Saturday, November 29, 2014

A Spark-ling First Aid Kit

We are now many years from the time when I was a Brownie (and Guide, and Pathfinder), and when I was a Brownie, we made small first aid kits out of a film canister.  No one, now, uses film canisters.  So what to do when you want to make a small first aid kit with Sparks, so they can clean an dress small wounds, but not break the bank with expensive cases?

Two worlds - soap box.


So we started by putting a band-aid on the outside of the box and writing our names on it.  



Then we filled it together, talking about each and every thing that we added.

So here's the list of things in our first-aid kit for those who would like to try their own hand(s) at these -

-travel sized bottle of hand sanitizer
-two cotton balls
-small candy
-one 2" square of gauze
-two four inch lengths of first aid tape wrapped around a straw
-three q-tips
-six band-aids (of varied sizes)
-two butterfly bandages, for larger wounds
-a small pot of ointment (polysporin)

That little paint pot was awesome.  I bought from the dollar store these six little paint pots that were all stuck together on the same long stick of plastic, then I cut them apart from each other and added a small bit of polysporin to each one.  It's great because it's small enough to fit in the first aid kit, and seals easily, even with a five year old trying it herself!

The most expensive two items in the kit were the 2" gauze squares and the polysporin.  Between our eleven Sparks, we used a whole small tube of polysporin.

Then we practised cleaning small cuts on some small dollies that I brought with me.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Alberta Passport to Fun and Fitness Challenge


So this week we completed the Passport to Fun and Fitness Challenge.

We decided to tie this into our Being Healthy Keeper.  This was also my new coleaders first ever meeting that she planned all on her own!  I'm so proud of her.  She was never in girl guides, but her daughter has just started and loves the program!  Here's to many more years!

We started with the girls doing a bit of Yoga.  This is made a little easier for us, because the local Yogi is also an elementary school teacher, and did a unit with most of the school on Yoga last month.  We concentrated on the breathing, and relaxing, as having a healthy mind is also so important.

After Yoga, we learned a little bit of hip-hop.  We have a Brownie this year in Sparks, as the time conflicts with her dance classes, so she got to earn the Show Your Talent for Dance Badge while everyone else was learning a bit of hiphop.  She demonstrated a few moves, then helped the Sparks try them out.  We did something she called the reverse cowboy, as well as the Zombie Walk.  Before the Sparks started to dance we had them take the pulse and then take it again after dancing.  Then we told them a little about how the heart is a muscle and it has to exercise too!

Then we played tag.  Just plain old regular tag.  Then we had the girls give ideas of how to make it a new type of tag, and vote on which one we'd play.  It has to do with some markers, everyone carrying around some paper and a rubber chicken.  They loved it.  They called it Spark Tag, and I think that it might end up a regular kind of thing!

Finally we laid out supplies for parfait, and had they make up their own parfait.  Emerald brought yogurt, granola, and three different kinds of berries.  That being said, if we had to do it again, we would have bought more yogurt!

While eating, we sat in a circle and talked about breakfast, why it's important to eat a breakfast and what's in a healthy breakfast.

Sledding Outside

Wow - have I ever neglected this blog!

I'm going to start with our latest meeting, then work both backwards and forwards until I've caught up!



So this week we went sledding.  The big thing about sledding with Sparks is making sure they are dressed appropriately for spending an hour outside.  So the week before we reviewed with the girls what they'd need to wear, and it seemed to work.  Of the 10 girls who showed up, 9 were dressed appropriately, which is far better than our big bridging event that we had in October (more on that later).

Our kit list for sledding/fort building:  snowpants, winter jacket, warm boots, hat, two pairs of mittens and a scarf.

We sled at our local middle school.  There are two really great places to go sledding there, as well as a couple of large mountains of snow.

We started by sledding.  That also gave the girls something to do after their parents had dropped them off and we were waiting for a few stragglers.

After the sun went down we stopped for a circle picnic in the parking lot and drank down some hot chocolate, or Chai tea.  I made the hot chocolate extra strong and hot, so they filled their little cups up with clean snow, then the hot chocolate was poured overtop.  While they were drinking we talked to them about keeping their sleds at home, and how to clean them and store them so they would last a long time.

Then we headed to the big snow hill.  It's a hill that's created by plowing the school parking lot.  The girls made some tunnels through the center of the hill and had a great time.

Afterwards we split the girls up for the last ten minutes.  If they wanted to go sledding again, they went with me, and if they wanted to continue on with the fort, they stayed with Emerald.  They split evenly between the two groups (yay).  Please note for guiders - our snow hill and the sledding hill were less than 20 meters from each other, and were in full view to the other guider.

Parents started to arrive soon after to pick up their kids.  You know that it's gone well when the chorus is "do I have to go?"  "awww...." and "just one more run!!"


We did hand out badges on the way out.  They got our district and area badges, as I\d just picked them up from our area meeting, their Being Healthy Keeper and their Passport to Fun and Fitness Alberta (we completed it last week).

We decided this year to give out badges just once a month.  I staple them to a 3x5 index card with the girls' name on it, and write where each badge is supposed to go on the sash.  Very few of our parents were in Guiding when they were young, so they really appreciate it!