Visiting Our Chalet for Christmas!

Our second trip through the World Centres had us wind up in Switzerland at Our Chalet for Christmas! We learned about Switzerland and some of the amazing things you can do when you visit there. We shared some artifacts from Our Chalet and then Heather shared her video slideshow from when she volunteered there in 2012. We learned the Our Chalet song and then got right into some crafts!

The craft we picked for this meeting is called Scherenschnitte which means "scissor cuts" in German. It is an intricate and beautiful art form that the girls enjoyed doing and they had great results. 

Some final pieces of art completed! I think they did a fantastic job!

Some of the marshmallows, apples, bananas, and pretzels before they were dipped in chocolate and eaten right up. Yum! 

Nothing like some chocolate fondue to celebrate Swiss culture! 

2 down, 2 to go! 

Visiting Our Cabaña for Day of the Dead!

This year our unit decided that we wanted to use a different take on learning about world Guiding and world cultures. We decided that we would celebrate a holiday at each World Centre and do activities from each of the countries. We started off with a "trip" to Mexico to celebrate the Day of the Dead. We also learned a lot about Our Cabaña like the origins of it, where it is, what you can do there, and the song. A lot of the girls finished the meeting by saying they would like to visit there someday so I say it was a success!

We coloured and cut out our own sugar skull masks to use at our Day of the Dead party- the girls loved using colours and designs to make their masks unique! 

My mask with the tissue paper marigolds on the altar. 

The girls loved dancing around with their masks- they somehow ended up in a conga line which was pretty funny! 

We played a game using pennies and a pencil with a piece of paper wrapped around it with instructions. You would spin the pencil and then follow what it says (for example take two, give all, take all, etc.) I guess it is a bit of a betting game but we had the girls return them when we were done so no gambling here. :) 

This is the most delicious bread ever! It is called Pan de Muertos or Dead Bread and we had it on our altar to share later on. You can find the recipe here.

Our completed altar with memories of loved ones we have lost, offerings of candies, flowers, and food, and candles. It was amazing to see how the girls responded to seeing it all put together, they were reverent, but also very happy about what they had created. 

Here are a few of the sugar skulls one of the girls made for our altar. 

Overall the Day of the Dead was a great success! The girls learned a lot and of course had a lot of fun!

One World Centre down- 3 to go! 

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!