Pets & Animals and Culture Night

February ended with our second "By Guides, For Guides" night. We started out with our usual opening ceremony, then the Thistles led the first half of the meeting on the theme of Pets and Animals, followed by Daisies and their Culture Night. 

The Thistle Patrol had planned three activities about Pets and Animals for their half of the evening:

• Big Dog Tag - In this game, "It" is the "Big Dog". The Big Dog chases other players, if someone is tagged, they sit on the floor with their legs out in front of them. In order to be un-tagged, two other players have to come and sit on the floor as well, using their legs to make a T. After counting to 5, all three players rejoin the game. Players cannot be tagged if they are squatting or if they are sitting in a T.
• Lost Pet Skits - Guides were asked to form small groups and each group made up a skit about a losing and finding a pet. 
• Twag - In this game, "It" is an Owl and everyone else is a mouse. When a mouse is tagged, they become a baby owl and go and sit in the Owl's nest (a corner or section of the playing area). One player is an "Eagle" who turned the baby owls back into mice.

The Daisy Patrol had chosen Culture Night as their theme and had four activities:

• Facts About the Philippines - One Guide shared some information about the Philippines.
• Scotland Trip - One Guide shared pictures and told about her trip to Scotland to visit family.
• Luksong Tinik - We then played a traditional game from the Philippines. Two players sit on the ground with their legs out and soles of their feet touching. The other players jump over their feet. One of the seated players then places her foot on top of the other players foot, heel to toe, and the other players jump over this increased height. The height in the centre continues to be raised using feet and then hands until other players are unable to jump over it. For better instructions, visit Filipino Games. 
• Tinikling - We tried Tinikling, a traditional folk dance from the Philippines. We have lots of bamboo poles for gadget making, so were able to split up into groups of 3-4 Guides. Two people kept the rhythm with the poles, going slowly, and the remaining girls learned to dance in and out of the poles without getting their feet caught! Download the instructions and watch a video under "Downloads" at the bottom of this post.
• Food! - The final activity was a taste test with Licorice All-Sorts from Scotland and Sausage and a Fruit and Milk Salad from the Philippines - all very yummy!

Everyone had done a great job preparing their activities and had a lot of fun trying some new activities. We ended with reminders for next week and closed with Taps. 

Downloads: 

• Tinikling Instructions
• Filipino Cultural Dance Troupe (YouTube Video)

Time Machines & Memes

This week we did our pre-Thinking Day activity and learned about memes with the Forget-Me-Not Patrol. 

We started with our usual opening ceremony, and then moved straight into our three activities for the evening. First up, each Patrol had to finalize their plans for their "meetings" (each Patrol will be running half a meeting or about 45-60 minutes of activities for the rest of the Unit). 

Our second activity was to make time machines for Thinking Day! Each girl has been given a cassette case and a template to make a mini-girl to put inside the case. We used sharpies to decorate the time machines. 
  
Finally, at 7.30pm, we turned the meeting over to the Forget-Me-Not Patrol and their Memes and Glow-in-the-Dark Meeting. The Patrol had planned four activities for their meeting, which filled up the second hour of the meeting. 

1. Meme Tiles - Each Guide created her own meme using markers on a half-sheet of cardstock. 
2. Manhunt - In their version, two players are it and the game is played with the lights off. (Basically a big game of tag as we were indoors, the game is usually played in a wooded area where there are lots of places to hide and outfox the players who are it.)
3. Mama Bear - A game made up by the Patrol: One player is the bear and they hide in the dark. Everyone else waits for the bear to hide and then comes into the room and say "I'm not scared of bears tonight; my daddy got them all last night". They then try to find the bear in the dark and when someone finds her, they say "Beep" and run to the door. Play continues until most/all of the players have found the bear.
4. Charades: Meme Edition - The Patrol came up with some different memes and the slips of paper were drawn by small groups and used to create a charade for the rest of the group to guess. 

Everyone had fun and the Forget-Me-Nots did a great job leading their activities!. We ended with reminders for next week (Pets/animals with the Thistles and Culture Night with the Daisies) and closed with Taps.  

What Have the Pathfinders & Rangers Been Up To?

Although they haven't featured much this year, we do have an active Pathfinder/Ranger Unit of 4 girls! Our Unit is unique in that their meetings are held without a Guider in constant attendance. The girls head off to a separate room from the Guides and run their own meetings with a Guider popping in occasionally to see that there are no problems. Meetings are planned by Guiders and girls, but are run by the girls themselves. Our Rangers make sure things go smoothly and takes on key leadership roles, while helping the Pathfinders to develop their own leadership skills. Although this arrangement was born of necessity due to a lack of Guiders, turning things over to the girls has been mostly successful!

