Elizabeth's Guiding Corner

 This week we learned about First Aid and emergency preparedness. We learned about what Paramedics do, when you should call 911, and how to apply a bandaid.  7:00pm - Welcome and Opening 7:10pm - Peel Paramedics Virtual Tour Peel Paramedic Service has put together a series of virtual tours for different age groups. We watched the one aimed at grades 3-5, and in it a paramedic gives a tour of the ambulance, talked about what paramedics do, and gave some safety tips.  7:25pm - How to Apply a Bandaid We went through the steps of how to clean a small cut and put on a bandaid on a stuffed animal. 7:35pm - When to Call 911 We used this  Slideshow  by Anna Cole to talk about when to call 911. The slideshow has a series of scenarios, and we worked as a group to decide what to do in each one. We also talked about what to do if you accidentally call 911 .  7:55pm - Closing This meeting was a lot of fun, and it was a great way to finish off the How To theme.

  This week we combined science and the arts to learn about the science of sound! 7:00pm - Opening and Welcome 7:15pm - Sound Waves We looked at some diagrams of sound waves (From this  slide deck ) and talked about how echoes work, and why small instruments make high sounds and big instruments make low sounds. 7:25pm - Videos We were going to watch some videos of people playing boom whackers and glass bottles (in the slide deck), but to be honest I completely forgot about them. We had some technical difficulties that resulted in the meeting starting a few minutes late, and the girls were ready to start experimenting so we just went straight to that. 7:30pm - Experimenting Once we were done with all the talking, we sent the girls off to experiment. They all brought cups and they filled them with water to make different pitches. I also suggested that they try tapping the cups with different objects to see if they could make different sounds. Then we all shared the songs we...

 Last week we took a virtual trip to the Toronto Zoo. I picked some videos from their YouTube channel ahead of time and put them in a presentation for the girls to vote on. 7:00pm: Welcome and Opening 7:10pm: Virtual "Tour" Here is the presentation  with the videos. There are two videos on each slide, and the girls voted on which one they wanted to watch. We had some extra time so we went back and watched some of the videos that we didn't watch the first time around. My favourite is the penguin video. 7:45pm: Animal Add-On Add-on was one of my favourite drawing games in elementary school, and the great thing about it is that you can play it with pretty much any theme. Here's how to play: The person leading the game picks the starting shape (in the case of an animal theme this would be the shape of the body) The person leading the game then picks other players to add the other parts of the animal (head, ears, eyes, arms, legs, fins, etc). If you have more people that b...

 This week we learned about animal scat! Most of the activities we did were from the lesson plan made by Left Brain Crafts. 7:00pm - Welcome and Opening 7:10pm - Animal poop video We watched a video from the Shedd Aquarium about different kinds of animal poop and why they look the way they do:  Sea Curious: What Does Animal Poop Look Like 7:20pm - Animal poop shapes (from the lesson plan) We used playdoh to make different types of animal poop, and talked about the diets of the animals.  7:30pm - More animal poop facts (from the lesson plan) 7:35pm - Animal poop word search (from the lesson plan) The plan was to put the word search on the screen and have everyone work on it together using the annotate feature, but it didn't work for a lot of the girls so we just went straight to the campfire songs. 7:40pm - Campfire songs! These activities didn't take very long so we sang some of our favourite campfire songs! We sang Fire's Burning, The More We Get Together, 40 Years on a...

 This week was my first week back after a long break, and we did the Shining Rights activity from the World Stage theme. We started by reviewing the difference between needs and wants. What are things that are nice to have and make our life more fun and exciting, and what are things that we need need. Some of the wants were toys and watching TV, and some of the needs were clothes and food. Next we moved onto the Shining Rights activity from the platform. We talked about the Rights of the Child (Food, shelter, play/rest, education, safety), and what they look like in our lives.  If you'd like a template for making the star, you can find it in the World Stage activity book  that I posted last year.

Here's another resource for Pathfinders and Rangers. Last time I gave my tips for planning a meeting, and this time I've used my experiences to put together a step-by-step guide.  Meeting Planning Guide for Pathfinders and Rangers I've summed up planning a meeting into five steps: Pick your badge Pick your activities Finalize the details Run the meeting Evaluate your meeting The guide also includes a graphic organizer to organize the details of the meeting, like the opening activity, main activities, and closing activity, and questions to help evaluate the meeting once it's done. I hope that this helps anyone who wants to plan a meeting but doesn't know how! 

 This week my Brownie unit had a special guest. My mom, a Community Guider in our area, came to our meeting and lead us in some chemistry experiments. We learned about ink chromatography, and the difference between baking soda and baking powder. For those who don't know: Baking soda is a base and when combined with an acid (like vinegar or lemon juice) it produces carbon dioxide. This is what causes the bubbles in a baking soda and vinegar volcano. Baking powder, on the other hand, contains both an acid and a base, and produces bubbles when combined with any liquid.  Here's some more information on the difference between them.   Here's some information on the pH scale. 7:00pm: Opening and welcome 7:10pm: Baking soda and baking powder To show the difference between baking soda and baking powder we did three experiments on each one, mixing them with water, juice, and vinegar. Here's what you'll need for this experiment: Six bowls or glasses Spoons Baking soda Baking p...

 Pathfinders and Rangers, this one's for you! I've lead many meetings throughout my time in Pathfinders and Rangers, and I've also seen many meetings lead by my peers (and myself) that didn't go exactly as planned. So, here's my tips on how to plan a fun and engaging meeting! 1. Prepare questions to guide the discussion Sometimes everyone is engaged in the discussion and it kind of guides itself, but have some questions or prompts ready just incase your unit isn't feeling that talkative. Open ended questions tend to work best as they leave room for many different answers and opinions. 2. Don't be afraid to do "kid" things Just because you are in Pathfinders or Rangers doesn't mean that you can't do crafts, play games, and sing songs. Before the holidays I lead my unit in making SWAPS and singing campfire songs, and we had a great time. 3. Take advantage of online resources A popular attitude right now is that there are so many things that w...

