Supercrafting!

Tonight we did the Super Crafts badge.  We originally thought about doing the Famous Five Challenge - but we want to do that in the spring as a tea party outside, so we did Super Crafts.  This is a badge that we try to do every year, because it's always a big crowd pleaser!

So for a woven craft, the girls created this heart.  I chopped construction paper in half, and then made the upward cuts for the girls.  They got to choose two contrasting colours and weave them together,

Brown Owl's group used playdoh to create an animal.

Sunshine Owl's group wrapped themselves in toilet paper as quickly as they could.

Finally we had the girls practice some songs that we are going to perform next week.  We are heading into our local senior's lodge to make crafts with the residents and sing to them.  

Traditional Enrollment

Twist me and turn me - those are some powerful words to me, and I have to admit that I tear up every year during enrollment.


This year with the girls we chose a traditional enrollment.  The toadstool sitting on a carpet of grass, surrounding a small pool of water with a mirror inside it.  We doubled our brownies from last year to this year (proof we are doing something right, right?) so all the new girls came up with their sixers and seconds, and were enrolled by them one at a time.

After twisting and turning they got to shake hands with the District Commissioner, then our Area Commissioner, then Brown Owl.

They got certificates, their title tape, enrollment pin, year pin and circle patch.


Around the toadstool we put two of the crafts they've done with their key to Brownies (and then they got to take them home).

The first was a toadstool made from recycled egg cartons.

The second were pinecones stuffed with cotton balls and two googly eyes.

Opening

Our first week started with learning the Brownie song, as well as the songs for all of our sixes.  Our numbers doubled this year!  Wow! We must be doing something right!  As leaders we want the sixers and seconds to do a little bit more of the leading this year, so wanted to give them each their own space.

Each board was made out of one of the three-fold boards that you can use for science fair projects, I found pictures of each of the creatures, and we put the promise, motto, law, sign, how to tie your tie, along with the Brownie song and the circle song for that circle.  This year we have Elves, Fairies, Gnomes and Kelpies.  (Which reminds me, why are kepies in red hats when they're horse mermaids?)

Brown Owl took them when I was done to mac-tac the pictures down.  

Then we had the girls make themselves Promise cards out of this owl pattern.  We had all the hearts precut for them, and the center of the belly had the promise printed on them.  We used leftover foam sheets and construction paper - trying to use our resources wisely!

Backwards Camp

Our Brownie Camp this year is Backwards Camp!

When we broke the girls up into their groups for camp chores, we had them pick Palindrome names.  Palindromes are phrases or words that are the same backwards and forwards.

The group names we gave the girls to pick from are as follows -

TACO CAT  -  CAMP MAC  -  DR AWKWARD  -  EVIL OLIVE  -  GO DOG  -  I DID DID I?  -  KAYAK  -  LLAMA MALL  -  NURSES RUN  -  RACECAR  -  STAR RATS  -  TOP SPOT  -  TUNA NUT  -  WE FEW

The girls chose Top Spot and Go Dog as their team names.

Friday night we had campfire, mug up and went off to bed.

Saturday we - set up a 28 sign trail signs course for the girls and had them complete it in pairs (it was through the woods, so each pair had a leader following them to make sure they were ok), practiced our knots (slip knot, bow, reef, half hitch and sheetshank), made suncatchers by melting plastic pony beads in metal cookie cutters, practiced our lashings, and then make a weaving out of them and wove in feathers and grass from camp, made memory bags on a sewing machine, had an egg hunt, wrote messages backwards on paper for a partner, made our own dinner and snack, had two campfires (one run by our Guide helper so she could get her campfire leader badge), and had two flag ceremonies!

Since it was backwards/break the rules camp the girls got to have their dessert first for every meal, and we also had breakfast for dinner and dinner for breakfast.

With the suncatchers, we had each girl make two - one to keep and one to give away.  We're dropping off the suncatchers at meals on wheels in our community to drop off when they drop the meals off.

