Elizabeth's Guiding Corner

 This week we started working on the My Physical Self badge! I wasn't sure how well this meeting would work out, but at the end of the meeting the girls said that they had a lot of fun! 7:00 pm: Opening and welcome I asked the girls if they did anything fun this week and most of them said that they couldn't remember. We're under a stay-at-home order right now, so that's pretty fair. 7:10 pm: Sports Charades This activity is super simple, all you need is a list of sports . I privately messaged each girl a sport and they acted it out for the rest of the group. Any guesses the girls had went in the chat to avoid everyone yelling over each other. 7:30 pm: Sock Ball Bingo I heard about  Sock Ball Bingo in the spring and I've been waiting a while to try it out. I was super fun, and all each girl needed was a bingo card and a ball (or a pair of socks, as the name suggests). Instead of using the pre-made bingo cards that are included with the game instructions, I had all t...

This past weekend we had our second virtual camp. Our first one was last spring and it went over very well with the girls and their parents, so we decided to do it again! Here's the schedule and the booklet that we sent out to the Brownies and their families: Virtual Winter Camp Booklet Friday Night: 6:30 pm - Camp opening and tent tours All the girls built blanket forts for our night of camping, so we started camp by giving each other tours.  It wasn't that cold so I slept outside 7:00 pm - Camping scavenger hunt Our girls really like scavenger hunts so I included a camping scavenger hunt in our activities. This one was pretty basic, just a list of things we might bring on a camping trip like a flashlight, mittens, a winter hat, and a sleeping bag. 7:30 pm - Edible campfire One of our girls specifically asked to learn how to make a campfire and this was a fun way to do this that didn't involve any actual fire. In the booklet I included a list of suggestions for the differe...

 This week we finally got around to introducing the Discovery Badges to our Brownies. We decided that the best way to teach them how to earn a badge at home was to earn one as a group. As we did the activities I shared my screen and filled out the Maker badge activity sheet (from the  Discovery Badge activity sheets ) so that the Brownies knew which activities went where. Here's what we did: Connect:  For the connect section we learned about NASA aerospace engineer Tiera Fletcher. We also learned a bit about what aerospace engineers do, and how the things they make help us in our daily lives (like the satellites that make our car GPS work).  Here's the slide deck I used. Create: For the  create section we made paper airplanes. We made two different designs and compared how well they flew ( Here's the instructions for the planes we made ). The plan was that the Brownies would make a modification to one of the planes and see if their modification made it fly bette...

One of my favourite Guiding activities is a campfire. Singing together is the perfect way to end a day at camp, or to close a weekly meeting. We can't sing in person due to the Covid-19 precautions, but that doesn't mean that we can't have a campfire online! Here are the steps that I go through to plan a virtual campfire. Step 1: Choose your song list For Brownies I like to keep it simple. One or two opening songs, some energetic favorites, a few traditional songs, and then taps. Repeat-after-me songs are great, especially if you are inviting other family members to join in. I've found that we can usually do a few more songs online than we would in person. Step 2: Create a slide deck with the lyrics If your video conferencing platform allows you to share your screen, then I would suggest putting the song lyrics into PowerPoint, Google Slides, or other format where everyone can see them. This makes it easy to teach new songs, and it's great for family members who mig...