Movie Making

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:

1. Brainstorm - Come up with ideas for your topic, setting and characters.
2. Who, What, When, Where, Why - Create a brief overview of your movie, answering the 5 W questions.
3. Storyboard - Design each scene in your movie on paper, including what each character will do.
4. Scrip -  Write your script to match each scene on your storyboard.
5. Produce - Create your props, costumes, cartoons, LEGO structures, etc. and rehearse your movie.
6. Film - Check in with a Guider and make your movie a reality!
7. 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:

• What Are Storyboards? (Scholastic)
• Stop-Motion Animation (National Film Board of Canada)

September & October with the Pathfinders & Rangers

This year, our Pathfinder Unit will be almost completely girl-led as the Guider responsible for Pathfinders, is also the main Guider for the Guide Unit and the units will be meeting on the same night due to space and leadership constraints. This means that it may take us longer to complete activities, but will also mean that the girls will tackle all aspects of leadership!

Our Guiding Year started off with a Pizza and Planning night Friday, September 11th. Time was spent socializing and catching up as well as starting to make plans for the year.

The first regular meeting was held on Tuesday, September 15th where we made decoupage notebook covers. While crafting, the girls discussed roles and responsibilities within the unit, items needed for the 'Pathfinder Supply Box', and activities to focus on over the next few weeks. they also planned some night games for next week.

Our second meeting of September was spent at Seneca Park with the Guides where we started to work on the Finding Your Way Module and led night games. See more here -  caledoniaguiding.blogspot.ca/2015/09/geocaching-hike-night-games.html

We finished September with a Photo Scavenger Hunt around town.

October began with the International Day of the Girl where we made Wordles using our first names and learned about Women in STEM through a discussion and matching game. The Pathfinders joined the Guides at the end of the meeting to take part in our 'practical STEM' activity - making Armpit Fudge!

The next week, we had a Planning Meeting to determine activities up to the Christmas holidays, including a 'Pathfinder Day' to be held in November.

Movie Night was next and the girls settled in to watch "The Nightmare Before Christmas" to get themselves into a Hallowe'en-y mood. This was followed by a Hallowe'en party to finish off the month. At their party, the girls ate donuts off strings, played a Scent Kim's Game, had Hallowe'en-themed snacks, and did Mad Libs.

Fall Fun With the Rangers

Our Ranger Unit has an irregular schedule and makes full use of Facebook to plan meetings and events. We may not meet often, but when we do, we always have fun!

We started the year off in September by ordering Chinese food and watching the movie "Brave". After the movie was over, we started making plans for our weekend in Toronto in November.

In October, we had a baking night to make shortbread and complete the requirements for the
"Ready, Steady, Glasgow!" Challenge. Baking is always fun - especially when there are such tasty results!


Recipe for Brown Sugar Shortbread (Scottish)
1 cup (250 mL) Butter (no substitutions)
1/2 cup (125 mL) Light Brown Sugar, packed
2 cups (500 mL) All-Purpose Flour
1/4 tsp (1 mL) Salt
1/4 tsp (1 mL) Baking Powder

Cream the butter thoroughly. While beating, gradually add the sugar.
Set aside 1/4 cup (60 mL) flour for rolling the dough. Sift the rest of the flour with the salt and baking powder. Add the butter mixture, mixing well. The dough should feel like putty.
Flour the rolling out surface lightly. Roll the dough out to an even 1/2 inch (1.3 cm) thickness. Cut into fingers, squares, or rounds. Prick each with a fork several times.
Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake in a 350 F (180 C) oven until lightly browned, about 20-25 minutes (thinner pieces may take as little as 15 minutes). Remove to a wire rack to cool.
Store in a tightly covered tin. Makes approximately 24 pieces.
(Source: This recipe was published in the Hamilton Spectator a few years ago, unfortunately the date and any author information has been cut off the copy I have.)

The remainder of this meeting and our other meeting in October were spent planning our weekend in Toronto. We also spent time talking about College/University preparations and choosing a career. This was a spontaneous conversation as 3 out of 4 Rangers are in Grade 12 and will be heading onto their next adventure come September.

November saw us traveling to Toronto for 3 packed days - see post here.

December was a short month with the holidays. We spent our meeting time brainstorming and making plans for the Ranger Service Project - the last piece needed to complete the Chief Commissioner's Gold Award, and also to earn the Commonwealth Award. The service project list has been narrowed down and a final project will be chosen in the new year. For the Commonwealth Award we will be learning more about Fiji, and are looking forward to finding recipes and enjoying a Fijian meal.

March & April with the Rangers

In March the Rangers continued to work on their toothbrush/toothpaste holders and on in the last week of the month we had a movie night to watch the movie Frozen and made our own pizza.

In April, we sold cookies at Sears with the Guides and Pathfinders.