Our suncatchers - use an old cookie tray, they leave bits of plastic behind!

Weaving and Lashing

Another weaving and lashing - the girls could choose three sticks or four.

Our campfire!

We had the best weather!  Oftentimes Alberta in April is either rainy or snowy, which ends up giving the girls a bit of cabin fever!  It was +19 on Saturday, so we spent 90% of our time outdoors soaking up the fresh air and sunshine!

Building Birdhouses

Our local Home Depot no longer offers Birdhouse Building classes for kids.  They do, however, have boxes of these birdhouses in the back and were more than happy to let us build some on our own!

We used this as a great opportunity for our Brownies to bring their parents with them to help build the birdhouses.  We did ask them to make sure that the Brownies were doing the work - not their parent!

Brown Owl, bless her, had a bunch of different high-quality paints to paint them with.

I Can!

We did the second half of Key to I Can tonight.  We also did what many leaders tremble to teach - sewing!  (Which was a lot of fun!)  For this activity, it is important to make sure that you have enough needles for ALL the girls.  I only had a dozen, which meant that a few girls needed to wait and/or trade off needles with other girls.

I used one of the needles to freehand each girl's initials on a card.

In the future, I'd buy all the same colour of thread, and start them all before the girls got to them.

Brown Owl and Sparkle Owl helped the girls make stamped wrapping paper at the second station.

Please note - this took all the leaders helping out with the sewing, and the girls being awesome and patient - but they all got them completed!  Huzzah!

Alberta Arts Challenge 2016

It's that time of the year again - the Alberta Arts Challenge!  Every year they come out with a new theme, which makes this a great challenge crest for every year.  This year's challenge is centred around Canada, which makes this a great time for us, as we've just completed the All About Canada badge.

We had the girls decorate some cookies for Valentine's day.  We had them draw Canadian symbols on at least one.

Songs - we had Nana Owl come in tonight - she's a retired Guider, but she's also a wonderful songsmith, and does a lot of music education, and graciously came in to sing with the girls.  

She sang the Our Cabana song, the Our Chalet song, along with a song in Spanish and another in German.

She also had the girls make a few musical instruments.  They made a clacker with a long stick, electrical tape, and tin with holes in them, as well as a wooden spoon rattle, with two bells to make noise.

Then we did some dancing.  The girls were taught a polka, the Mexican hat dance, and a gigue.

Finally we passed out Valentines between the girls, and gave Nana Owl a great howl sendoff.

C'est la Fete!

The Quebec Girl Guides have a Challenge Crest out right now called "C'est la Fete".  Here's the link.  This week at Brownies we had bring a friend night, and also completed the C'est la Fete Challenge.  It's always fun to run Bring a Friend night like a party - and this badge gave us the perfect excuse!

We first taught the girls as they arrived a few French songs.  Alouette was the favourite.  If you don't speak French, here's the link to a Youtube version of this song for the lyrics and pronunciation.  For us, we do actions as we go along the song, creating a beak for bec, and turning round and miming a tail when you sing "derriere".

We had all but two girls bring friends last night, which was wonderful - but loud at the same time!

Because the girls had almost all brought a friend, we just had them go with their circles from station to station.

At the first station, we read a short picture book about the Maple Sugar Shack, then had the girls try La Tire (hot maple syrup on snow).

At the second they learned about Ceinture Fleshee and tried their hand at making bracelets that look like them.

At the third they made a cute little snowman.  To make this, you need to cut the toe off a sock, then tie the sock around the ball of the foot, and turn it inside out.  Add beans to the bottom as a weight, then stuff it with stuffing.  tie off the top, then use some felt to make a scarf.  Use the toe you cut off as a toque, and a hot glue gun to add the eyes on.  Finally, use a sharpie to add the smile, eyelashes, and buttons down the front, as well as about 1" of orange pipe cleaner for a carrot nose.

My daughter has plans to add arms of brown pipe cleaner.

