans for each girl to try their hand at three.  I think they look awesome!




Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Serving Tea and Cookies

So last night we went as a group to serve tea and cookies at our local senior's residence.  We called about a month ago, and arranged to come in for our regular meeting time (which is awesome, that way you don't have to ask families to spend more time at Sparks).

The elderly at the senior's residence are almost always happy to see a gaggle of Sparks arrive.  Some always ask the question - the "is this the level BEFORE Brownies?" Question.  The risk of having a level that has only been around for less than 30 years, right?  All the girls wore their uniforms.

Some things we did to help out the Sparks!
-we practised walking around with a teacup in a saucer for a few minutes (follow the leader style) so the girls could get used to walking with one (most didn't know what a saucer was!).
- we only filled the cups 1/3 of the way up, so even if someone fell/spilled there wasn't a lot to clean up (and no one did fall!  Yay!)
-we brought out Guide helper, who filled the cups and handed them out to the Sparks, and refilled plates of cookies, which allowed one Guider to have an eye in both rooms and the other helping direct the kids to different tables to drop off cookies and tea.
-we had the girls clean up and pick up teacups from the tables and bring them back as well.

We had about 10 minutes left over, so we played telephone and musical chairs!  Thankfully Emerald is a lot better at corralling them for a game than I am!

We gave out a fun crest and their Camping Keeper at the end.  Who knew they had a fun crest specifically for serving tea?



Here's the link if you'd like to get one!

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Flashback - Enrollment night

So we did enrollment at the end of October again.

We had the ceremony about the same way we went last year.

But, since we also had a new Guider, we thought we'd enroll her as well!

Before we started, I passed my small point-and-shoot camera to one of the parents we had from last year, and asked her to take a few pictures of me enrolling our new Guider.  She said yes!  Thanks!

So then we proceed with our ceremony.  One by one the new Sparks walked over the rainbow, gave the Spark sign while shaking my hand and reciting their promise, turned for a picture for mom and dad and sat on their designated cloud.  Then we called up our returning Sparks to renew their promise and get their badges from our first few meetings (their cookie badge, mostly), and they returned to their clouds.

When we were done, I called Emerald up.  She looked a bit shocked, but crossed the rainbow anyways!

I gave her a vintage leader's scarf I found on etsy, then we shook hands with the Guide sign and she recited the Girl Guide promise (after me - I hadn't given her the heads-up to memorize it).  I then pinned her with her Spark Guider appointment pin and got her to give a smile for our parent photographer.

I think sometimes we remember the girls far before our leaders.  It's so important to recognize the contribution of our parent volunteers in Girl Guides.  Without them, we'd have no program!

Thank you Emerald!  And here's to many Guiding years ahead of you!

Spark Guider Appointment Pin


Vintage scarf

Baking Night!

Last week we had a baking night!

We divided the girls up according to their circles (we bought circle patches from epatches for this - 10 is just too many Sparks, KWIM?).  The thistles started in the kitchen with Emerald and our Guide helper making cookies, and the Raindrops started with me in the regular meeting room making fridge magnets, singing camp songs and playing a few games.

Here's an example of the magnets we made -


The girls were encouraged to colour them in using markers (I found the wood cut-outs at our local dollar store).  We then attached two magnets to each backing using hot glue.

For songs I taught them Barges, we sang Black Socks and our unit favourite - Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee.

With Emerald, the girls were rolling out Joe Froggers and then making a few Ginger Sparkles.  (Get it... Sparkles?  Don't worry.  The girls didn't laugh either.)  The Joe Froggers are for our event next week at our local senior's home, where we will be serving tea and cookies.  I felt it was totally unfair to have five and six year olds toil to make cookies, then not get any, so they were able to put together some Sparkles for themselves.

We stopped about five minutes before our end time to sit and have a cookie with a glass of water and just chat.

I chose Froggers and Sparkles because they bake for the same time, at the same temperature, so you can put them in the same oven on the same baking sheet without worrying.  The Froggers have an awesome dough.  Easy to roll out, smells great, dairy and egg free and very forgiving.  You can have several different thicknesses without them burning on one and raw on the other, and roll it out ten or more times before it falls apart on you.  The only tricky part is that you MUST start the dough a full 24 hours before you roll it out.  So it takes some forethought.

Here are the recipes.  My family Joe Frogger recipe (at least 100 years old) and my Dad's Ginger Sparkle recipe.


