Based on ideas from the Guides, we devoted the first two weeks of May to storyboarding, scripting, designing and creating our own mini-movies!
Each week started with our usual opening ceremony, followed by an active game before diving into our activities for the evening.
We broke up the steps to help everyone be successful. Our broad steps were:
- Brainstorm - Come up with ideas for your topic, setting and characters.
- Who, What, When, Where, Why - Create a brief overview of your movie, answering the 5 W questions.
- Storyboard - Design each scene in your movie on paper, including what each character will do.
- Scrip - Write your script to match each scene on your storyboard.
- Produce - Create your props, costumes, cartoons, LEGO structures, etc. and rehearse your movie.
- Film - Check in with a Guider and make your movie a reality!
- Edit - Watch your movie on the computer and make any changes needed.
To get everyone thinking, we started off with a brainstorming session about the types of movies that could be made and ideas for themes and topics. Everyone them broke up into groups or decided to work alone. We had three individuals doing LEGO based movies, one working on Anime, and another on cartooning, then one group making an advertisement and two groups creating live action videos.
Each Guide/Group worked to map out their movie using words and pictures, before moving onto creating the images, structures and supplies they would need to put their plans into action.
Production, filming and editing took place the second week and resulted in 7 unique videos that we will be showing at Advancement.
Each week ended with clean-up and reminders for next week, and closed with Taps.
Useful Links:
In April, we spent two weeks working on Space-themed activities as requested by the Guides.
As everyone arrived, each Patrol worked on creating a skit based on a constellation story. We provided the stories of Andromeda (The Princess), Cassiopeia (The Queen) and Orion (The Hunter).
We had our usual opening ceremony, followed by an active game before starting our main activities for the evening.
Our first activity was an introduction to space and astronomy. We then watched the message made for Girl Guides from Jenni Sidey for World Space Week in 2017 (see link below). We spent a bit of time learning how to use a Star Wheel to find constellations at different times of the year.
One of our Guiders shared a First Nations story about the Great Bear (Usra Major) and the Pole Star (Polaris). We then had an active True/False Quiz about the Solar System. Everyone started in the middle of the room, one wall was designated as True and another as False. When a statement was read out, players ran to the wall representing their answer. Everyone learned a few new facts!
- Pluto is a planet. False - Pluto was considered a planet until 2006. Now it is a dwarf planet.
- Jupiter is the smallest planet in the solar system. False - The smallest is Mercury, Jupiter is the largest.
- It would take two days to get to Mars by rocket. False - It would take 6-8 months.
- The Earth is the only planet with a moon. False - There are many other moons. Almost all the planets have at least one, and Jupiter has at least 63!
- It rains diamonds on Neptune. True - It has been suggested by many scientists that the methane in the air causes diamonds to rain down on Neptune.
- Only two astronauts have every visited Mercury. False - No human has ever set foot on a planet other than Earth.
- Saturn is the only planet with rings. False - Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune also have rings.
- The first animal in space was a dog. True - Her name was Laika, but unfortunately she didn't survive.
- Sally Ride was the first woman in space. False - She was the first American woman in space, but the Russians got there first with Valentina Tereshkova.
- There is a Chinese space station. True - It's name is Tiangong.
- Russian astronauts are called cosmonauts. True - and Chinese astronauts are called Taikonauts.
- There are robots on Mars. True - Among them are Curiosity, Phoenix, Spirit and Opportunity.
- There is a mountain on Mars that is 3 times as tall as Mount Everest. True - Olympus Mons, or Mount Olympus, is 24km tall!
- Our galaxy is called Andromeda. False - Our galaxy is the Milky Way. Andromeda is another galaxy about 2.5 million light years from Earth.
- Meteors and shooting stars are the same thing. True - They are both streaks of light produced when a meteoroid burns up in the Earth's atmosphere.
- Comets are made mostly of ice. True - Comets are balls of frozen gasses, dust and rocks. When they get close to the sun, they start to melt and that's what creates their tail.
Our main project for the evening was Night Sky themed wooden plaques. We provided wooden plaques in different shapes and a variety of different wooden pieces that could be glued on, glue guns, paint, and brushes. The results were very good - and unique!
After cleaning up, the Patrols performed the skits they had prepared at the beginning of the meeting. We ended with reminders for next week and closed with Taps.
Links:
From our planning session, we discovered that the group had lots of ideas for painting activities, so we devoted this week's meeting to painting!
