Planting Out

Yesterday afternoon we spent our meeting time planting a flower bed at the church where we meet.

The girls added the potting soil and peat moss, mixed them together, then planted the flowers and got them out of the pots by themselves!  The back row is morning glories, plus a small trellis to help them get up to the ironwork above the planter, then pink (for Sparks) spreading petunias, and the front row is marigolds.  Because deer hate marigolds and we're hoping they'll protect the rest of the plants!

Park Cleanup

Instead of staying inside today, the girls and I went down to the local waterfront/park property to do a cleanup.  I've found with the ages of Sparks (5-6), they need a reward after doing cleanups like that.  So after we picked up garbage for about forty minutes, we let them run around the playground after that.

For the trash pickup itself, I brought enough recycled bags for all the girls to have one, as well as plastic gloves (as I didn't want them getting dirty from the stuff they picked up).

Wheels

Instead of an inside meeting today, we decided to take advantage of some great weather and go bike riding.

Remember SafeGuide - kids need to be wearing helmets.  We also had a Guide helper with us, who led us in a fun game of follow the leader with the bikes.  For the girls, I asked that they bring something wheeled.  Skateboard, Rollerblades, Scooter, Bike, Trike etc.

So we got there first, and had all the girls show us how well they can put on their own helmet.  We demonstrated (with our Guide helper) how to properly put one on, and made sure everyone's helmets were on properly.  Then we looked at other safety equipment.  Knee and elbow pads, some people have mouth guards, some brought padded gloves in case they fell on their hands.

When we were finished, we looked at how to keep our bikes/trikes etc in tip-top condition.  Rubbing them down if they were wet, oiling chains, pumping up the tires and all.

We then played follow the leader on the bikes, in a line, with the Guide leading around the parking lot.  They were to practice their hand signals as they went.

Then we had about a half hour of free time.  I had a bunch of bubble wands, some sidewalk chalk, and, of course, we had the bikes to play with.

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!

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.