Joe Froggers

Ingredients:
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup warm water
4 cups white flour
1 cup dark molasses
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp soda
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice

In a large bowl, cream the shortening and sugar together.  Mix in molasses and water.  Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and allspice.  Blend into the shortening mixture.  Chill for 24 hours.

Preheat oven to 375F, roll out cookie dough approx. 1/4" thick, cut with cutters.

Bake until cookies are set up and very lightly browned.  10-12 minutes.  Leave on sheet for 2 minutes or they'll break apart.



Ginger Sparkles

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
1 cup brown sugar (the darker the better)
3/4 cup butter (softened)
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
-extra granulated white sugar for rolling.

Preheat oven to 375F.  Blend dry ingredients.  Cream together brown sugar, butter, molasses and egg.  Add flour mixture to creamed mix and mix well.  Shape dough into 1" balls, roll in sugar and place 2" apart on cookie sheet.  Make 10-12 minutes.  Cool slightly before removing.

Saturday, November 29, 2014

A Spark-ling First Aid Kit

We are now many years from the time when I was a Brownie (and Guide, and Pathfinder), and when I was a Brownie, we made small first aid kits out of a film canister.  No one, now, uses film canisters.  So what to do when you want to make a small first aid kit with Sparks, so they can clean an dress small wounds, but not break the bank with expensive cases?

Two worlds - soap box.


So we started by putting a band-aid on the outside of the box and writing our names on it.  



Then we filled it together, talking about each and every thing that we added.

So here's the list of things in our first-aid kit for those who would like to try their own hand(s) at these -

-travel sized bottle of hand sanitizer
-two cotton balls
-small candy
-one 2" square of gauze
-two four inch lengths of first aid tape wrapped around a straw
-three q-tips
-six band-aids (of varied sizes)
-two butterfly bandages, for larger wounds
-a small pot of ointment (polysporin)

That little paint pot was awesome.  I bought from the dollar store these six little paint pots that were all stuck together on the same long stick of plastic, then I cut them apart from each other and added a small bit of polysporin to each one.  It's great because it's small enough to fit in the first aid kit, and seals easily, even with a five year old trying it herself!

The most expensive two items in the kit were the 2" gauze squares and the polysporin.  Between our eleven Sparks, we used a whole small tube of polysporin.

Then we practised cleaning small cuts on some small dollies that I brought with me.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Alberta Passport to Fun and Fitness Challenge


So this week we completed the Passport to Fun and Fitness Challenge.

We decided to tie this into our Being Healthy Keeper.  This was also my new coleaders first ever meeting that she planned all on her own!  I'm so proud of her.  She was never in girl guides, but her daughter has just started and loves the program!  Here's to many more years!

We started with the girls doing a bit of Yoga.  This is made a little easier for us, because the local Yogi is also an elementary school teacher, and did a unit with most of the school on Yoga last month.  We concentrated on the breathing, and relaxing, as having a healthy mind is also so important.

After Yoga, we learned a little bit of hip-hop.  We have a Brownie this year in Sparks, as the time conflicts with her dance classes, so she got to earn the Show Your Talent for Dance Badge while everyone else was learning a bit of hiphop.  She demonstrated a few moves, then helped the Sparks try them out.  We did something she called the reverse cowboy, as well as the Zombie Walk.  Before the Sparks started to dance we had them take the pulse and then take it again after dancing.  Then we told them a little about how the heart is a muscle and it has to exercise too!

Then we played tag.  Just plain old regular tag.  Then we had the girls give ideas of how to make it a new type of tag, and vote on which one we'd play.  It has to do with some markers, everyone carrying around some paper and a rubber chicken.  They loved it.  They called it Spark Tag, and I think that it might end up a regular kind of thing!

Finally we laid out supplies for parfait, and had they make up their own parfait.  Emerald brought yogurt, granola, and three different kinds of berries.  That being said, if we had to do it again, we would have bought more yogurt!

While eating, we sat in a circle and talked about breakfast, why it's important to eat a breakfast and what's in a healthy breakfast.

Sledding Outside

Wow - have I ever neglected this blog!

I'm going to start with our latest meeting, then work both backwards and forwards until I've caught up!



So this week we went sledding.  The big thing about sledding with Sparks is making sure they are dressed appropriately for spending an hour outside.  So the week before we reviewed with the girls what they'd need to wear, and it seemed to work.  Of the 10 girls who showed up, 9 were dressed appropriately, which is far better than our big bridging event that we had in October (more on that later).

Our kit list for sledding/fort building:  snowpants, winter jacket, warm boots, hat, two pairs of mittens and a scarf.