January & February with the Pathfinders

January started off with a craft night where we made decorated badge boxes and ribbon-covered pens.  The boxes were plastic photo cases decorated with craft paper/cardstock, stickers and drawings. The pens were made by wrapping a length of ribbon around the pen and gluing it at both ends. Then a felt 'tuft' was added the end.

Our second meeting was spent making plants for our January, February and March meetings. We looked at all the different places in town we could go to and tried to think of things we could do there, then we made lists of things we could do for different amounts of money. Later, we started planning activities for Thinking Day, using the WAGGGS Activity Pack and other resources. Our last activity for the evening was to come up with a schedule of meetings until the end of March. We had lots of ideas and were able to come up with a good list, with some activities being held over until the spring.


On January 22nd we had a Movie Night and watched Cheaper By the Dozen 2. The girls enjoyed the movie, snacks and lots of social time.

Our final January meeting was spent working on the Fashion Sense From Head to Toe Module. The girls were asked to wear their favourite outfit and then tell why it is their favourite (or if they weren't wearing it, to tell what their favourite outfit is). We looked at the "stylebook" that was created by Pathfinders about 3 hears ago and talked about how styles and fashions have changed in that short a period of time - hairstyles, make-up, clothing - everything came in for comment. Some of the girls had brought fabric and/or pieces of clothing that could be altered and they busied themselves in creating new fashion designs from old. We finished the meeting by talking about current fashions - are they good for everyone? What makes them popular?

February was a busy month with Winter Camp and Thinking Day. We had to cancel our first meeting of the month due to bad weather - a snowstorm that came in during the day.

Because of the cancellation, our first meeting was held on February 12th. This was to be our planning meeting for camp activities, the Murder Mystery evening and Thinking Day. Unfortunately, only 4 girls were present. First, we made a list of activities to do at camp. We are camping with the Guides and Rangers, but each branch will have time to do their own programming. The rest of the meeting was spent going through the activities planned for Thinking Day. This way, the girls became familiar with the activities they would be leading at our town-wide Thinking Day event.

On Friday night, we were off to Winter Camp! See the post - Guide/Pathfinder/Ranger Winter Camp 2014.



Tuesday, February 18th was our town-wide Thinking Day celebration. Unfortunately, only 2 Pathfinders came, but fortunately the Rangers pitched in to help make sure the event was a success. See the post - World Thinking Day 2014

Our final meeting of February was about Respect, Responsibility, Manners, and Etiquette. Again, we had a small attendance so some activities have been held over until everyone is present. We started the meeting with social time and then a group puzzle to change the word 'thank you' into the word 'please'. We then talked about Thinking Day - what went well, what didn't, and what could we do differently next time. The two girls who were at the event expressed their frustration with the other girls for not being there and we talked about the importance of taking responsibility for your actions. Next, we did a team quiz about manners and then had a snack (thank you Emily!). The last part of the meeting was spent making up skits about responsibility in pairs. Some of the scenarios were:

• You are watching your favourite television program and you remember that you have a science project due tomorrow.
• Your grandmother asks you to watch your younger brother while she goes to the store to get milk.
• Your row in class has been assigned a group project. You are supposed to do research, but would rather play soccer after school than go to the library
• Your sister isn't feeling well and your parents ask you to take over her chores for the weekend.
• It's supper time and you're in the middle of an important texting conversation with a friend.
• Your coach asks you to come to practice on time and you'd rather hang out with your friends.

November & December with the Rangers

November was a busy month for everyone and we were unable to meet. Two Rangers assisted at the Grace United Church House Tours & Bazaar on November 16th, one Ranger joined the Guides and Pathfinders at the McMaster Planetarium, and one Ranger and one Guider sold cookies with the Sparks at the end of November.

December started off with our annual Pathfinder/Ranger Service Project Sleepover. We made 8 dozen cookies for the church to pack into boxes for people spending Christmas alone, 5 plates full of decorated sugar cookies for an assisted living facility, and Soup-in-a-Jar and Cookies-in-a-Jar for Martha House, a Women's Shelter in Hamilton. We ordered pizza and the girls spent time crafting and socializing.

We got together again on December 21st for a movie night and watched "The Grinch" with Jim Carrey and ate sweet & salty popcorn, hot chocolate, chocolate covered almonds and lemonade.

Over the Christmas holidays, we got together on December 29th to spend time crafting. We made dry erase boards using frames and squares of card stock (in place of paint chips) and prepared the washcloths to make toothbrush/toothpaste holders at our next meeting. Both ideas are from Pinterest and can be found by clicking on the images.

May and June with the Rangers

We did not meet in May due to a Guider vacation and Guide Camp at the end of the month.

On Saturday, June 1st the Rangers sold cookies during the town-wide yard sale day.

Our next two meetings were of a very "light-hearted" nature and we made made plans for our Toronto trip in the fall and discussed what to do for a year-end activity.

Our final meeting was a movie night with snacks.

Everyone is looking forward to camp in the fall and we hope to make plans to go swimming and spend a day at the beach during the summer.