March & April with the Pathfinders & Rangers

March and April were busy months for the Pathfinders and Rangers! We took part in activities for National Engineering Month, visited Ripley's Aquarium, earned the Cookies Rising, Up Close and Personal With Nature, and Be a Model Citizen Modules, and had lots of fun along the way!

Engineering
March stated off with a meeting to celebrate National Engineering Month! Two Pathfinders took part in the NEM Crazy Contraptions program with the Guides. See the post here http://caledoniaguiding.blogspot.ca/2016/03/nem-2016-crazy-contraptions.html


Minute-To-Win-It Challenge!
The week before March Break, we decided to have some fun and spend an evening challenging ourselves with Minute-To-Win-It Challenges. All the necessary supplies were provided and the girls took turns drawing cards from a pile. To see the challenges we tried, download the PDF File.

Planning Meeting
Coming back from March Break, we turned to planning out our activities for the rest of the year. Our 3rd Year Pathfinder needs some specific Modules for her Canada Cord, and we are also looking forward to an Outdoors Night, taking part in the Great Canadian Shoreline Clean Up, and Camp in June.

Save the Banana!
March ended with a meeting devoted to bananas. The girls found out about Fair Trade Bananas, Organic Bananas, and the risk of the most commonly eaten bananas no longer existing. They were challenged to find out fast facts about bananas (did you know that more than 100 billion bananas are eaten every year worldwide?) and create a poster to share their new knowledge and inform younger girls. They also had to learn the words and actions to "Bananas of the World Unite" and sing it as a group, as well as sing any other banana-related songs they could think of, and create the 'best dressed banana'.

Cookies Rising
April started off with a Cookie meeting. The girls learned about the different types of cookiesGirl Guides have made and sold over the years. They then made a Fruit &
 Spice type cookie for everyone to try. While the cookies were baking, the group worked on budgeting for a Unit activity, creating a cookie selling plan and determining the roles needed for the cookie campaign and what skills could be applied to each task.

Girl Guide Cookies Through the Years

• The original 1927 cookie was a basic Sugar Cookie.
• In the 1930s, cookies were rich in fruits, nuts and spices. 
• In the 1940s and 1950s there were vanilla creme, maple cream, and shortbread cookies.
• Vanilla and chocolate sandwich cookies made their first appearance in 1953.
• 1960 saw the introduction of a sugar-topped cookie.
• We had peanut butter cookies for one year in 1988.
• Chocolatey mint cookies arrived in 1993.

Ripley's Aquarium

The Pathfinders and Rangers joined the Guides and groups from Brantford and Binbrook on a day trip to Ripley's Aquarium! See the post here http://caledoniaguiding.blogspot.ca/2016/04/ripleys-aquarium.html

Reporting
Two Pathfinders joined the Guides on their visit to the Grand River Sachem. See the post here http://caledoniaguiding.blogspot.ca/2016/04/be-reporter.html

Canadiana
Mid-April was spent working on the Be a Model Citizen Module and the Citizenship Certificate. A number of challenges were combined into a board game, with trivia questions and group challenges. Each player is a candidate in an upcoming election. They gain votes by correctly answer trivia questions in three categories - "Running the Country", "I Am Canadian", and "Exploring Canada". Election squares (red) allow players to move on extra spaces, or be sent back for following or forgetting about electoral processes. Group Challenges are added to cover larger activities. Download the game instructions, cards and information sheets in a PDF File.

Happy 50th Birthday Sangam!
April ended with a meeting to celebrate Sangam, held with the Guides. See the post here http://caledoniaguiding.blogspot.ca/2016/04/happy-50th-birthday-sangam.html

Happy 50th Birthday Sangam!

Sangam, the Guiding World Centre in India, will be celebrating its 50th birthday beginning in October 2016, so we decided to have our own celebration a little earlier! A big thank you to Sophie from Girlguiding Midlands who created the Sangam 2016 Challenge that we enjoyed taking part in!