Then we got together in a group again and we set up some cardboard box sleds and had the girls try some indoor people-sledding.  Sparkle Owl took some empty apple boxes and added string to the ends so the girls could pull each other around.

Finally we let the girls take turns wrapping the leaders in toilet paper.  Those wrapping Baby Owl won.  They were given two rolls of toilet paper and told to cover as much of the leader as possible.  We had them do it as a relay, so they weren't stepping all over each other.


At the end of the night 3/4 of the friends were begging to join!  Which was pretty darned awesome!

Key to the Arts

Last week we did the key to the arts.

We first got all the girls together and talked about WAGGGS and what kinds of crafts other kids around the world did.

Then we split the girls up into their circles, and had them rotate through four stations.  The leader whose station didn't have anyone during that time floated as a helper to any other leader who needed it.

My station was the weaving.  I printed out a bunch of circles on card stock (bright pink of course), and had the girls cut out the circles, cut around the outside edges and then weave on an entire bolt of embroidery floss.  They can use them as decoration or as a coaster.

The other three stations were -

1)  Make a mask out of a half plate held up by a stick (in this case a straw).  The leader who did this also printed out and photocopied a bunch of ears, teeth and tongues so that the kids could colour them and add them onto their mask.

2) Charades and play the Brownie story.  

3) Make a small memory book about your time in Brownies.

At the very end of our meeting we gave out invitations for Bring a Friend night (found in the iMIS site for any leaders reading).  We had the girls think of people they'd like to invite next week and told them to bring them to school/activity/down the street to deliver them.

Resources - Books

I thought, since I don't have any more meetings until January to talk about, to share with you some of the books that sit snugly next to my Brownie and Sparks leader books.  It's important to look for resources and people to help where you can - you can't Guide as a Guider if you're totally burnt out!

Another good idea is to check out your local library non-fiction section.  Try under 306 (world cultures), or between 700 and 709 (arts and crafting, knitting, crochet etc).  It's amazing the resources you can find just by browsing around the shelves!

This book isn't arranged like many others - but it comes up with several different cultural ideas based around a theme.  For example it'll talk about farming in England, then suggest you take a trip to a cheese shop and try a variety of different cheeses from around the world.  Or you'll learn about New Years' day customs from five different countries.

This one divides the world into regions, then suggests 2-5 dishes from that region, along with a little bit of history of that particular foodstuff.  The instructions are simple enough for Sparks too!

I love this book - it divides the games into icebreakers, water games, running games, etc.  There are also tons of suggested variations for small and large groups, as well as variations for various ability levels.

This really isn't a great field manual, but it's wonderful for brushing up on your own outdoor skills, as well as giving some great ideas for camping with Brownies and getting out there!

This book is fabulous because it not only gives great songs from around the world, BUT it also comes with a CD, so that you and the girls can hear the proper accent/tune for the songs as well.

If you're doing Guides, and not Brownies or Sparks, this also comes in a Grade 4-6 book as well.  I like these because they're a bit more involved than regular crafts, but would be great for a sleepover or longer event.

This divides into countries, then by project.  Some of the ideas are a little simple - but  are sometimes just what you need for Sparks.  You could even have the girls choose something for a Bridging meeting with Sparks.

All of these books are available on Amazon - or check out your local library!

Woodworking Party!

DThis week the girls all earned their Wood Works Badge.  One of the dads made the outside holders, but the girls put the rest together themselves for a gift for their families.  They got a how-to on how not to hurt themselves with the tools they were using, and then got to decorate the memo pad holder.

They also made a fun ornament for a Christmas tree.  For this craft you need to weave the ribbon into the lace, then pull it tight around the top of the bulb.

We had a bit of a party for the girls since we have a field trip next week and service in December.  The above are Santa Hat snacks - 1/3 of a banana, 1/3 of a large marshmallow, a strawberry and a mini marshmallow on top.  I added the Skittles early, but they bleed into the banana.  I suggest adding them just before serving. Also, one of the girls completed their Family Heritage badge, and used the occasion to bring in Mincemeat Tarts.