This week we finished up the My Physical Self theme by talking about healthy eating. I took me a while to figure out how to address healthy eating without talking about "good food" and "bad foods" and also make it fun, but I finally got it and the girls had a great time. 7:00 pm: Opening and Welcome 7:10 pm: Fun food vs fuel food We started off the night by talking about different kinds of food, and whether or not they are a fun food or a fuel. Fun foods are foods that are fun to eat, but they don't have a lot of the nutrients that our bodies need. Fuel foods on the other hand have lots of nutrients that help us grow big and strong. Once we were all familiar with the concept, we played a  guessing game to practice identifying fun foods and fuel foods. I showed the Brownies pictures of food and had them give a thumbs up for fun food or make big muscles with their arms for fuel food.  7:25 pm: Video At he end of the game we watched a  video from Kids Learning Tu...

 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...

Hi there! The holidays have really snuck up on a lot of us this year, so here's a list of winter/holiday themed activities that you can do at your virtual holiday party that don't require a lot of preparation. Paper Snowflakes : Super easy, and all you need is scissors and paper. You could make it an upcycling craft by using old newspaper 3D Paper Snowflakes : I learned how to make these in Brownies and I still love making them. All you need is paper, scissors, and tape or a stapler. Like the paper snowflakes, you could use old newspapers as well Have a pajama party! Everyone could show off their favourite pajamas/comfy clothes and introduce their favourite stuffed animal Make decorations for new years eve, You could use these  printable new year party hats  or just make your own decorations with whatever supplies you have on hand. While you make them you can talk about your wishes for the new year Winter bingo : This card in particular has a lot of winter clothes on it, ...

We've done a lot of crafts and arts activities so far this year, so we decided to mix it up a bit with an engineering challenge. As I suggested to my co-Guiders, "Let's launch some stuff!". Before we got into designing and building, I showed them what a catapult is and how they work. We looked at some homemade designs and discussed what items would make a good base, and what we could use as the arm of the catapult. At first I got a lot of blank stares, but they slowly started to come up with some ideas. I put the pictures in a slide deck, which you can find here (the pictures of home made catapults were found on Google Images, they are not my own.):  Catapult Presentation Next we got to building. Everyone started with the same basic supplies that my co-Guider delivered in a supplies drop-off a few weeks earlier. They each got some wooden blocks, rubber bands, popsicle sticks, toothpicks, and some small pieces of foam packaging that we suggested they use as the project...

This year for Remembrance day we learned about how Girl Guides contributed to the war effort, and we made poppies. The Dad of one of our Brownies is in the Army, so he came and spoke briefly about what he does and why he joined the Army. For some of the Brownies this was their first time seeing a soldier in "real life" (through a computer screen), and I think it helped them better understand what remembrance day is all about. Next we moved on to what Girl Guides did during the wars. I showed them some pictures of Girl Guides doing first aid, handing out clothing to displaced families, making supplies for soldiers, and acting as messengers. I took the photos from this blog post and put them into a slideshow:  https://owl-and-toadstool.blogspot.com/search?q=remembrance+day . When we were looking at the photo of the air ambulance I asked the Brownies how much they thought an airplane costs, and one of them said "Probably a lot, like twenty dollars!". Finally we moved o...

So far this year we've been doing a mix of online and outdoor meetings. Usually once the Brownies had learned the promise and law, we would do a promise and law relay race. It's simple, and it uses visuals to help reinforce what they've already learned. This year we needed something to do online, and one of my Guiders came up with a promise and law scavenger hunt. It works pretty much the same way as any other online scavenger hunt. A Guider reads out an item from the list and the girls have a specified amount of time (we said one minute) to find the item. Once everyone has found their item, you could discuss what everyone chose. Item list: I promise: something that represents a promise, or something that you would make a promise on To do my best: something that represents your best To be true to myself: something that makes you unique My beliefs: something that represents your beliefs/values And Canada: something that represents Canada I will take action for a better world...

Every year WAGGGS creates a challenge for the International Day of the Girl, and this year the theme is Hear Me Now. There is a challenge booklet to complete with your unit, which you can find here:  Hear Me Now - IDG 2020 , as well as a social media campaign. Normally I don't post until after a meeting, but since IDG is coming up I figured that I would share my plans now. Specifically a template for the hero emblem activity. The instructions say to have the girl draw a shield and fill it in as per the instructions, but for virtual or anytime Guiding it might be easier for the girls to have a pre-made template. In the fourth quadrant there is space for the girls to write their personal pledge. Even if you aren't doing the challenge, you could use it as a stand-alone activity in the Being You or Your Choice themes. Hero Emblem Template Here is the plan for the meeting: Time Activity Details 7:00 pm Welcome and Opening 7:15 pm “Girl On A Mission” guided meditation [My Mighty Mind...

Hey everyone! After a bizarre back-to-school season, we're back to our weekly meetings. The first week was the usual getting to know all of the new Brownies, and also getting used to the new Covid precautions. Unfortunately I wasn't able to be there that week, but apparently everything went smoothly. This week the weather was cool and rainy so we decided to move our meeting online. We took this as an opportunity to introduce the Brownie Promise and Law. We used the promise and law mini books from owl-and-toadstool.blogspot.com , and discussed what we thought each line meant. And then we gave the girls some time to colour while we talked about how school has been for them so far. 

Step-by-step instructions on how to use Google Meet. Includes how to schedule a meeting as well as how to moderate. How to Use Google Meet