We started with set up and our usual opening ceremony. Once all the tables were set up and covered, we introduced the five activities for the evening:
- Painting on Canvas - We provided stretched 5" x 7" canvases, acrylic paints and brushes or all different shapes and sizes. Canvases were 2 for $1 at the dollar store and paints and brushes were from our Unit supply.
- Watercolours - We used the 3 watercolour paint sets in our paint box and provided blank card stock as a base. This is better able to handle the water than regular paper.
- Splat Painting - Girls were provided with cardstock, cotton balls and small amounts of washable paints in small tart pans. Although the suggestion had been splat painting, most of the girls used the cotton balls to dab and smear paint when creating their designs.
- Finger Painting - This was a request we hadn't expected, but were able to provide washable paints and glossy paper for this activity.
- Tile Painting - We did this activity earlier in the year and it was popular. Tiles were from the Habitat Reuse Store and we used the same acrylic paints and brushes provided for painting on canvas.
Girls were able to choose what they wanted to work on and spend as much or as little time on each piece of art as they wished. Some did only one or two activities, while others tried out everything.
There was lots of clean-up from this meeting, but we had allowed 30 minutes for clean-up and closing - and it was needed! We ended with reminders for next week and closed with Taps.
In honour of Giving Tuesday, we spend the evening assembling and making gifts for others.
We began with our usual opening ceremony, followed by an active game.
Our main activity for the evening was creating and decorating a Card, Gift Bag, Canvas Tile Magnet and Bath Salt Ball to give to someone special in their lives. While many of the cards had a Christmas theme, the gift bags were move eclectic! The canvas tiles were painted with a variety of designs and colours and plastic ornament balls decorated ready to hold the bath salts. The bath salt receipe we used was vary simple, using equal amounts of fine sea salt and Epsom salts (4 cups of each made enough to fill 13 ornament balls with a bit left over).
Our service project over the past month was collecting items for The Shoeboxes for Shelters Project. This program collects shoeboxes filled with high quality items as gifts for women in shelters. Boxes are collected and distributed locally and each is intended to have a value of approximately $50. We were able to collect enough items to fill 3 Shoeboxes and are very excited that our boxes will be going to young women aged 15 to 18 living in transitional housing in Brantford.
We ended our meeting with reminders about our sleepover on Friday and visit to the Food Bank next week, then closed with Taps.
Tonight we explored our creativity with the help of one of our Guiders who studied Fine Arts.
We began with our usual opening ceremony and an active game, then moved right into our activities for the evening.
We started our with Still Life Drawing and Perspective Drawing using a display of teddy bears and flowers. These were challenging activities for the Guides, and also something most hadn't tried before. The next activity was from the Girls First platform called "Draw, Don't Stop" where the girls created drawings without lifting their pencils from the paper.
Our next activity was Clay Pictionary. We made the easy clay recipe on the Girls First platform (mix 1 cup flour, 3/4 cup salt and 3 oz hot water together and knead into a dough-y clay). Each Patrol had a glob of clay, a plate to make their pictures and a set of cards. As they played, the Guides discovered it's much harder to work with clay rather than markers in this game!
We ended the evening with time for free drawing and sculpting, resulting in some really neat creations.
After cleaning up, we ended with reminders for next week and closed with Taps.
This week we dabbled in the My Mighty Mind theme by talking a bit about stress and positive ways of handling it, including being creative, mindfulness and yoga.
As everyone arrived, the Patrols marked attendance and collected dues. We had our regular opening with horseshoe formation and then played an active game.
Our first activity was a Discussion About Stress. We used the information that GGC put out for National Mental Health Week in 2016 (see link at the bottom). The girls who wished to had an opportunity to share about times they have felt stressed, how it made them feel and what they did to work through it.
We then moved on to creativity as a way of handling stress by Painting Tiles. We had gotten cheap tiles form the Habitat Reuse Store and provided paints and brushes so that the girls could create their own designs and/or messages.
After cleaning up from painting, we did a mindfulness exercise using the Chocolate Meditation using peanut-free mini Aero bars. The script is in the GGC National Mental Health Week 2016 package (see link below). This was a lot of fun, as well as being tasty!
Our final activity was Yoga, again using some of the suggestions from the GGC National Mental Health Week 2016 package (see link below). We have a fairly large meeting space, so everyone was able to spread out and have their own area.
We closed with reminders for next week (Outdoors Night) and Taps.
Links:
Based on ideas from the Guides, we devoted the first two weeks of May to storyboarding, scripting, designing and creating our own mini-movies!