September

Tuesday, September 11th - Welcome to Girls First!
For our first meeting of the year, everyone took part in sample activities for the new Girls First program. Afterwards, the Pathfinders and Rangers worked on planning and identifying activities that they would like to do this year. Read all about our meeting here - Welcome to Girls First!

Tuesday, September 18th - Program Planning
The Pathfinders and Rangers headed off armed with the Unit's Program Area Cards, the Idea Cards from last week and lots of planning materials to work on coming up with a plan for what they would like to do this year.

Thursday, September 20th - WE Day Toronto 2018
WE Day was AWESOME! This was the second time we attended, and though we were small in numbers we had a great time. Read all about the event here - WE Day Toronto 2018

Tuesday, September 25th - Program Planning
Program planning continued and a plan for October to December arranged.  

October

Tuesday, October 2nd - Community Scavenger Hunt
This year's annual scavenger hunt was "The Community Scavenger Hunt". The girls are sent out around town to find - and photograph - as many of the items on the list as they can, including their team members!

Tuesday, October 9th - Hamilton City Hall Campfire 2018
One Pathfinder joined the Guides for a Campfire and completed the Sing Ontario Sing 2018 Challenge! Read about the event here - Hamilton City Hall Campfire 2018

Tuesday, October 16th - International Day of the Girl
For the International Day of the Girl we worked on the WAGGGS #TeamGirl 2018 Challenge. This year, we learned about diversity, gender equality, gender power and being our own superheroes! Read all about our meeting here - International Day of the Girl 2018

Tuesday, October 23rd - Promise, Law & Planning
The Pathfinders joined the Guides for some Promise and Law activities, voting on options for the new uniform, finalizing the details of their Hallowe'en party and discussing The Shoebox Project for Shelters as a possible project for this fall. Read about this meeting here - Promise, Law & Planning.

Tuesday, October 30th - Hallowe'en Party
Hallowe'en was celebrated by dressing up in costumes, eating candy and watching a movie. 

November

Tuesday, November 6th - Social Time
This week we took a break and had a social session and clarified the details of some up-coming meetings as the Pathfinders and Rangers will be leading outdoor games for the Guides and having an arts meeting this month. 

Tuesday, November 13th - Leading Outdoor Games with Guides
Tonight we didn't have access to our regular meeting space, so we all headed off to the park and the Pathfinders and Rangers led a series of outdoor games and activities for the Guides. Read about our meeting here - Outdoor Games Night
 
Tuesday, November 21st - Art-Tastic
Tonight was all about creativity. The planned project was to melt crayons onto canvases, but instead the girls raided the cupboard and used up some of our excess craft supplies. They made floral headbands, decorative items, and some Christmas ornaments instead.

Tuesday, November 27th - Baking Brownies
We tried our first Build Skills activity tonight by baking brownies. We have done quite a bit of baking in the past, but this particular group of girls hasn't done as much and has run into problems following recipes in the past. They were also responsible for cleaning up the kitchen - something that is sometimes neglected, but was very well done this time. Tonight's recipe was a great success and the brownies were delicious!

December

Tuesday, December 4th - Food Bank Visit
As part of the Take Action program area, we visited the local Food Bank and learned about the services they offer and how they operated. We also assisted with two jobs - packing toiletry bags for the Christmas hampers and repackaging dry pet food into smaller bags. Read about our meeting here - Food Bank Visit.



Tuesday, December 11th - Chocolatiers
We all ended the hear with the Chocolatiers Instant Meeting from the Girls First Platform. Creating, designing, envisioning and tasting of chocolate were all involved. Read about our meeting here - Chocolatiers!
Tuesday, December 18th - Holiday Party
Tonight was our final activity of 2018. We ate enjoyed appetizers and desert, along with a gift game. Appetizers included pineapple-chicken-bacon skewers, garlic Parmesan rolls, spring rolls and plum sauce, honey garlic sausage bites, and mini mozzarella pizzas. Desert was personal apple pieces (apple, brown sugar and cinnamon in crescent rolls) with vanilla ice cream. Instead of a gift exchange, we played the 'parcel game'. Small treats and gifts are wrapped in many layers and newspaper liberally held in place with packing tape. Girls take turns rolling large dice and when they rolled a 7, they got to work on unpackaging as much as they could until someone else rolled a 7 and then the package was passed to the new person. Everyone received chocolate, crests, pins and pencils. It was quite a challenge to get into the parcel and it was funny to watch each other working on it!

By Guides, For Guides: Leading Ladies & Dark Night

This week we turned the Unit over to our third Patrol for the second half of the meeting for their planned activities, the theme? Dark!

As the girls arrived, they played an impromptu game of tag, checked their attendance books and collected dues. We started with our usual opening and then moved onto two activities from the Leading Ladies Challenge while we waited for it to get a bit darker outside. 
 