Preparing for Advancement 2015

Every year we spend a meeting preparing for Advancement.  This is also a chance for the girls to help put their own touches on it.

Every year I set up one section of the rainbow we use for enrollment in the fall, boarderd by the white clouds.  I also have the girls decorate their own cloud in rainbowland.  So that's the first thing we did this week - painting our own clouds.  I cut white posterboard in half, and draw a cloud shape in sharpie on each half.

While half are busy painting away, the other half practice either coming up, getting their certificate and goody bag and going back, or crossing the stepping stones into Brownieland across the river (more on that next week).

Goodybags this year are themed around the Brownie badge "All about art".  We try to theme it every year, and give the girls the requirements for the badge so that the advancing girls can complete the badge over the summer, and bring it in in the fall and get a badge right away!

This year they have a small amount of playdough, a window suncatcher to paint and a magnet to paint.  Girls who are going up to Brownies also get the Brownie Promise on a business card sized piece of cardstock (so they can get started memorizing early).

After practice and painting, we had the girls complete the "what I want out of Sparks/Brownies next year".  Two Stars and a Wish.  (Again with two large pieces of cardstock - pink for Sparks and orange for Brownies).

Then we played girls' choice games and went home.

Zoe's trip to New Zealand

At the beginning of the year I sat with our Sparks and pointed out (with pins) on a world map all the places that Zoe went on her round the world trip.  They decided to do New Zealand and Kenya.  The other countries they could explore are - France (Paris), China (Beijing), Trinidad (Port of Spain) and Brazil (Rio de Janeiro).  For leaders looking for the Challenge Crest it's in My GGC, under Program Resources, Challenges.

Tonight was also the second bring-a-friend night that we held.  We decided to give two nights where it would be easy to stretch craft materials for more girls.

New Zealand is gorgeous.  I was lucky enough to go with my family in High School (before Lord of the Rings), and spent a month touring round the north island in an RV, staying at campgrounds and eating mussels every time we passed a by the road stand.

I brought a picture to the girls, and explained that the national bird of New Zealand is the Kiwi bird.  I also told them that we don't have a national bird of Canada, but the provincial bird of Alberta is the Great Horned Owl.

And then we made Kiwi Birds.  I used the basic premise from Guiding Jewel's site, and made a few modifications.  We added feathers to our paper bags, and painted them on.  Here's my example bird -

Then we washed up and had our snack - kiwi fruit!  I just chopped them in four and let the girls pick out one or two to eat.  

While they ate the snack I passed around pictures of New Zealand surfing, the Maori people, and some landscapes of New Zealand.  I also printed out a few pages about the Girl Guides of New Zealand, their badges and how their program works.  They all said that they needed a paddle or surfboarding badge.

Our next task was to learn how to surf, so we had the girls pretend to catch the perfect wave and ride it down to the beach.

Pippins care, Pippins share with other children everywhere.

Hat crafts 2015

Every year I try to do a meeting where the girls create their own Traders.

Traders are hat crafts that girls can trade with each other.  Many of the other units (who have older girls) just either send them home, or send home ideas and have the girls bring them to camp independently.  With Sparks, however, we thought that it'd be a great idea to do it as a mother/daughter thing.  The parents seem to really enjoy making the crafts with their kids.

When I make up the crafts I purchase all the stuff that will be needed, and divide it between different bags.  I also make up an example of the craft itself.

The girls arrive, with their moms/aunties/sisters etc, introduce them in circle, and we draw names out of a hat on who gets to choose their craft first.  I show them my camp hat (covered in traders), and show them the paper bags (one for each girl) lined up on the side.  When they have enough to put one in each bag, they're done.

About a half hour in I pull out our indoor campfire and we sing some of the songs they've learned with their guests.

This year we created:  magic wands, kites, artists' pallets, popsicles, eyes in the night, bandaids, mirrors, butterflies, ladybugs, hearts, suns, elves and dragonflies.

