November & December with the Rangers

November was a busy month for everyone and we were unable to meet. Two Rangers assisted at the Grace United Church House Tours & Bazaar on November 16th, one Ranger joined the Guides and Pathfinders at the McMaster Planetarium, and one Ranger and one Guider sold cookies with the Sparks at the end of November.

December started off with our annual Pathfinder/Ranger Service Project Sleepover. We made 8 dozen cookies for the church to pack into boxes for people spending Christmas alone, 5 plates full of decorated sugar cookies for an assisted living facility, and Soup-in-a-Jar and Cookies-in-a-Jar for Martha House, a Women's Shelter in Hamilton. We ordered pizza and the girls spent time crafting and socializing.

We got together again on December 21st for a movie night and watched "The Grinch" with Jim Carrey and ate sweet & salty popcorn, hot chocolate, chocolate covered almonds and lemonade.

Over the Christmas holidays, we got together on December 29th to spend time crafting. We made dry erase boards using frames and squares of card stock (in place of paint chips) and prepared the washcloths to make toothbrush/toothpaste holders at our next meeting. Both ideas are from Pinterest and can be found by clicking on the images.

November & December with the Pathfinders

We started November with a planning meeting. The girls present planed activities on different arts to share at the next meeting. We had activities covering Drama, Writing, Drawing and Art. We also did a challenge activity - list 10 body parts of 3 letters (this is harder than it sounds). The last part of the meeting was spent planning activities for our upcoming sleepover in December.

The second meeting in November was devoted to the Arts, with the girls leading activities that they had planned.

• Game with character cards, players have to interact according to the instructions on their card
• Two Truths and a Lie using character details
• Cooperative story where each person added one sentence at a time.
• Freeze - an improv game where two players start a scene and someone else calls out 'Freeze' and takes the place of one player and starts a new scene
• Bullying prevention skits
• Skits showing the best parts of Guiding
• One paragraph stories and skits

On November 19th, 5 Pathfinders joined the Guides at the McMaster Planetarium, earning the Galactic Adventures Badge - see Guide post here

Our last meeting in November was spent learning to crochet. The goal is to make a blanket that can be donated, but the first step was learning how to do it!

December started off with a meeting all about Animals. Everyone had been asked to choose and animal and bring 5 facts about it. Using the facts, the rest of the group tried to guess the animal. The chosen animals were Cat, Polar Bear, Penguin, Red Panda, Fox, Water Bear and Dog. The next activity was a memory game played with animal tracks. This was followed by animal charades and a game of Capture the Flag. The last activity of the evening was to create an animal cartoon character.

Our annual Pathfinder/Ranger Service Project Sleepover was held on the first Friday of December. We made 8 dozen cookies for the church to pack into boxes for people spending Christmas alone, 5 plates full of decorated sugar cookies for an assisted living facility, and Christmas cards for a group home. We ordered pizza and the girls had lots of time to play games, listen to music and socialize.

The second week of December was our Christmas Pot Luck Dinner. Everyone brought food and we spent the evening eating and ended by playing some active games to stay warm as the hall was very cold that night.


Our last meeting of the year was spent visiting the Hamilton-Burlington SPCA. We had a tour of the facility, learned about the work done by the SPCA, and got to visit with the therapy rabbits.

Peace Badge

Our December 3rd meeting was based on the Peace Badge. As the girls arrived, they finished off their Tasty Treats lapbooks from Friday night.

We started the meeting with our opening horseshoe and an active game then discussed what meant to each girl. We also talked about the Remembrance Day ceremonies held at the cenotaph and at the local schools that each girl had participated in.

After this discussion, the girls split up into patrols and each patrol made a list of ways to promote peace - one patrol on peace at home, one on peace at school, and the third on peace in the neighbourhood. Each patrol shared their ideas with the rest of the unit and the other patrols added any new ideas that they had.

We took a break for an active game, playing "Red Light, Green Light", a game that was popular during the 1940s.

The "it" person stands at one end of the playing field, with the rest of the players at the other end. "It" turns their back to the others and calls out "Green light!" or "Red Light! The players then run as fast as they can towards "it". At any time, "it" can face the players, calling out "Red light", and the others must freeze in place. If anyone fails to stop, they are out or must return to the starting line. Other variations include calling out "Yellow light" as a diversion, or where they must walk instead of run to "it". The first player to reach the person who is "it"picks up an "object" positioned near the "it" person and return with it to the other side of the field. Once the person who is “it” realizes the object is gone, she can chase the player who has picked it up. If that player reaches the starting line, they become ‘it’ for the next game. If ‘it’ catches the player before they reach the starting line, they continue as ‘it’ OR get to choose who will be the new ‘it’. 

Next, we looked at some common peace symbols and then the girls got creative and designed their own symbols to represent peace.

At the end of the meet, 4 girls shared information about world leaders for peace - Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Craig Kielburger, and the Dalai Lama. We ended the meeting with a song, "Peace I Ask of Thee O River" - listen here
 

Peace I ask of thee, O river, peace, peace, peace.

When I learn to live serenely, cares will cease.

From the hills I gather courage, vision of the day to be,

Strength to lead and faith to follow, all are given unto me.

Peace I ask of thee, O river, peace, peace, peace.