For the first activity, we talked briefly about the first Guide Handbook, How Girls Can Help to Build Up the Empire (1912) by Agnes and Robert Baden-Powell and the upcoming changes for Guiding with the new Girls First program. One of the changes is that the program will be online rather than paper-based. Each Patrol was asked to Design a New Handbook and let us know what they think should be included in a Guide Handbook for 2018. Ideas ranged from links to Instagram and Snapchat, to details instructions for camp skills, to more information about WAGGGS. 

Our next activity was inspired by an article in the most recent Canadian Guider about Summertime Unit Activities. We asked each Patrol to make a list of things they would like to do if Guides ran during the summer. While we haven't decided if this is something we'll try, we did get a great list of ideas for activities!

At this point, we turned the meeting over to the Daffodil Patrol for their "Dark Night"! Everyone had been asked to wear dark clothing and to bring a flashlight, so we turned out the lights and got started! The first game was Everybody's It Tag - when one girl tags another, they play 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' and the loser sits down until she is tapped by another player to rejoin the game. We then moved on to Graveyard - everyone finds a spot in the room and freezes in position while the person who is 'It' walks around. If she sees someone moving, she calls their name and they are our of the game. While her back is turned, the other players are expected to move and change positions. Our next game was Flashlight Tag - the person who is It tags other players by shining her flashlight on them and calling out their name. Next up was Flashlight Freeze Dance - with music provided by the voices of the Patrol themselves! Our final activity was Four Corners - a flashlight was placed in each corner, girls choose a corner to run to and the person in the center closes her eyes, spins around and points at a corner. Anyone in the corner that is pointed to is out.

To end, we turned the lights back out, handed out badges, talked about next week and closed with Taps.

Update on the Pathfinders & Rangers

Although they haven't featured much this year, we do have an active Pathfinder/Ranger Unit of 7 girls! Our Unit is unique in that their meetings are held without a Guider in constant attendance. The girls head off to a separate room from the Guides and run their own meetings with a Guider popping in occasionally to see that there are no problems. Meetings are planned by Guiders and girls, but are run by the girls themselves. Our Ranger makes sure things go smoothly and takes on a key leadership role. Although this arrangement was born of necessity due to a lack of Guiders, turning things over to the girls has been mostly successful!

September

Friday, September 8th - Welcome Back BBQ
To celebrate the start of a new Guiding year, we had a BBQ (unfortunately it rained, so we were indoors!) and started doing a bit of planning.


Tuesday, September 12th - Welcome Back Meeting
For our first meeting of the year, everyone took part in a scavenger hunt where girls had to get others to sign their cards if they could say 'yes' to a question on it and the goal was to fill your entire card (i.e. someone who likes pizza, someone who has a brother). The Pathfinders then led a game of Everybody's It Tag for the whole group. Afterwards, the Pathfinders and Rangers worked on planning and identifying activities that they would like to do this year.

Tuesday, September 19th - Mini Messy Night and SWAP Making 
The Pathfinders & Rangers joined the Guides for an evening of messy fun and swap-making for the upcoming Campfire at Hamilton City Hall. Read about the meeting here - Mini Messy Night & SWAP Making

Tuesday, September 26th - Scavenger Hunt
This year's annual scavenger hunt was "The Selfie/Photo Team Scavenger Hunt". The girls are sent out around town to find - and photograph - as many of the items on the list as they can, including their team members!

Downloads:

• The Selfie/Photo Team Scavenger Hunt
  

 

Thursday, September 28th - WE Day Toronto 2017
WE Day was AWESOME! This was the first time we attended, and though we were small in numbers we had a great time. Read all about the event here - WE Day Toronto 2017

October

Tuesday, October 3rd - Campfire Sing-Along at Hamilton City Hall
Unfortunately, none of the Pathfinders or Rangers could join us for this event, but the Guides had a great time!


Saturday, October 7th - Cookie Selling at Zehrs
The Guides, Pathfinders and Rangers all sold Cookies at our local Zehrs store.

Tuesday, October 10th - International Day of the Girl
For the International Day of the Girl we worked on the WAGGGS #TeamGirl 2017 Challenge. We learned about rights vs needs, barriers girls face in accessing education, and explored human rights and the rights of the child. The girls talked about issues they care about and did some brainstorming around possible service projects for this year.
Read all about our meeting here - International Day of the Girl 2017

Friday, October 13th to Sunday October 15th - Nighthawk Goes to Platform 9 3/4 
The latest Nighthawk Camp was all about Harry Potter! At this camp, the activities take place through Friday night until 6am Saturday morning, and start again Saturday afternoon. Despite the rain and mud, we had a great time.
Read all about the camp here - Nighthawk Goes to Platform 9 3/4

Tuesday, October 17th - Leadership Skills
Our Ranger, a graduate of the LDP 4 program at Camp Woolsey, shared some of the skills she has learned by leading the Pathfinders through different activities to complete the Find Your Inner Leader Module. Lynsey planned an led activities about leadership styles, teamwork, problem solving and planning, which included role play, skits, and challenges.