We sled at our local middle school.  There are two really great places to go sledding there, as well as a couple of large mountains of snow.

We started by sledding.  That also gave the girls something to do after their parents had dropped them off and we were waiting for a few stragglers.

After the sun went down we stopped for a circle picnic in the parking lot and drank down some hot chocolate, or Chai tea.  I made the hot chocolate extra strong and hot, so they filled their little cups up with clean snow, then the hot chocolate was poured overtop.  While they were drinking we talked to them about keeping their sleds at home, and how to clean them and store them so they would last a long time.

Then we headed to the big snow hill.  It's a hill that's created by plowing the school parking lot.  The girls made some tunnels through the center of the hill and had a great time.

Afterwards we split the girls up for the last ten minutes.  If they wanted to go sledding again, they went with me, and if they wanted to continue on with the fort, they stayed with Emerald.  They split evenly between the two groups (yay).  Please note for guiders - our snow hill and the sledding hill were less than 20 meters from each other, and were in full view to the other guider.

Parents started to arrive soon after to pick up their kids.  You know that it's gone well when the chorus is "do I have to go?"  "awww...." and "just one more run!!"


We did hand out badges on the way out.  They got our district and area badges, as I\d just picked them up from our area meeting, their Being Healthy Keeper and their Passport to Fun and Fitness Alberta (we completed it last week).

We decided this year to give out badges just once a month.  I staple them to a 3x5 index card with the girls' name on it, and write where each badge is supposed to go on the sash.  Very few of our parents were in Guiding when they were young, so they really appreciate it!

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Snowshoeing

Well... we planned on going snowshoeing last night, but between the wind chill and the fact that it was snowing buckets, we cancelled and spent the time warm and cozy in our church basement!

We started with my coleader teaching the girls how to line dance to Achy Breaky Heart, as the last part of our Alberta Arts Challenge Crest.  The girls really got into it.  I'm glad that my coleader is a far better line dancer than I am!

Since they were still wound up like tops, we had them play tag for five minutes to get their wiggles out.

Instead of snowshoeing, I created a quick craft to have the girls weave their own snowshoes.



I took two pieces of construction paper, cut them into the shape of a snowshoe, then cut them into strips, leaving a few inches at the top of each paper.  Keeping that top makes it much easier for the girls to weave it together.  Then we had them paste them onto another piece of paper (so that they didn't come apart).  Then we had them slip around on the floor, keeping their snowshoes from touching each other.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Female Leader in the Community

As we invited our local elementary school vice-principal over to our meeting last Monday (yes, I know this post is late, but I've had some... computer issues).  We had her come as part of the Being Me Keeper.  We asked her to speak to the girls about leadership, how she was a leader, and how they can be a better leader in their own lives.

Our school does the Leader In Me Program, as well as the bucket filling program.  So she filled a cute little steel bucket with small objects to represent each habit, then other small objects to help them remember some of their own skills that they can use as leaders.  There was an elastic band, symbolizing the ability to stretch with a situation, and not break.  A band-aid to remind the girls to care for themselves.  A bookmark to remind them to take care of their mind as well.  The girls had a great time.  Our Sparks haven't spent a great deal of time in the principal's office, so being able to interact with her outside of school was a real thrill for them.


Since we're going to be visiting the Brownie unit soon, we practised the Grand Howl, the Brownie Song, the Brownie Dues Song and the Brownie Smile Song.  

Then, since we're also looking to complete the Going Outside Keeper, we  had the girls make insects.  They had free run of construction paper, pipe cleaners, tissue paper, glue and markers.  Here's my daughter's effort.


Then we got together in our circle again, introduced our insects, and closed the meeting.  

Next week we're going snowshoeing and tobogganing at our local middle school (they have the best sliding hill).

Sunday, February 23, 2014

World Thinking Day 2014

So we had World Thinking Day yesterday, and the girls seemed to really enjoy it.  We had all the Sparks, Brownies and Guides from our town, and we invited a town that is just a half hour away as well, so we invited their Sparks, Brownies, Guides, Pathfinders and Rangers as well.

We started off by decorating paper bags with their names in both Roman characters and hieroglyphics. 

We made an awesome cut and paste project so that the girls could see all five regions of WAGGGS on the map, as well as the phrase "Education is in our hands."
 
We also made a Benin Flag hat craft with a pipe cleaner and some pony beads.  Some girls couldn't get all five rows (you have to start perfectly to get that to happen) but were more than happy to get four!