Zoe's trip to Kenya

On top of our regular meeting this week we had five little guests.  It was bring a friend night!  If any other leaders haven't tried this out, you should!  The "new" girls had a grand old time, and one, at least, was very vocally telling her pickup person that she WAS going to join Brownies next year (the girl who brought her is a second year Spark).

Zoe's trip is a great Canadian Challenge Crest given out by the National Council.  We decided that the story component was a little bit long for the girls, so we were going to give the story in smaller increments, and mixed in with the action stuff.

We started by talking about the Nairobi National Park & Animal Orphanage.  Here's their website.

We also read the first half of Day 1 and Day 2 of Zoe's Trip to Nairobi Kenya.

We showed some of the pictures from the website, then played Lion King Tag.  Lion King Tag is where each person chooses a different African animal and one person becomes the lioness.  We played African drumming music and when the music stopped, the lioness had to catch an animal, who then becomes a lioness as well.  We played until everyone was a lion.

Then we read the second part of the first day of Zoe's trip, then tried some Kenyan foods.  I made Ugali and Chai.  We had ketchup to dip the Ugali in (not African, but far more likely to get the kids to try it).  We actually had some girls go back for thirds!  Absolutely made up for the kids who poked with a finger and declared they didn't like it.

We then read Day 3 of Zoe's trip.  Then we made some African drums.  Here are a few pictures of the process.  Yes, those are shot glasses.  I also used paint for mine, but the girls used crayons and markers.

There is a new level of Guiding in Kenya - Rainbow Guides.  They use the old Rainbow opening from the UK.  So we learned the Rainbow opening.

Rainbow Opening
(to the tune of "This Old Man")

Rainbows care, Rainbows Share,

With other children everywhere,

So come and join us, and you'll see,

Rainbows is the place to be,

Ha ha ha, hee hee hee,

Rainbows is the place for me,

Lets join hands and gaily sing,

In our friendly Rainbow ring.

Wonder of wonders we had extra time tonight, so we sang "If I were not a Girl Guide" and did the "Lion Hunt" chant.

Alberta Arts Challenge 2015

This year's Alberta Arts Challenge theme is Beauty.

For the Sparks' level, they need to do four different activities.  These are the ones we chose -

Masks

We had the girls paint their own wooden masks in any way they thought was beautiful.  I was able to find these masks at the dollar store.

Songs

We learned a few old chestnuts.  We first did the brownie smile song, then land of the silver birch, then we sang the yodelling Austrian (when I was a Brownie I remember it as the yodelling ostrich, which always confused me).

Of the three songs, the girls like the yodelling Austrian best.  I have always done it with hand movements.  Slapping thighs at the first yodell eh i whooo, then thigh slap, hand clap finger snap and, at the end of each yodel, all the things that interrupt him.  We did the cuckoo bird, an avalanche, a bear and a pretty girl.  (The girl goes yoo hoo!)

Skits/Charades

We had the girls as a group tell us what they found beautiful in the form of charades.  We had lots of flapping butterflies, babies and birds.  Then we divided them up into two teams to come up with a short skit about something they thought was beautiful, and they all used their masks, which was awesome!

Dance Party

Then we told the girls that dancing is beautiful, no matter how you do it.  I brought a cd of music and we bounced around for the last ten minutes.  Our playlist was as follows- I'm blue, Let it go, safety dance, dancing with myself, and girls just want to have fun.

I hope you all try the arts challenge!  It's always a blast!

Thinking Day 2015 - Guiding Lights

So the theme for this year's Thinking Day (according to the Canadian Girl Guides) is Guiding Light.  I decided to run with the theme, so here's what we did to celebrate Thinking Day 2015!

When we arrived, I gave the girls page 58 out of the Spark book and asked them to imagine themselves as A BROWNIE and to draw what they thought they'd look like.  Several had rainbows across their shirts - very cute.  Since we opened our doors and had some Brownies attending, they drew themselves as Guides.