At the beginning of our meeting, one of the Patrols presented their Irish Legend skit from last week to finish of our work on the Irish Legends badge. This was followed by our usual opening ceremony and an active game (Everybody's It Tag).

Our program started off with a Powerpoint presentation and discussion about Sangam and India. We learned about the World Centre, demographics and cultural information. From one Guider's collection, we were able to pass around a copy of the Indian Guide Handbook, a National Scarf, Bulbul/Guide/Ranger Enrolment Badges, and a Rashtrapati Guide Award Pin. The Guiders demonstrated wrapping and wearing a sari and a dupatta. Thanks to our Ranger Helper, the Guides were also able to watch a Bollywood dance video!

Over the course of the meeting, all of the Guides got to try wearing a sari (ours is simply a long strip of lightweight blue fabric and was quite large on most of the girls) - as we ran out of time, the Pathfinders and Rangers will get to try putting on a sari at next week's meeting.

The first activity was for the girls to make up their own Bollywood-inspired dance routines. A number of the girls had learned about Bollywood dance at school and we talked about how dance is used to tell a story and the importance of arm movements, emotions and facial expressions in Indian dances.

We paused mid-evening to play a game from India, "Cheetah, Cheetal". The cheetal is a spotted deer and the cheetah is a large cat. In this game players are divided into two teams - cheetals and cheetahs. The teams line up in the centre of the playing area with their backs to each other, facing their home bases (opposite ends of the playing area). The game leader calls out CHEEEEEE and suddenly ends with TAL or TAH. The team that has been called must race for their home while the other team tries to catch them. Anyone caught joins the other team.

The craft activity was the evening was creating Rangoli Art on square of cardstock. The Guides were shown coloured images of Rangoli designs from India and asked to create their own design. The squares will be used on a welcome sign for Advancement. As the girls finished their designs, they played another game from India called "Marigolds". Marigolds is very similar to hacky sack, except that it is played by young girls using a marigold blossom. Players start by standing on foot with the flower on the inside of raised food. They use their foot to toss the flower into the air and catch it with the same foot. The goal is to see how many times in a row you can catch the flower.

We ended the evening with food and entertainment in the form of the girl's dance routines. We had naan bread, with home-made samosas, Raita dip and almond burfi. 

Our meeting closed with reminders for cookie selling and Taps.

Activities We Chose (6)

Activity #2 Sampling Indian Dips and Poppadoms (modified to be Samosas, Naan Bread, Raita)

Activity #3 Bollywood Dance

Activity #6 Design a tile for Sangam's Pool (modified to be Rangoli Design squares)

Activity #10 Indian Sweets (Almond Burfi)

Activity #11 Traditional Indian Games ("Cheetal, Cheetah" and "Marigolds")

Activity #12 Sangam at a Glance

Irish Legends

Every year we find out about Guiding in another country and work on a badge from that country's Guiding association. This year, we discovered more about Ireland and Irish Culture, earning the Irish Girl Guides Irish Legends Badge.

We don't usually go for colouring pages, but we did this week, and as the girls arrived they were given an image of a shamrock (or trefoil...) done in celtic knotwork. The image we used was downloaded from www.donteatthepaste.com/2013/03/knotted-shamrock-to-color-or-embroider.html

We opened with our usual horseshoe and then had an active game led by the Active Living Patrol for the evening.

Our program started off with a short discussion about Ireland - starting with what the girls knew (to quote one Guide: "three words: rainbow, leprechaun, gold"), covering some short facts and some information about the life of St Patrick.

Guiding in Ireland started in 1911. Today, there are two Irish Guiding Associations - the Catholic Guides of Ireland (CGI) and the Irish Girl Guides (IGG) (Girlguiding UK is also active in Ulster). We talked about the different age groups, uniforms, and passed around enrolment pins for the girls to look at.

