Elizabeth's Guiding Corner

 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.

 Hi Everyone! As you may have noticed, I haven't posted in a few weeks. Don't worry though, I'll be back to weekly posts soon enough, once my school schedule winds down again after Easter. Here's what I've been up to in the mean time: I finally did modules three and four of the Diversity and Inclusion training. I really like that it talks a lot about bias and assumptions. A lot of people aren't aware of how their own bias and past experiences influence the decisions that they make. Module four was my favourite, where we broke into small groups and used all the skills we'd been learning about to plan an event and consider all the barriers that might stop people from attending. I also attended the Leg Up training convention. I did a few sessions, but my favourite was the Gather Town social event. It was so cool to "walk around" and talk and play games with other people. I met some people that I follow on Instagram, and some people even recognized me ...

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...