World Thinking Day 2019

This week the Sparks, Brownies, Guides, Pathfinders and Rangers in Caledonia got together for our annual World Thinking Day Event. The program was planned and run by the Pathfinders and Rangers, assisted by the 3rd Year Guides. 

As everyone arrived, they were directed to the appropriate part of the room for their Unit. We provided colouring sheets and wordsearches, as well as supplies for Guiders to make name tags dividing their Unit into three groups. Each Unit performed their usual opening ceremony, followed by a brief introduction to the theme of Leadership. We had four activities and each group worked through them with a Pathfinder/Ranger and 3rd Year Guide leading. 

Dance With Your Past
In this activity, each person is asked to think of their favourite song and dance while singing in their head. They are then asked to talk about how easy or hard they found the experience and if they would have done the same thing two years ago.
 
Hey, That's Not Right!
It's 1908 and your brother just got a new book for his birthday called Scouting for Boys. It's about learning life skills, camping and making new friends. It sounds really fun and you want to take part, but people say that camping and adventure are only for boys. You don't agree and get together with some of your friends to let people know that girls can do anything!"

Each group split up into smaller groups of mixed Sparks, Brownies and Guides to create posters about all the amazing things girls can do!
 
Spot the Leader at Kusafiri
"Kusafiri World Centre held an event in 2017 called Arts4Change in Madagascar. Participants explored ways to use creativity to build leadership skills. Leadership doesn't always have to be seen or heard, sometimes it can just be felt!"

Players stand in a circle. One person leaves the room and another is secretly chosen to be the leader. The leader makes an action, sound or movement and everyone else in the circle has to copy them. The leader can change their actions at any time. The person outside comes back into the room and stands in the centre of the circle. As the rest of the group continues following the leader, the person in the centre has three chances to guess who is the leader. 
 
In 2119, Can You Imagine?
For our fourth activity, we asked everyone to think about what it might be like to be a Girl Guide in 2119, 100 years from now by drawing a 22nd Century Guide. The twist to this activity was that each drawing would be completed by three people. The first person drew the head and neck, then folded their part over and let the next person draw the torso and arms, this part is also folded over so only the bottom third of the page is showing and the third person draws the legs and feet.

Lost in Time Activities
As each group completed the activities on their own within the time frame of the meeting, we also planned some no-equipment activities from the Lost in Time section of the Activity Pack. 

• You've encountered some Scouts from the past on their way to Brownsea Island, teach them a song for their campfire.
• Can you name the 5 World Centres? (Pax Lodge, Sangam, Our Chalet, Our Cabana, Kusafiri)
• You meet a group of Girl Guides from the future who speak a language you don't recognize. Find a way to say "Happy World Thinking Day" without using words.
• Try to say the Spark Promise backwards. (Friend A Be and Share to Promise I)
• You meet some Girl Guides from the future. What is one thing you want to know about Guiding in the future?
• Name one country you'd like to learn more about and why.
• Say a tongue twister.
• When you do something which inspires other people you're practicing leadership. Ask if anyone can share something they did in the last week which inspired someone.
• Who can come up with the most inventive upgrade for their time machine?
• If you were given one wish to change your community for the better, what would it be?

We ended with Spark Closing, Brownie Closing, and Taps, before saying goodnight to everyone.

Links:

• WAGGGS World Thinking Day 2019 Activity Pack
• Invitation and Time Machine Instructions
• Colouring Sheet/Wordsearch 

Happy World Thinking Day!

On Tuesday evening, the Caledonia Sparks, Brownies, Guides, Pathfinders and Rangers got together to celebrate World Thinking Day 2017! We took part in the Youth Uplift Challenge, the National Service Project: Action on Poverty, and earned the WAGGGS World Thinking Day 2017 Crest.

As part of the National Service Project: Action on Poverty, everyone had been asked to bring donations for our local food bank. As a group, we collected and donated over 100lbs of food and supplies!

While the girls were arriving, each Unit was provided with handprints for each girl to colour and decorate with positive messages and images. The Youth Uplift Challenge asks groups to make and decorate paper hands to raise funds for Save the Children's Youth Education and Training Programs in Nicaragua and Indonesia. For every hand we make, the Bezos Family Foundation will donate $1.90 to Save the Children. The goal is to raise $500,000 through this challenge, and young people around the world are taking part! More information can be found on the Student's Rebuild Website. We made 70 hands, which raises $133.00!