Tuesday, October 24th - Pumpkins Galore
As Halloween fell on a Tuesday this year, the Pathfinders had a pumpkin-themed meeting the week before. They planned the activities and our Ranger did the shopping. They baked pumpkin muffins, spray painted pumpkins, snacked on muffins and chocolate, and played a huge game of hide-and-seek around our meeting space.

November

Tuesday, November 7th - Enrolment
Although it wasn't planned, our new Pathfinders were enrolled with the Guides. We also took part in our first Girls First! activity about badges shapes and designs and the importance of interest badges in the program.
Read about our ceremony here - Enrolment 2017

Saturday, November 11th - Remembrance Day
Unfortunately I have no photos, but as Remembrance Day fell on a weekend this year, 1 Ranger, 3 Pathfinders and 2 Guides were able to be at our local Cenotaph to lay a wreath on behalf of Guiding.


Tuesday, November 14th - Initiation With Lynsey
The girls earned the We're A Team Module while taking part in a series of silly and teambuilding activities with Lynsey, our Ranger, to welcome our new Pathfinders into the Unit.
 
Tuesday, November 21st - Introducing the Canada Cord
Tonight the girls were joined by a Guider for the first half of their meeting to talk about the Canada Cord. We did an overview of what is involved in earning the Canada Cord, the different modules and projects that need to be undertaken, and determined that the girls are interested in working towards this award! We reviewed what Modules they have already completed (Choosing Your Own Direction, Find Your Inner Leader, and We're A Team!), looked at what we need to cover for our 3rd Year Pathfinder (Cookies Rising, First Aid, Outdoor Bridging Activities, 4 hours of Service and her leadership camp or event) and a few modules that interest the group as a whole (Survivor Girl; Knots, Knives and Outdoor Lore; and Now You're Cooking). The second part of the meeting was spent taking part in a series of challenges - Role Play Activities on problem solving and behaviours; Game Inventors to create new games; and Energizers - 60-second active living activities.

Downloads:

• Canada Cord Overview
• Challenge Activities  

Tuesday, November 28th - Girls Count!
Financial Literacy is an important skill to learn, so since November is Financial Literacy Month, we all took on the Girls Count Challenge. To earn this challenge, girls take part in activities about Currency Awareness, Purchasing Power and Money Management. As an added bonus, the Pathfinders also earned their Moneywise Module!
Read all about our meeting here - Girls Count!

December

Tuesday, December 5th - By Girls, For Girls
This week each girl was asked to bring a 10-15 minute activity to lead for the rest of the group. Some girls worked together and led more than one activity, while others worked on their own.


Friday, December 8th to Saturday, December 9th - Sleepover
For our annual December sleepover, we had crafts, a service project, games and baking on the agenda. For our main craft, we glued yarn onto canvases in different patterns the covered everything with tinfoil. The tinfoil was pressed firmly over the yarn so that it made raised lines. The areas between the yarn lines were then coloured with Sharpies. The effect is like stained glass! We then moved onto our service project - making hygiene kits. We made 20 packages that consisted of a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, kleenex and moist wipes wrapped in washcloth and secured with hair elastics. After that, it was time for some baking, we made chocolate chip cookies and chocolate chip oatmeal muffins (breakfast!). We ordered pizza and continued crafting for awhile. The girls played games and stayed up into the early hours of the morning, long after their tired Guider had fallen asleep!

Useful Links:

•  Tin Foil Line Relief Art by Becker Middle School

Tuesday, December 12th - Elftastic Challenge
The Elftastic Challenge makes a perfect theme for a combined Guide/Pathfinder/Ranger holiday party. The girls made crafts, decorated (and ate) cookies, and played games. 
Read about the Elftastic Challenge here - Holiday Party


Tuesday, December 19th - Holiday Party
Tonight was our final activity of 2017. We ate pizza and veggies, baked cookies, had a gift stealing exchange and played Twister. The cookies are our favourite Chocolatey-Mint Chip Cookies, made by breaking up a row of mint Girl Guide cookies to use instead of regular chocolate chips. The gift exchange spending limit was $5 (but regifting and handmade were encouraged!) and we had a good time rolling a large die and passing or 'stealing' gifts around the circle. It has been a busy four months and it will be nice to have a bit of a break and come back refreshed and ready for more fun in January!.