Elizabeth's Guiding Corner

 I've created this activity sheet for Sparks and Brownies about diversity and how our differences make us unique. Each pizza topping represents a different trait or interest, and the girls create their pizza slice based on the instructions for each topping. Diversity Pizza Activity Sheet

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...

This week was a bit of a catch-up week. We started with the Advocacy Adventure activity from the Girls First platform. We had planned to do it last week, but we ran out of time. This activity illustrates nicely how making a difference in your community isn't always a huge task. Sometimes it's something small like writing a letter to the principle of your school to ask what is being done about bullying, or making posters to raise awareness about the lack of sports opportunities for girls. And if it does feel like it's too big to do on your own, you can always reach out to friends, teachers, Guiders, and other community members to share the load. Our second activity was making origami whales. We've given our second-year Brownies a chance to teach a skill, and one of them chose origami. She did a great job showing us the steps and answering questions.  We're taking a week off next week for Canada day, and then we are going to meet every other week going forward.

Our virtual meetings have been fun, but I feel like we've been missing some of the Girl Driven planning. A lot of our go-to brainstorming methods require being able to move around, like dot-mocracy or picking sides, but you know what doesn't? A survey! The easiest way that I know how to make a survey is Google Forms, You can send a link to your families, and they don't need a Google account to fill it out. I know some other people who prefer Survey Monkey, since you don't need a Google account to make the survey. Most of the questions were around our summer meetings. We wanted to know from our Brownies and their families how often they want to meet over the summer, and what they want to do.  I also included a list of basic craft supplies and asked them to check off the ones that they have at home. That way we can pick crafts that everyone will have the supplies for.  Most of them picked every-other week, and we've had a lot of requests for more crafts.

An Activity book for Brownies to earn the Your Choice theme badge. Your Choice Badge Activity Book

I've been searching for a while, and I've finally found some resources and activities to teach kids about race and racism, Most of these are resources for teachers, and so they are mostly reading, writing, and discussion based. But I'm sure that with some Girl Guide ingenuity you could adapt them to be a bit more interactive. You know what they say, use your resources wisely! Sesame Street Town Hall on Racism Spark/Brownie On Saturday June 6th at 10:00 am Eastern Time, CNN and Sesame Street are doing a town hall on racism and the protests that have been happening in the United States and other countries around the world. The streaming locations are listed in the article. RacismNoWay! All Branches This website includes lesson plans for all subjects that integrate anti-racism activities into the lesson. RacismNoWay is an Australian-based organization, but most of the lessons could be tailored to a Canadian perspective. Teaching and Learning About Race and Racism All Branches ...