After a short opening to introduce the "Grow" theme, and to explain about the Youth Uplift Challenge, we divided up into three mixed age groups for a round robin of activities. One station was run by one of the Guide Guiders, while the other two were run by 3 of our 3rd Year Guides and our Pathfinder.

Roots - Grow Our Cabana
At this station, we played the game outlined in the World Thinking Day Activity Pack. The players are divided into groups of three, with one person left on their own in the middle of the circle. In each group of three, two players stand facing each other, holding hands to form a roof - they are the Cabin. The third player stands between these two players, under the 'roof' - she is the Guest. The player in the middle is the Leader. The game starts with the Leader calling out 'Cabin', 'Guest', or 'Volcano'.

• If she calls Cabin, all the cabins, without breaking apart, must go and find another guest. Guests remain where they are.
• If she calls Guest, the guests have to leave their cabins and find another cabin. Cabins remain where they are.
• If she calls Volcano, the cabins will crumble and the guests have to escape. Everyone moves and forms new groups.

The goal of the Leader is to get a place as part of a cabin or as a guest. After calling out one of the three actions, she moves to find a new space as well. The player left without a spot becomes the new Leader. 


Trunk - Grow Your Commitment
We adapted this activity from the one in the World Thinking Day Activity Pack.The girls were divided into smaller groups, with a mix of Sparks, Brownies and Guides in each group. All of the girls were then asked to imagine that they were a team of Arctic Explorers trekking across the frozen tundra. A sudden blizzard hits and they must build an emergency shelter to protect their team from the storm!

Each group was then given a sponge character for each girl in the group and a supply of toothpicks, index cards, masking tape and modelling clay. They had to build a miniature shelter that would protect all of their sponges from the storm!


Branches - Grow Your Dance Moves
This activity also came from the World Thinking Day Activity Pack. The girls watched the YouTube video from the Arts4Change Session held at Sangam in 2016 and listened to "When We Shine". They were then challenged to create their own dance routines to part of the song (there wasn't time to do the whole song!). The dances were then performed at campfire.

• Watch the Arts4Change Video on YouTube
• Download "When We Shine" and read the lyrics at When We Shine (scroll to the bottom of the page)

Once the stations were completed, we all gathered back in the main room for our final activity - planting sunflower seeds! Each girl decorated a cup using Sharpies and we then added colourful aquarium gravel for drainage, soil, and seeds. Everyone was reminded to give their seeds a drink of water when they got home.

We then sang Tall Trees, and watched the dance performances from the "Grow Your Dance Moves" station. We ended with Spark Closing, Brownie Bells, and Taps.

WAGGGS Night

Tonight we celebrated World Guiding with a WAGGGS-themed evening! As the girls arrived, they worked on finishing their posters about their chosen countries and preparing to do their presentations and lead their chosen games.

We started with our usual opening and then moved right into our program.

First up, we had the Rose Patrol teach us about England and Guiding there, followed by the game "Witches Glue Pot", which is similar to Octopus.

Next, we visited Italy with the Trillium Patrol. Their game was called "Chicken Market" - and was a bit confusing, but involved lots of dramatics!

We paused for a bit in the middle of the evening and one of our Guiders gave a presentation about Our Chalet and Switzerland from her trip there in 2014.

Then it was time to travel to Mexico with the Pansy Patrol, including an active game of "Traffic Policeman".

Our final stop of the evening was the USA with the Daffodil Patrol. Here we played an interesting game called "Frog in the Sea".
The last activity of the night was a Fruit Salad-esque game created and led by our Pathfinder about the World Centres.  We ended our meeting with food - Nachos and Salsa, Cheese Pizza, and Chicken Wings. After eating and cleaning up, we closed with reminders for next week and Taps.

Zoe Goes to France

Our first scheduled meeting for 2017 was cancelled due to the weather, so we started back on January 17th with our annual 'Zoe' Challenge. This year, we traveled with Zoe to France!

We had our usual opening ceremony, followed by an active game, and then the 3rd Year Guides and our Pathfinder went off to plan a party for the Chinese New Year. 

