Spring Cookies

Saturday, March 30th was our Spring Cookie Day! The 2nd Caledonia Guides and 1st Caledonia Rangers teamed up to sell 14 cases of chocolate & vanilla cream cookies. 

Guide History Night

On Tuesday, March 27th the 2nd Year Brownies from the 3rd Caledonia Brownie Unit visited the 2nd Caledonia Guide Unit to find out what Guide meetings are like.

Our theme for the evening was "Guide History" and included dress up, games, a craft, participation story, and opening and closing ceremonies.

Our first activity was dressing up in heritage uniforms for the evening. We had Brownie, Guide, Pathfinder and Ranger uniforms from the past and most girls choose to wear a uniform for the evening. It was fun to see the girls try to manage active games wearing a dress or skirt - which few of them are accustomed to!

After our opening Horseshoe, one of the patrols led an active game and then we went into our first activity which was to learn about how our unit fits into the structure of Guiding, about the 5 youth branches of Guiding, adult roles and Canadian Units on Foreign Soil. (All parts of the Canadian Guiding badge!)

Next we did an active quiz about Lones (more Canadian Guiding badge!). Each corner of the room was labelled with a letter (A,B,C,D) and the girls had to run to the corner they thought was the right answer. After we finished the quiz, we talked briefly about why a girl might join Lones rather than an active unit.

            Lones Active Quiz

1. What are Lones in Girl Guides of Canada?

(A) Money borrowed                               (B) Girls who cannot attend a regular meeting

(C) Non-member                                    (D) Unit dues

2. What Branches of Guiding have Lone Units?

(A) All Branches                                   (B) Guides and Pathfinders

(C) Rangers                                           (D) Sparks and Brownies

3. How can a regular Unit help a Lone?

(A) Let her know what District she lives in            (B) Adopt her

(C) Send her funds                                             (D) Smile when they see her

4. Where can a Lone wear the Lone Pin?

(A) Camp hat, blanket                            (B) Girl Guide uniform

(C) Jeans                                              (D) School jacket

5. Lones are eligible to attend what local events?

(A Community                                       (B) Local

(C) Camping                                          (D) All of the above

6.Who can adopt a Lone?

(A) Units                                               (B) Communities

(C) Trefoil Guilds                                    (D) All of the above

7.What months does the Lone program operate?

(A) September to August                      (B) September to June

(C) September to April                            (D) September to May

8.How does a Lone work on her program with her Lone Guider?

(A) Email                                               (B) Video and cassettes

(C) Fax and telephone                            (D) All of the above

Our next two games and our craft came from Guide magazines from 1921 and 1922, so were authentic games form Guiding's past.

Game #1 was a passing relay similar to games we play today. The girls had to pass a ball along their patrol going over the head of the first girl, then between the legs of the next girl, and repeated until the last girl had the ball, then she had to run to the front of the line. After the whole patrol had done this, they had to pass the ball sideways. The first girl passed the ball around her left side, the next girl around her right side, and so on. This added an extra bit of challenge as the girls had to think about left and right which wasn't as simple as over and under.

Our craft was a Geometric Guide Card that could be put on a camp hat. Each girl received shapes to make an early Guide in uniform - black rectangles for the shoes and legs, a navy triangle for the body, a white square and a white rectangle for the top, red triangles for the tie, navy circle for the hat, brown rectangle for the stave, and beige circles forth head and hands. The cards were really cute when done and we covered them with mactac so they will last longer.

Game #2 was called "Pork and Green Peas". It is played similarly to 'Darling if you love me won't you please, please smile'. In this game, the girls who are "It" go around the circle asking questions to different girls. The girls in the circle have to answer "Pork and Green Peas" without smiling or laughing, no matter what the question is. This created some very funny moments as the girls became more creative with their questions.

Our final activity was a participation story about the beginning of Guiding and Thinking Day. Instead of having each group just say the phrase associated with their word, they had to stand up before saying it. For "Thinking Day" everyone had to get up, spin in a circle and shout 'Happy Birthday!'

We ended our meeting with Taps and everyone received an Easter treat before they left.

Try Now, Join Later is Back!

The Ontario Membership Initiative "Try Now, Join Later" is back for a third year! This program allows girls to try out Guiding for the months of April, May and June without paying the annual membership fee. The only costs are weekly unit dues and any camp/special event fees.

See the Try Now, Join Later page for more details!