Then I told them the story of Lord Baden Powell and Lady Baden Powell from the Spark Leader's guide.  It's the story of those very first Girl Scouts who showed up at the Crystal Palace Jambouree.  One of the Sparks asked me if it was a real story or made up.  :-)

Then it was time for our craft.  We made our own little Guiding Lights to shine around the world.  For this craft I went onto Ebay and bought 500 random world stamps.  There are dealers who will just ship you 500 for about $5, shipping included.  These are really rare or valuable stamps, but we got a good selection of stamps (the mess of stamps below).  There were stamps from all the different continents!

Then I passed out modge podge and paint brushes, and let the kids pick out their own stamps.  The trick is to put the glue on the glass, add the stamp, then paint over the whole thing with more glue.  The Brownies loved this (they were also earning their terrific trash badge), and we asked the girls other ways they could recycle stuff in their homes.  Some had great ideas like painting a chipped plate so it was more like a painting and hanging it up, to composting.  

Here are some pictures of the process.

Oh, then we added glitter on top of the stamps and glue - because everything is better with glitter.
The light is one of the flickering battery-operated tea lights from the dollar store.

Then we sang a Guiding Light song - to be perfectly honest, it was "this little light of mine", but with the words changed to be "This Guiding Light of Mine".

Finally, since the Brownies were there, they showed us their puppet play, for their badge, since they'd completed the rest of it the previous meeting at Brownies.  They showed us the Guides of New Zealand climbing a mountain to light the first campfire of Thinking Day, starting the light of Guiding as it moves around the world.

Our Cabana & Lord and Lady Baden-Powell

Tonight we had a half Lady Baden-Powell and half Our Cabana meeting.  We started by going around the circle.  We asked the girls what they'd liked the best about Sparks so far.  We also looked at some pictures of Our Cabana. 

Then we made quesadillas.  We gave all the kids a half tortilla, and had them add their own toppings.  Most chose a bit of salsa, cheese and some black beans.  While we were waiting the 10 minutes or so for the quesadillas to cook, we read the kids the story of the Baden-Powells, and the Night Walk story from the Go Sparks Go book.

After we ate, we split the girls into two groups.  We have two Brownies with our Sparks this year.  The time for Brownies just didn't work for them.  Next year they'll spend their year with the Guides, then stay with Guides until they're ready for Pathfinders.

So the Sparks went with Emerald and I and made Paper Bag Ponchos out of grocery store paper bags cut up the sides and a hole for the head.  Then they made God's Eyes.  I'm always on the lookout for ways to make traditional Guide crafts easier for our smallest members.  For the God's Eyes, I bought large popsicle sticks and hot glued them together.  I also found a type of chenille-yarn for them to use for their God's Eyes.  Here's some examples.

For the Brownies, we decided to do the puppet play badge, so today they made a theatre for their puppets, painted some toilet paper rolls orange for their marionettes, and made some finger puppets.

Finally, for our next meeting (which is the 23rd), we asked the girls to bring in a recycled glass jar.

A great idea

So, like many great ideas, I had this one in the dollar store.  I was trying to think of a way to have Sparks do sculpture without clay/plasticine/salt dough.  So take a block of something and whittle it down.

Before I share this with you - though a great idea, Sparks just don't have the wrist strength for this - Brownies and up would definitely be able to though, and it's totally safe.

So you need a bar of soap and a paper scorer.  My local dollar store sells them in the scrapbooking aisle.

Use the scorer to carve into the soap.  The scorer is dull, and won't hurt them if they miss or accidentally hack at themselves with it..  Soap, however can crack along lines in the bar itself, and if a girl has a hard time because their sculpture is cracking, she should try a negative image (carve out a shape in the centre, leaving soap around the outside edges).

Here's my daughter's sculpture - she's 1st year Brownie.

We put down a paper towel so that the bits of soap didn't go everywhere.

She put a heart in it.  :)