Our first activity was to learn a bit about Guiding in France. We found out that there are 5 separate organizations(!) who are represented in WAGGGS by a federation called Scoutisme Français. Download "Guiding in France" (pdf)

We then moved on to an active game - Boules, which is similar to Lawn Bowling or Bocci Ball. Boules is played between teams of up to four players on grass or dirt. We had to make some modifications to the game, and played with two teams of four girls each (with larger groups, set up more than one game). For each game, you will need a coloured ball (the cochonnet) and 2 balls per player (the boules). We used brightly coloured foam balls for our cochonnets and newspaper to make our own boules. The cochonnet is placed at one end of the playing area, the players stand at the opposite end. Players take turns throwing their boules towards the cochonnet. They may try to knock other players boules away from the cochonnet. Play continues until everyone has thrown their boules. The team with the closest boule to the cochonnet wins the round. They receive one point for each of their boules that is closer than the other teams. (For example, if Team A has 3 boules closest to the cochonnet before there is one from Team B, Team A would score 3 points.)

After we cleared up from our game, we explored French Art. A set of Powerpoint slides were used to show examples of different types of art:

• Rococo - Usually shows outdoor activities, such as picnics, happy couples and people relaxing
• Neo-classicism - Imitates the art themes and styles of the ancient Greeks and Romans
• Impressionism - Makes use of light and includes many outdoor works - landscapes, seascapes, forestscapes
• Post-Impressionism - Like impressionism, but becomes blockier, more defined
• Cubism - Focuses on shape and tries to show all sides of a three-dimensional object in two dimensions
• Raw Art - Makes use of bold lines, simple colours and may resemble a jigsaw puzzle

We then had a go at designing our own raw art. Download "French Art" (pdf)

We ended our meeting by sampling some French Butter Cookies (biscuits au beurre) and closed with a campfire and Taps.

1 3/4 cups Flour

1/4 cup Sugar

1 1/4 cup Butter

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla

Nutmeg

Beat butter and vanilla until creamy. Sift in flour and sugar. Refrigerate, if necessary, until firm enough to roll into balls. Roll into 1" balls, place on an ungreased cookie tray, flatten slightly with a fork. Sprinkle with nutmeg. Bake at 375⁰F for 6-10 minutes, or until golden on the edges.

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

Happy World Thinking Day 2016!

The Caledonia Sparks, Brownies, Guides, Pathfinders and Rangers got together at the end of February to celebrate World Thinking Day! This year's theme was "Connect", so the Pathfinders and Rangers led a variety of activities to help everyone connect with Myself, Friends, WAGGGS, and the World.

As the girls arrived, each Unit gathered in their assigned corner of the room and handed out name tags, which were colour co-ordinated to form 3 mixed-age groups later in the evening. Each Unit added their pinwheels to our wall as part of our service project, the Healing Classrooms Challenge from Student's Rebuild. By making and submitting photos of our pinwheels, $215 will be donated to the International Rescue Committee's Healing Classrooms Program, working with Syrian refugees in Iraq and Lebanon.

Our program began with a welcome to all Units and a brief overview of the World Thinking Day "Connect" theme. We then had the Spark opening, Brownie opening, and Guide opening, before forming one large circle. The first activity, Connect With Friends - Bingo, was explained and the girls sent back to their leaders to get bingo cards and pencils. The girl had to mingle and find other girls to initial their cards based on the statements (i.e. likes chocolate, has a brother). The Guides were not allowed to get initials from other Guides, and it was pointed out that one of the Pathfinders likes unicorns, which helped to break the ice and get everyone started!

The next part of the meeting was spent in mixed-age groups, rotating through 3 stations.

Connect With Myself - Beaded Bookmarks
At this station the girls used twine and beads to make a beaded bookmark. They were given green beads for Connect With Friends, Pink beads for Connect With Myself, Blue beads for Connect With WAGGGS, Yellow beads for Connect With the World, Silver beads for New Friends, and Gold beads for Old Friends. This station also became our 'photo station' and individuals/pairs/trios of girls had their pictures taken with the #connect10million frame!

Connect With WAGGGS - World Centres Games
Here the girls learned facts about the 5 World Centres by playing two games. The first game was a variation on the compass points game. Each corner of the playing area and the centre were named as the World Centres. A picture card was held up and described (i.e. picture of the Alps, Our Chalet Pin) and the girls had to go to the corner for the World Centre they thought the picture represented. The second game was a matching game where the girls had to work in teams to sort a set of cards by World Centre. For each World Centre, the cards were: Name, Year Opened, Country Map, Logo that appears on the Participant Pin, Photograph, and a Cultural/Geographical Photograph.

