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!