 
We also had the girls make a box of wonder.  They put their wonderings on strips of paper, so they don't forget their questions.  The boxes are white wedding favour boxes I found at the dollar store.  We had them colour them, then put the boxes together.
 
 
 
While we were getting our Mendhi done (we bought cones from Edmonton - we only needed three of their pre-prepared cones of henna), we had the other girls create fairies out of clothespins, felt and sequins.
 



 For the Mendhi we gave all the girls the WAGGGS logo on their hands.  More embellishment was given to leaders, Pathfinders and the Rangers.


Se we earned the WAGGGS badge while we were at Thinking day. 
For WAGGGS badge activities we:
 
1. Made our box of wonderings and talked about continuing learning.
2. Had a Nurse (female STEM worker) come in an talk to the girls about continuing with
math and science, as well as other Nursing careers.
3. Talked about the difference between formal and non-formal education.
For this we also had the girls make up a game to teach something they'd ordinarily learn in school.
4. We made up two posters - what they would see in a Good school and then for Bad school.




 
 
All in all, it was pretty fun and the girls seemed to learn a lot and have a good time.  I'm stopping by the church this morning to find my first aid kit (accidentally left it behind) as well as take some pictures of the posters I made for the event.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Lady Baden Powell

So this week we went for doing part of our Mouse Around the House Challenge, as well as part of the Brownies and Beyond Keeper and the Going Outside Keeper.  My coleader and I have promised ourselves to sort out which days get which keepers next year, but I've got to tell you, the hodge-podge is pretty darn fun!

We started off by having a kangaroo relay.  You make up some beanbags (I bought scrap fabric from my local shop - about a dollar, and the cheapest beans in the bulk section for the insides) and then separate teh girls into two groups.  They have to balance or clench the beanbag on themselves (between knees, on head) while they hop around obstacles and go back for the next girl to get a chance.  Since we have two Spark groups, the Glitterbugs raced on one side and the Sprinkles raced up the other.

I think we'll play some music for it next time, though.

Then we split off into two groups.

Sapphire took one group and started to make cute little rice hand warmers.  She made them up on her sewing machine and left one side open to add rice and for the girls to sew up.  She made sure that we pre-set the needles, with a knot in the bottom, so that they could start sewing after they got their rice in.

I took the other group and we made up a gluing project, with some of our Spark adventures.  We learned a little more about Lady Baden Powell as well.  Sapphire found a rhyme and had it printed out

Lady Baden Powell lived a long time ago
She was involved in Guiding as we all know.
She liked to help others, sing and play
Just as Sparks do today!

She also printed off a bunch of clipart Sparks (for those out-of-countryers, GGoC has clip art on our website that leaders can access) showing some of the awesome things we've done so far in Sparks.

Then we switched.

If girls had a little extra time we had them make some Valentines for Canadian troops abroad.

Here's the awesome LBP crest we gave the girls!




Here's the awesome project my coleader came up with:


We don't have Sparks next week because of Family Day (Alberta) - my next post should be just after Thinking Day - I'm planning a whole DAY of fun!

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Africa Region WAGGGS Challenge

This week we decided to complete the Africa Region section of Alberta's 5 Region Challenge.  We've already completed Asia, Europe and Western Hemisphere at a camp last October.

We started off by looking at a map.  We identified for the girls where we were in Canada, then where Africa is, then I traced the outside of Africa Region.

Then we sang a song from Africa Region.  We sang "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".  The girls really liked it.  They remember the song from The Lion King, which is kind of interesting.  To complete the challenge we also had to play a game from Africa Region.  We originally wanted to play the snake game, which we'd played already on another day and the girls enjoyed.  However, there was no outdoor recess today and the girls were... a little bit wild.  So we played a skit game and had them run around pretending to be different types of African animals.  Giraffe, elephant, lion, antelope, hyena, meercat, wild boar, hippopotamus and crocodile.

My coleader found a colouring page with a South African Teddy on it (their level of guiding in South Africa) which also has their motto and promise on it.

Then we completed a craft.  I cut the centres out of paper plates, and we showed then a few pictures of Maori warriors with their beautiful necklaces.  They then got to colour in their necklace.  I think they had a little bit of trouble really understanding what the necklaces represent, since my daughter decided to cover hers with heart stickers, but I think they had fun!

We capped off our evening by eating some snacks from Africa.  I made a chickpea rattle in the oven.  Chickpeas tossed with curry powder and baked for an hour.  Then I also cut up some fruit that is originally from Africa - one of the girls' favourites - watermelon!