Visit to The Sachem Office (Reporting Badge)

On Wednesday, March 20th the 2nd Caledonia Guides visited the offices of The Sachem to work on their Reporting badge. Tamara, a reporter for The Sachem, was our host for the evening and did a super job of presenting information to the girls and showing them how a newspaper layout is created.

The girls learned about some of the different jobs involved in producing a newspaper - reporter, publisher, printer, selling advertising, designing layouts. They also found out how a reporter's story gets into a newspaper and how all the pieces of a front page layout. A group photo was taken and a mock-up front page created to show the girls how this is done on the computer, then each girl received a copy to take home.

We talked about the 5Ws and an H (Who, What, Where, When, Why and How) and the importance of being factual and accurate when writing news articles. The story of Cinderella was used to demonstrate the inclusion of the Ws/H. As the story was told, the girls held up signs with Who, What, Where, When, Why or How on them each time one of those questions was answered in the story.

Later, we talked about the difference between a news story and an editorial and about what censorship and liable mean and how they apply to newspapers.

We will be completing the Reporting badge in April with our own "Be a Reporter" night and the creation of a unit newspaper!

Body Works Badge

At our March 5th meeting we worked on the Body Works Badge. The purpose of this badge is "to encourage interest in the science of human biology."

To earn this badge, Guides need to do 6 activities. The activities we chose were to learn about how the body works; interview a medical worker about how they use Math & Science in their job; learn to take their own pulse; look at and explain how optical illusions work; take fingerprints; and find out how fat insulates against the cold. (Other activity options are finding out if you have flat feet or high arches and finding out about a health-related organization and doing a community service project.)

As the Guides arrived, each patrol was assigned a body system to make a skit about - stomach, heart, brain - to share at the end of meeting.

After our opening, we showed the girls how to find their pulse and put a sticker on the spot where they could feel it. We then played an active game and then everyone checked their pulse a second time. We had a brief discussion about why their pulse would be more rapid after physical activity.

One of our Guiders is a Nurse, so she talked to the girls about how she uses Math and Science in her work.

Next, we let the girls use a stethoscope to listen to their own heart beat. While the girls were waiting their turn, we took fingerprints from each girl using graphite from a pencil, packing tape and index cards.

The fingerprint game was a challenge to find your own fingerprint. An index card with a thumb print was put down in front of each girl. The girls looked at the card and if they thought it was their's remained sitting. If they thought it was someone else's, they stood up. The girls standing them moved clockwise to the next empty space and looked at that fingerprint. Once everyone was sitting in front of a fingerprint they turned the cards over to see if they were right and the fingerprint belonged to them.

Next, we did the fat as an insulator test. Each girl covered a finger on one hand in lard and then put that finger and the same finger on the other hand into a basin of cold water. The girls agreed that the finger without the fat covering got cold faster!

Our last activity was optical illusions. 6 cards with optical illusions on them were put up around the room and each girl was given an answer sheet with question about each illusion. The girls were then divided into groups and moved around the room visiting each illusion. Once everyone was done, we gathered everyone together and talked about what they had seen and what answers they had written down.

Optical Illusion	Question
Image that appears as wine glasses one way and faces the other	What shapes do you see?
Two circles, one surrounded by smaller circles, the other by larger circles	Which of the centre circles is larger?
Image of an elephant with the feet offset from the legs (giving the illusion of having more than 4 legs)	How many legs does the elephant have?
Two straight lines, one with ^ on each end, the other with v on each end	Which line is longer?
Square drawn on top of a series of concentric circles	Are the lines of the square straight or curved?
Diagonal lines with hatch marks	Are the lines parallel?

At the end of the evening the girls presented their skits and we learned the words and actions to "Forty Years on an Iceberg" (one of the Sing Ontario Sing songs for this year).

Guide Engineering Day @ Mac

On Saturday, May 2nd we took part in the annual Engineering Day for Guides held at McMaster University in Hamilton.

The program is run by engineering students and the Guides complete the requirements to earn the Engineering Badge.

The day started off with a short presentation about the different types of engineering and the programs offered at McMaster.

The first activity was a challenge to find a way to coat a tablet so that it would take 3-4 minutes to dissolve. The girls mixed two ingredients together, choosing from flour, corn syrup, dish soap and honey, coated an antacid tablet and then dropped the covered tablet in a cup of water. Each group was timed to see how long it took for their tablet to dissolve. A brief review was done and then girls tried a second time.

The second activity was led off with a presentation about Aerospace Engineering and the girls then made and launched their own paper airplanes. Again, a review was done after the first launch and the girls were able to make modifications to their airplanes.

The program was well done and the girls had a lot of fun!