IGG Brownie Guide (age 7-10)	IGG Guide (age 10-14)	CGI Brigin Guide (age 6/7-10/11)	CGI Guide (age 10/11-17)

Find out more about Guiding:
Catholic Guides of Ireland - www.girlguidesireland.ie/
Irish Girl Guides - www.irishgirlguides.ie/
Girlguiding UK-Ulster - www.girlguidingulster.org.uk/

The first legend of the night was "Finn's Hounds". This is the story of Finn and his half-sister Tuiren. Tuiren marries a man who has previously made promises to another woman, Uchtdealb. Uchtdealb turns a pregnant Tuiren into a dog and gives her to someone she believes will be a harsh master. Even as a dog, Tuiren wins over her new family and gives birth to two puppies. Eventually, Tuiren is restored to her human form, but her children remain puppies. They return to live with Finn and the puppies become his companions.
Download this legend at www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/1Kids/FinnsHounds.html

After all this sitting, we played a game enjoyed by Guides in Ireland called "GRABBIT". 
Guides line up in Patrols and number off 1 - 6.  One extra Guide is needed to be ‘Grabbit’.  To start the game the Leader calls out a number, plus ‘Grabbit’.  All Guides with that number, plus ‘Grabbit’ run to the opposite end of the room, touch the wall and run back to their places.  ‘Grabbit’ must try and grab a place in one of the patrol lines by beating the Guides who occupied it.  If she manages to do this, the Guide whose place has been taken becomes ‘Grabbit’.   

The remainder of the meeting was spent on two activities. The first was a craft were the girls attempted to tie a celtic heart knot. (This was not very successful as the instructions were difficult to follow. It might have been easier with thicker cord as opposed to gimp.) The other activities was dramatization of legends by each Patrol.

The Trillium's had the legend of the "Little Red Bird". This legend tells how the cardinal became red.
Download this legend at www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/1Kids/LittleRedBird.html

The Pansy's had the legend of "St Brendan's Adventures". This is the story of St Brendan and the adventures he has while sailing across the ocean and visiting different lands. (As a geographer, this is a personal favourite of mine!)
Download this legend at www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/1Kids/StBrendan.html

The Roses had the a legend called "The King Has...?". This is the story of King Breas and the lengths he goes to in order to hide his secret - including imprisoning all of his barbers!
Download this legend at www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/1Kids/Kinghas.html (as we ran out of time, this Patrol will present their skit at the beginning of next week's meeting).

We closed with reminders for next week and Taps.

Be a Reporter!

For our second meeting meeting of April, we visited the Grand River Sachem Office to work on the Reporting Badge.

The Grand River Sachem is one of Canada's oldest newspapers, having been in existence since 1856. The Sachem has operated out of the same office since 1865, making it Canada's longest-operating-in-the-same-building newspaper!

Senior Reporter Tamara Botting talked to the girls about the newspaper and the jobs involved in producing a weekly paper (reporter, editor, publisher). They learned that a reporter's day can change suddenly with the need to cover breaking news stories and how sometimes stories have to be held over until a future issue in order to make space for more time-sensitive stories. We also discussed censorship, libel, and editorials vs. news stories.

The girls were shown how a page layout is put together and a mock-up of the front page was done with a photo of the group. They also learned how a story is uploaded on to the website.

We then split the girls up into their Patrols and had each one write their own news story about anything they wished. When they read out their stories, the other girls had to identify the five W's - who, what, when, where, and why. As we had some time left, we had each Patrol make up their own "breaking news" report and act it out for the rest of us.

Ripley's Aquarium

On Saturday, April 9th a group of 49 Brownies, Guides, Pathfinders, Rangers and Adults from Binbrook, Brantford and Caledonia spent the day at Ripley's Aquarium in Toronto.

In the morning, everyone met at the Aldershot GO Station to take the train into Toronto. We basically filled the top level of one car! The trip there was punctuated by songs at different points and many trips to 'experience' the toilet on the train.

When we arrived at Union Station, we found a space to eat as we had found out only a few days before that we couldn't take outside food into the aquarium (we had thought we had permission as school groups do). Eating and washroom break finished, we took a short walk, and were at the aquarium!

