November & December with the Pathfinders & Rangers

The arrival of November meant it was time for Enrolment! The Pathfinders took part in the Guide Enrolment Ceremony and receives badges and Membership Pins. They have chosen to have 'unique' enrolments, which will be unannounced and in interesting locations (past enrolments have included Canada's Wonderland and the top of a slide - in winter - at midnight). See more on the Guide Enrolment here - caledoniaguiding.blogspot.ca/2015/11/guide-enrolment.html

The second meeting of November was themed "Colourful" as we started work on our Crayola Colorcycle Service Project. The girls reviewed the information about the program, designed an information flyer to send home with the Sparks, Brownies and Guides, prepared a short talk to give to the other units about the project, and decorated large zip-lock bags for the units to use to collect their used markers.
More information about the program can be found on the Crayola website - www.crayola.com/colorcycle.aspx 

Friday, November 13th was a PA day for everyone, so we had a 'Pathfinder Day'. Read all about it here - caledoniaguiding.blogspot.ca/2015/11/pathfinder-day.html

The last two meetings of November could be called "Outdoors Indoors" as we worked on the Finding Your Way, Out on the Trails, Survivor Girl and Outdoor Know-How Modules by building on our existing outdoor skills. The first week we played an active living board game using giant dice and learning exercises that would help us prepare for a hiking trip, explored different scenarios that could occur while hiking, played a map symbol memory game and did a map creation activity (using map symbols and compass directions). The second meeting was spent exploring different survival situations and what could be done to help you survive the elements, followed by a session of shelter building outside.

At the end of November, one Pathfinder joined the Guides for their 'Heritage Home Skills Badge Night'. Read more about that event here - caledoniaguiding.blogspot.ca/2015/11/heritage-home-skills-night.html

For the first two weeks of December, the Guides and Pathfinders met together, including cookie selling on the Saturday in-between!
Diversity Night - caledoniaguiding.blogspot.ca/2015/12/disability-awareness.html
Cookie Selling - caledoniaguiding.blogspot.ca/2015/12/cookie-selling.html
Holiday Craft Night - caledoniaguiding.blogspot.ca/2015/12/holiday-craft-night.html

Our final meeting of December was a Holiday Party. We made glass ball ornaments by pouring nail polish into the empty balls and letting it flow around to coat all the glass inside, then letting them drain in plastic cups with paper towel to catch the drips. This was followed by chocolate fondue (1/2 cup of whipping cream heated to steaming in a double boiler then 2 x 200 gram bars of chocolate melted into the cream and stirred until the mixture was a creamy chocolate) with fruit and cookies. We ended with a gift exchange ($5 maximum) and talked about everyone's plans for the holidays.

We had a sleepover planned for the last Friday of school that wound up with just one Pathfinder and one Ranger attending. The girls sponge painted glass candle holders, baked cookies, ate pizza, watched movies and talked most of the night.

Holiday Craft Night

Our final meeting for 2015 was our annual craft night. As the girls arrived, they played a game and we then began with our usual opening, followed by an active game led by the Active Living Patrol.

The first craft was a snowman made from a glass vinegar bottle. The girls used sponges to paint the bottles white and then painted faces with orange and black paint. The hats are made from a piece of felt hot glued into a tube and then tied with a piece of elastic cord. The tops of the hats were cut into a fringe.

Our second craft was a candy cane mouse made from felt and ribbon. The girls cut out an oval from light coloured felt and ears from some wide ribbon. The ears were inserted through slits in the felt, tiny pompom eyes and nose glued on, and a candy cane inserted through two slits to form the tail.

Last of all, we made tealight snowmen. The girls glued a piece of Christmas ribbon around the outside of the battery-operated tealight, then glued on a piece of pipecleaner and pompoms to form earmuffs. Googly eyes were added and black paint used to add the mouth.

As we had some time left at the end of the meeting, the girls made Christmas cards and we sang some Christmas carols before closing with Taps.

Cookie Selling

On Saturday, December 5th the Guides & Pathfinders sold cookies at Zehrs' in Caledonia. We successfully sold the majority of our remaining fall cookies in just 3 hours!

Disability Awareness

The Guides and Pathfinders started December off with a meeting focusing on Disability Awareness in honour of the International Day for People With Disabilities (December 3rd).

As the girls arrived, they were asked to fill out a card with ideas for activities and badges for the second half of the year. We then opened with our horseshoe and an active game (Romeo & Juliet) led by the Active Living patrol.

Our first activity, called Concentration, came from the Girl Guides of Canada Instant Meeting (found here). This activity explores what it might be like to have a disability that limits your ability to concentrate or causes you to be sensitive to noise. The girls were divided into two groups and each girl was given a role:

• Girl #1 - This girl has the concentration disability. Her job is to focus on what Girl #2 is saying. She tries to ignore everything else.
• Girl #2 - This girl reads a few sentences from a book to Girl #1 using her normal voice (not trying to raise her voice above the background noise).
• Girl #3 - This girl stands close to Girl #1 and tells a joke over and over (we used "Why was 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 8 9!")
• Girl #4 - This girl starts behind Girl #1 and walks around her in circles clapping her hands.
• Girl #5 - This girl stands next to Girl #1 and pats her on the shoulder.
• Girl #6 - This girl stands somewhere in the room and makes a typical classroom noise (i.e. opening and closing a door, pushing a chair in and out),

After completing this activity, we talked about how difficult it was for anyone, especially the Girl #1s, to hear what Girl #2 was saying. We discussed how the girls might feel if they had difficulty concentrating and had to manage with all sorts of distractions.

Our next activity was to complete an Accessibility Audit of our meeting place. Each patrol was given the form below and sent to explore the church.

Following the Accessibility Audits, we moved onto a Patrol Challenge. Each patrol had to complete a series of challenges, but each patrol member would have a different simulated disability! The disabilities were: visual impairment (blindfold), hearing impairment (cotton balls and scarf), loss of use of legs (sit in a chair), loss of fine motor skills (oven mitts), and loss of use of dominant hand and arm (tied in a sling). The challenges were:

1. Choose a shape. Each patrol member needs to make the chosen shape out of newspaper.
2. Each patrol member must write their name on their newspaper shape and tape it as high as possible on the door.
3. As a patrol, build the tallest structure you can that will support a roll of masking tape, using only the provided straws and tape. All patrol members must actively participate.

 

Our final was to learn a bit about foot and mouth painting and to try writing our names and drawing a simple picture with the pencil held between the toes.

We ended the meeting with a debriefing session about what it might be like to have various disabilities, and how the girls felt about their experiences. All of the girls gained some insight into the challenges of having a disability, and also a better appreciation of how having a disability doesn't mean you can't do things - you just might do them a bit differently. The meeting closed with reminders for next week and Taps.