My coleader gave out the badges.  The Going Camping Keeper (they finished water safety last week) and the WAGGGS Africa Region badge.

At the end of next month we're doing the Arab region.  Should be awesome!

Here's my daughter's attempt at the necklace -


Here are the badges they've been earning - all together they make a flower if you put them together in a circle.  Arab region is in purple!


Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Swimming

This week we wanted to finish up our Camping Keeper with style.

Instead of a boring old "water safety" lecture to the girls, we decided to go to the pool!

We're very lucky in our town, that there is a pool to begin with!  Along with the larger pool, there is also a hot tub and a training pool.  The training pool goes from .6 meters to .9 meters, so it's great for all those non-swimmers in your unit.  We spent about 20 minutes getting some brief pool and lake safety from a lifeguard.  Then we got the pool's small training canoe out and the girls paddled that around the pool in pairs.  Then we just let them go a little nuts and pay around for a half hour.

We stopped them twice from free playing to break up the time a bit with some actual games.  We tossed a ball around a circle, as well as playing "what time is it Ms. Shark?"

The girls had a great time!  Next week we're working on our WAGGGS 5 regions Challenge - Africa Region.  Should be a blast!  We're studying Kenya!

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Camp Blankets

We made up our camp blankets today.

We cut two pieces of fleece for each girl.  One in Sparks Pink and one in Girl Guide Blue.  We took the blue side to an embroiderer and had their names embroidered on with gold thread.  Then we sewed around the outside, then cut the outside into strips (for the girls to tie together).

It creates a great place to sew on all those fun crests that the girls get, and on the other side, a great place to sew on their sashes, so that they don't get lost after their Sparks year.  It's a great way to keep everything together.

We had some great mom helpers today - it made tying go so much faster!  It let us have enough time to pull out our campfire inside and sing some campfire songs.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

A Night at the Observatory

So what do you do on a Friday night with a whole bunch of Girl Guides?

If you're me, you organize a night at your local university, so that you can look through the telescope.

We went to the university, and took a walk out to their telescope right after school, where we were even allowed to climb inside of it.  There was a small hatch on the side, about two feet by one, and the girls climbed in to take a look at the telescope and the camera mounting behind it.

Then we went back to the university and took over one of their rooms for a little while - we looked up Roberta Bondar, learned about the Canadarm, read a story about constellations, did a craft about constellations, ate our dinner, and then it was finally dark enough to look through the telescope.

We saw a couple of videos about the Aurora Borealis, about the ISS, and then spent some time moving the telescope around to look at some of the stars that would be quite bright.

It was pretty awesome.  What was even more awesome was that all the Sparks, Brownies and Guides were there - it was a fabulous unit visit as well!

Monday, January 13, 2014

Dreamcatchers

My coleader and I decided to go for the Alberta Arts Challenge this year.  One of the requirements is that the kids do a craft from Native Canadian culture.  Beading a moccasin, building a drum, or weaving a dreamcatcher.

We chose the Dreamcatcher.  But how to create an interesting craft that's attainable for 5 and 6 year olds, while still remaining true and respectful to Native culture?

This craft and story took the full hour to complete.

First we read a story that I found in my compendium of Native stories about the history of the dreamcatcher and the story of the weaving of the first one.

We used a paper plate, cut out the center then punched holes around the inside, one on the top, for the hook, and three on the bottom.  We had the girls take a pre-cut length of string to weave in the center, as well as some plastic beads to string onto the yarn.  We had them attach pony beads and feathers to the bottom and put a dab of glue on each one to keep them on.

Here are some of our masterpieces, starting with the example, which I made.





Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Saying Thank You

We started a new small segment in our Sparks group tonight - sharing time.  Since when the girls go up to Brownies they'll be asked to share the badges and other projects they'll be working on with the other girls.  We brought in a talking stick and had the girls tell us stories of their winter vacations.  We'll be asking them more questions over the next few weeks and then start having them do a kind of show and tell.

Then we did another of the Being Healthy Keeper activities and moved to the beat.  I had about twenty different things that they could do around the room and they got to choose then switch about every twenty seconds or so.  We had hula hoops, bean bags, jump ropes, exercise balls, tons of different balls to play with etc.  We went for about ten minutes.  That got the girls all nice and tired out.


Then we made thank you cards.  We broke out the bin of stamps, ink, stickers, crayons and markers.  This was for their Mouse Around the House challenge.  We asked that they make one thank you card for sparks, then one for whomever they wished.