Everyone split up into small groups to freely explore the exhibits. We saw sharks, stingrays, horseshoe crabs, jellyfish, various types of fish, kelp, coral, anemones, eels and so many more creatures! Some of the girls were brave and actually touched horseshoe crabs, rays, and a white-spotted bamboo shark.

After about two hours, we all met again near the entrance and each group received program sheets to complete. Some groups had another snack and everyone had a washroom break at this point as well. The Guides worked on sheets to earn the Ecology and Endangered Species Badges, and the Pathfinders worked on sheets to complete the Up Close and Personal With Nature Module and pieces of several other modules.

Later on, we all headed back to Union Station to have another snack before heading home. With the wonderful assistance of a GO Transit Security Officer, we were able to get everyone into the same car and level - once again, we took over the upper level of one car. The train was quiet full as a baseball game had ended about the same time. Once again sang part of the way home - people not with our group were warned they were joining a group of about 50 girls and adults and it could be loud! The girls had a great time and would do this trip again!!

The "Challenge" Challenge

April started off with a visit by the 2nd year Brownies from the 3rd Caledonia Brownie Unit.The 8 girls who joined us were divided up between the Patrols, and we created a 4th Patrol for the evening to keep the groups to a manageable size!

As the girls arrived, each was asked to make a name tag using index cards and decorating with markers and stickers.

We held our usual opening ceremony, with the Brownies placed into the Guide Patrols, and then had everyone introduce themselves. Our Active Living Patrol for the week then led an active game before we moved onto our program.

The Guides have been working on the Diversity Challenge from BC and the Brownies 100th Anniversary Challenge from NS, so we used activities from these challenges as the basis for our meeting.

Our first activity was the "Who Are The Lucky Ones?" Game from the Diversity Challenge. Each girl was given a card and a napkin and a plate of Smarties was placed in the middle of the circle. Each girl read her card out in turn and followed the instructions (usually to take no treat!). We then talked about how the girls felt and if they thought what had happened was fair. (Each girl did get a few Smarties to eat after the game!)

We then played a game from Japan called "One-Legged Race". In this game, players stand in teams at one end of the room. The first player in each team runs to the far end of the room and then returns by hopping (keeping their feet and legs together to make a single leg). The first team to have all their players complete this trip wins.

Next up, we explored fractals and each girl created her own triangular fractal pattern. The girls stated with a triangle of paper and were asked to mark the halfway point on each side and then draw straight lines with a ruler to create a total of four triangles. They then coloured in the centre triangle. Each of the three remaining triangles was then divided in the same way and the one in the centre coloured in. Girls could continue as far as they wanted and then colour in all the triangles if they wished. See the image at the right for a better explanation!

The Fractal Foundation has a one-page explanation of Fractals in Math and Nature -
fractalfoundation.org/fractivities/WhatIsaFractal-1pager.pdf

An active game followed - Chopstick Race - the girls were in Patrols, and had to manipulate chopsticks with one hand to pick up pieces of sponge from to opposite end of the room. One girl per Patrol at a time and only one piece of sponge at a time! The Patrol with the most pieces of sponge at the end was the winner. (Despite many protests of "I can't use chopsticks", everyone managed very well with this activity.)

Our last activity was a Brownie Badge Quiz using images of early badges. Each Patrol had a sheet showing 9 old badges and they had to decide what it was called, what would need to be done to earn it, and which current Brownie badge it was related to. The answer sheet is below:

We ended the meeting with a couple of campfire songs and reminders about the aquarium trip on Saturday and next week before closing with Taps.


The Diversity Challenge can be found on the BC Council website -
www.girlguides.ca/WEB/Documents/BC/DiversityChallenge_2014.pdf

The Brownies 100th Anniversary Challenge can be found on the Nova Scotia Council website -
www.girlguides.ca/WEB/Documents/NS/challenges/branch15.doc