Guides in Nature Sleepover!

Fall is one of my favourite times of year. I love the vibrant colours, the crisp air, and the breathtaking beauty of the world around me. Last week my Guides had a sleepover to get to know each other, work on some program, and of course have fun! We started our sleepover at a local park where girls just wanted to be kids and play in the leaves. 

After a lot of giggles and leaves we started our nature walk around the park towards the river. We found this really interesting tree and the Guides were fascinated by the bark- look how beautiful it is!

Down at the river was breathtaking. Late afternoon in the fall is quite possibly the most magical time in the world. 

The girls were not only looking at nature around them, they were also (responsibly!) collecting small nature bits for a craft we were going to do later in the sleepover. That is what the paper bags are for. 

 I love this photo! The composition of it is so beautiful and it is a candid! 

This little guide was absolutely fascinated by everything around she was experiencing down by the river. Her exploring is exactly what Guiding is all about. :) 

Oddly enough I didn't take too many pictures at this event, I really just wanted to spend time with my girls. :) After our campfire at the park we went back to our community league and did a few crafts and watched a movie (as a special treat).  

Here is an example of what the nature bits were for! We wrote our names with the nature to make these really cool signs!

I hope you enjoyed the little glimpse into our fall sleepover. 

International Day of the Girl: Guides Edition!

Last week at Guides we celebrated International Day of the Girl by working on the Girl Guides of Canada International Day of the Girl challenge. The theme this year was How are you a Hero? 

 I was so impressed with the superheroes the girls designed for themselves. Here are a few examples of the amazing things they came up with. 

We used sticky notes and posters to answer the big questions of the challenge. I was impressed with the insightful answers the girls came up with for what made the qualities of a hero. 

Make it Monday: Magic Playdough

I just started the school year in grade one and I wanted to start the year off with a bit of fun. I saw a version of this on Pinterest where there was food colouring in the middle, but the thought of six year olds in brand new school clothes and food colouring was a bit terrifying so I went to the next scariest thing... glitter. Even though this was for school, I thought it would be a fun way to start off the Guding year too. 

I used this recipe to make the playdough- I made 3 batches and got about 26 balls of playdough. 

This recipe is from this website.

1 C Flour  

1 C Water  

1/4 C Salt  

1 TBSP Vegetable Oil  

Sauce Pan and Wooden Spoon  

Pour in all ingredients. (No particular order… each time is different for us.. and it always turns out the same.)  

Stir until everything is mixed well.

Once the mixture is (mostly) clump free. Heat over MEDIUM heat.

Stir. Don’t stop stirring. After a few minutes it will start to clump up. (I’m magic!)

Stir, Stir Stir.Just keep stirring until the Play Dough is formed. It will  form one big clump.

Remove from heat, and knead by hand. (This is my favorite part! It’s so warm and squishy!)

Once the play dough was formed I rolled small balls of it and then used my thumb make a hole in the middle. 

Next I carefully poured glitter into the whole so it would not be visible from the outside. 

Last I put a playdough "hat" on the top to completely hide the glitter. 

It was a great surprise for the kids, they loved rolling it out and finding the sparkles inside! 

Here is the little poem I printed on a label and put on the Ziploc bag. It could be adapted for the Guiding year too! 

Meet the Chief!

The Chief Commissioner was in town to instate the new provincial commissioner Beverly Simpson Headon (aka my Senior Branches leader!) and I got to do a few fun events to help out with the weekend events.

 

 

I went to the dinner on Saturday night to see Beverly officially become our next PC. I was really excited for her and I know she is going to do a great job! Mickey thinks so too. :)

 

 

The next morning I was up bright and early to help with a Meet the Chief Carnival open to all girls in the area to come and meet the Chief Commissioner. There was quite a large turn out and I think the girls had a lot of fun!

 

 

I was in charge of the mini golf station where girls tried to get a golf ball in a tin can for a prize. There was a line for most of the time so I think it was a great success!

 

 

The event closed with a campfire led by some Rangers. They did an awesome job and the balloon hats did nothing but add to the fun of the event! It was really cool to see so many girls singing the same songs with face paint and balloons on their heads.  

 

 

Sharon Callahan was very nice and even got her face painted! I am happy to say I have one of her crests and overall it was great fun had by all!

Where in the World is Gofer Guiding District Camp

The day has finally come where I tell you all about our district camp that happened a few weeks ago. It was a ton of work to plan and participate in and I am pleased that it seemed to go off pretty well with beautiful weather and lots of happy campers. I took a few photos (as always "a few" is an understatement) but I thought I would share them! 

The first Saturday of camp started off with a flag ceremony with over 200 people, it was a pretty great way to start the camp-plus all of the girls and leaders were in their official camp wear! 

The whole morning was spent in a round robin of activities where girls participated in activities like 3 legged races... 

Potato sack races...

Creating a district banner with their hand prints on them...

Trusty parachute games....

Games discussing melting polar ice and the effect on the animals in the north...

A globe craft with tissue paper and mod podge...

And my personal favourite, the commissioner's candy store where girls could try different candies from all around the world...

The double salted licorice from the Netherlands was, well, not exactly a hit. :) 

We couldn't have asked for better weather. It was not too hot or too cold and the sun was shining! 

In the afternoon I led the Sparks' session were we made Maasai necklaces out of paper plates and learned some songs and games from other parts of the world. 

I was really impressed by the variety of designs the girls came up with, and they still look like Maasai necklaces!

After supper we had a SWAP meet where it was basically a chaotic mess of girls switching crafts and laughing with each other. I think they had a lot of fun. 

Afterwords we gathered for the best part of any camp, campfire. Each unit was asked to contribute to the campfire program and lead a song so every unit from Sparks to Rangers got to lead a song. It was nice to see so many girls singing together and reminded how important it really is to have large events like this. 

If you haven't seen the post already, here is a link to the Advancement ceremony post I made based on the ceremony my sister and I planned together. It was probably my favourite part of the camp! 

Thanks for reading!