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.

Girl Guides in Belize

We ran into a circle, then went around, asking where everyone was from.  We then scooted over to our trusty World Map (please, find a map that isn't a Mercator Map).  We marked where all the girls came from, the four world centres, our town, and the country we'd be studying today - Belize!

Belize is awesome.  It's tiny, with a great set of Girl Guides who work there.  We showed the girls pictures of the coast of Belize, as well as pictures of Girl Guides there.

We then set up the girls at a table, gave them five rocks each and handed out glitter glue - they were going to make their own set of the Five Marias Game - it's a pretty common game in Central America.  A player gets five small rocks.  They throw the first in the air, pick up a rock from the ground and then catch the falling rock.  Continue until you're throwing four and picking up the fifth.  The girls decorated theirs with glitter glue, then picked up five stones and a partner to try the game out!

While Emerald was supervising the glittering of rocks, I made some more Fry Jacks.  We had these at our New Year's sleepover this year, and they were a great hit.

After the girls had eaten their snack, we cleaned up, and then I set up two logs in the middle of our meeting place.  The girls took turns, two at a time, to move the boards from one side to another.

We had time at the end, so we played a make believe you are an animal in the rainforest of Belize game.  Jaguars, monkeys, toucans, iguanas and butterflies roamed our meeting room until it was time to get home!

A Happy Unbirthday Party

A part of The World Around Me Keeper is learning about birthdays around the world.  So to complete this part of the keeper, we decided to do a little Mad Hatter throwback and have a happy UnBirthday Party!

We bought the girls an awesome patch from epatches.  If you'd like to get it, click here!

We sang our opening song, collected dues and asked them to talk about how their family celebrates their birthday.  Then we talked a little about how people in other countries celebrate their birthdays and had a small snack.  We ate hundreds and thousands (slices of bread, crusts removed, with butter and sprinkles) that are common in Australia, and sesame noodles from China.

Then we made ourselves birthday crowns.  We took a toilet paper tube, wrapped it in washi tape, cut the top to be points, and then used twine and a yarn needle to put a string through it.  They were awfully cute.

Here's an example -

And had some hundreds and thousands (also known as fairy bread) - which is served in Australia for birthdays.

It's white bread, crusts off, spread with butter and sprinkles.

Then we sang our I'm special song, to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it".

I'm special and I know it clap your hands!

I'm special and I know it clap your hands!

I'm special and I know it and I really want to show it.

I'm special and I know it clap your hands!

Then one girl sang a line of

"I'm special and I know it because I know how to hop!  Hop!  Hop!"

Then we went back and sang the verse as well.

We built some towers out of toothpicks and marshmallows.  (We let the girls eat three each!)

Finally we broke out the pinata and had the girls try and crack it.  We used a mini hockey stick.  We did fill the pinata, but we didn't really want to send the girls home with a ton of candy, so we filled it with some rockets (what Americans call smarties), stickers and a few birthday party grab bag toys.

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!