Connect With the World - Chilean Games
For this station, we celebrated our Twinning partnership with Chile by playing two Chilean children's games. The first game was "Atrapar la Cola" (Catch the Tail). In this game, players form two teams. Each team then makes a chain, linked by each player holding the hips or shoulders of the player in front. The goal is to keep your chain from falling apart while trying to link up with the opposing chain before they link you with you! The second game was "Help!". In this game, one player is the chaser who tries to tag the other players. If a player is in danger of being caught, they can should 'Help!'. If someone else comes and holds their hand before the chaser tags them, they are safe and the chaser goes on to another player. Players may only hold hands for 3 seconds - BUT the chaser cannot stand and wait for them to let go. When a player is caught, they become the new chaser.

After finishing the stations, we gathered to take a group photo using our #connect10million frame, and then made a big circle in the centre of the room, and the Pathfinders led a campfire. Songs included: Fire's Burning, Kookaburra, and the Penguin Song. We then closed with Spark Closing, Brownie, Closing, and Taps. 

Guiding Around the World

The meeting before Thinking Day was devoted to Guide History and World Guiding, including working on the Learn About WAGGGS section of the Program.

As the girls arrived, each Patrol was asked to come up with ideas for ways to stay safe online (as part of the Computer Skills Badge).

We began with our usual opening ceremony, followed by an active game chosen and led by the evening's Active Living Patrol.

Our first activity was to discuss the Patrol's ideas for online safety and come up with a Unit Online Safety Code to finish off the Computer Skills Badge.

We then moved on to learning about the B-Ps and the beginnings of Guiding. One Guider (me!) gave a short potted history of the roles of Robert, Agnes and Olave Baden-Powell in the early days of Guiding. Each Patrol was then given information on one of the B-Ps and asked to make up a short presentation. We wound up with tableaux about Robert, an interview with Olave, and a skit about Agnes.

We then played a game from Africa called "Spot the Lion".  In this game, players are divided into teams and a corner of the room is assigned as their home. Everyone stands in the middle with their eyes closed and the game leader touches the back of each player. On one player, she leaves a strip of tape. When they players open their eyes, they look for the tape. When they spot it, they quietly go to their home corner. If a player thinks she is the lion, she roars loudly and everyone freezes. If she is wrong, she is 'out' and the game continues. If she is right, the team with the most players at home wins. (This was surprisingly popular and the girls have asked to play it again!)

The next activity was called Find the Country! Statements were read out with the name of a country at the end. When the country was named, one player from each Patrol had to run up and try to find the country on a world map. The first player to put her finger on the country won a point for her Patrol. Everyone was shown where the country was prior to moving to the next question. (Again, this was surprisingly popular and the girls wanted to play it a second time!)

• Our Chalet is found in ... Switzerland
• Pax Lodge is found in ... the United Kingdom
• There are 3 Girl Guide Organizations in ... Madagascar
• Guides wear a maroon and white uniform in ... Qatar
• Our Cabana is found in ... Mexico
• Sangam is found in ... India
• Guides are called Morshidat in ... Egypt
• All girl members are Guides in ... Australia
• Kusafiri has held a program in ... Ghana
• Our Twinning Partner is ... Chile
• Sparks are called Teddies in ... South Africa
• Sparks are called Pippins in ... New Zealand
• In 1958 Guiding began in ... Libya
• Lord and Lady B-P are buried in ... Kenya
• Guides wear light blue and Little Wings wear green in ... Panama
• We are going to be earning the Sustainable Energy Badge from ... Ireland
• A new member of WAGGGS in 2008 was the Guide Branch from ... Syria
• Last year we earned the St. George's Day Badge from ... Norway
• Guides promise to be responsible for their communities in ... Japan
• A Guide is welcoming and she has team spirit in ... Haiti

Our final activity was called Footprints for Kusafiri. We asked the girls to try to name the World Centres and where they are located and then talked about how Kusafiri is the 5th World Centre and how it is different from the others (traveling World Centre). We shared the logo and then asked each girl to trace her footprint and then fill it in with symbols showing her Guiding journey.