Francophone Books

Here's the link to the Quebec Council's shop webpage - where you can order the books!

We have a Francophone pair of sisters in our units this year.  I was talking to mum and dad at the end of October and realized that while they may speak ok English, they have a hard time reading in English, and the English books they'd gotten for their daughters were just kinda sitting around their house, not being read at all.  Let's face it - definitely at Spark age, and mostly at Brownie age, parents need to at least help their child read the books.

So how do we fix this problem?

I remembered reading (I can't remember where, might have been ANY Guide News, our Area Newsletter, The Guidepost or Canadian Guider) somewhere that there was a special printing of the Guide books (all of them, not just Sparks and Brownies) and that you could purchase them.


So I checked with Quebec - follow the link under the picture - you fill out their form, and (for a much higher fee) will send you the books that are in French!  I can't wait to see the smiles on their little faces!

As a warning, though, the books are expensive, as is the shipping fee.  I'll be contacting our provincial office on Monday to see if they'll subsidize the fee at all.  As leaders, however, we have decided that we will make sure the parents don't have to pay more than other parents do for the book.

Christmas Guider Meeting

For our Guider Meeting this year our Commissioner had a few cool ideas.

The first is that we were going to train right before the meeting.  Our training adviser spent the first half hour doing a SafeGuide training.  It's a great idea to put training in a Guider Meeting - first of all we are all there to begin with, and secondly - it's always important to do the training.  Makes it a bit easier to do the leading that we're trying to do!


Then we had our meeting.


Then we had a gift exchange.  For the gifts our challenge was that the gift we brought for exchange had to be handmade by us.  I made a scarf, and others bought homemade jams, chocolates, bubble bath, Christmas decorations, and a decorated planter with plant!

One of the other leaders made up a pass left/right game using all of our names and it was a blast!

Volunteering!

This week we went to our local senior's centre to volunteer.

The girls made a simple craft, sang a few standard Christmas songs (we have a few Francophone girls so we also sang a verse of Petit Papa Noel).

Then the lodge gave the girls a small snack and then we went home.

Supercrafting!

Tonight we did the Super Crafts badge.  We originally thought about doing the Famous Five Challenge - but we want to do that in the spring as a tea party outside, so we did Super Crafts.  This is a badge that we try to do every year, because it's always a big crowd pleaser!

So for a woven craft, the girls created this heart.  I chopped construction paper in half, and then made the upward cuts for the girls.  They got to choose two contrasting colours and weave them together,

Brown Owl's group used playdoh to create an animal.

Sunshine Owl's group wrapped themselves in toilet paper as quickly as they could.

Finally we had the girls practice some songs that we are going to perform next week.  We are heading into our local senior's lodge to make crafts with the residents and sing to them.  

Showshoeing with Brownies

The joy of snowshoeing across a frozen landscape was ours this week.  That being said, did you know that you can practice snowshoeing on grass?  You have to be careful to make sure that they don't start running over gravel, but if you have a meadow at your Guide camp like we do, a little no-snow snowshoeing can be had!

First we talked a little bit about the history of snowshoeing, how to take care of your snowshoes and a quick tutorial in how to walk in snowshoes.  Then two of our three circles went off with Brown Owl to one side of the meadow to build snowmen and have hot chocolate and the other pone came to the other three leaders, who started putting on snowshoes and getting them to play follow the leader with a Guide that came along to help out.

After follow the leader there was a little time for snowshoe ball.  You take a small ball and they try to put it on their snowshoe to move it about and get it through the other team's net.

The girls earned their Active Living Special Interest Badge for this.  You could also do the Winter Is Fun badge - we gave those girls who hadn't earned it Winter is Fun and the others the Special Interest Badge.



If you have a Guide camp near your meeting place, do check out and see if they have snowshoes.  Ours has the old style ones, but the girls still had a blast and it's something that many don't get a chance to do with their families or on their own!

Je Me Souviens

Click here for crests.

We went to our community Remembrance Day today.  The girls were able to help others to their seats, place a wreath and before we left an active service member came over and told us that she used to be in Guides and answered the girls' questions.

All in all, a day full of remembrances.

Brownie Stomp

Since our Brownies have a long weekend over Remembrance Day, we decided to hold a sleepover Wednesday/Thursday for the girls.  We had a great turnout - I put that on us having told the parents about the date of the sleepover when they first registered with us in September.

Click here for the crest we gave the girls.

Our Brown Owl calls a sleepover like this a stomp - because we get all over town :-)

Brown Owl also is a bus driver, so we got a really sweet deal on our bus to get to all the stops.

We asked our parents to make sure the girls had eaten before they arrived.  They arrived at 630 - set up their beds, and then we were on the road at 7.  First stop?  Our local vet.  They took the girls on a tour of the clinic, then showed them all the surgical equipment they use, and the wall of things they've pulled out of dogs and cats' stomachs.

Second stop - RCMP

The girls got to take home a pack of RCMP stickers, a Safety Bear Activity Book, and a paper hat.  They got a tour of the RCMP detachment, they got to interview a female RCMP member who was there, and they got to go back into cells and see the jailer.

Then we went bowling.  Some girls loved it, some hated it, but they all had a fun time.  The girls were getting hungry by this point -

So then we went to our local pizza place, made our own individual pizzas and took them back to the church to eat.

Then we got the girls to bed.  The whispering didn't stop until after midnight, and the girls were up at 630 the next morning.  After making sure the leaders had their coffee, we laid out breakfast while the girls packed up their things and put them down by the front door for easier pickup by parents.

Our church charges a small fee for overnights, but more if we use their kitchen.  Because we ate pizza the night before and had a cold breakfast in the morning, our costs were lowered by about 50%.  Huzzah!  We had apple juice boxes, muffins, yogurt and a couple of fruit platters for the girls to dig into.

If you're planning a night like this yourself, this is how we kept costs down.
-most places will give tours for free.  RCMP and Vet Clinic were free.
-ask your parents if any of them drive bus.  Our Brown Owl is able to use a community bus, but a school bus driver may be able to ask about borrowing the bus to their bus line, or be able to drive a bus that you rent yourself, saving you money that you'd have to pay the driver.
-ask about the place you're staying over giving you a discount if you don't use all the facilities.  (ie kitchen).  It's great to cook with the girls, but we will be doing that at our spring camp out, and they still got to make their own pizza.
-the bowling alley has a discount for schools or groups.  You could always ask if they have a special discount, or are able to give you a discount because Guides is a non-profit.

SSSS Badge

We had a special guest tonight at Brownies - Nana Owl.  Nana Owl is a retired teacher (and trefoil guild member) that comes into Brownies about once a year when we do something music-related.  The SSSS badge worked well for her.  We asked her what she'd like to do this year, and she mentioned that she'd love to bring in her West African Drums and drum with the girls.  That reminded me of a craft that I did with my Sparks a few years ago, and after a few tweaks we decided to run with it!

When we originally did this craft we used shot-sized red solo cups.  The Dollarama sells their own brand of wine-sized cups that are slightly bigger, though not as big as solo cups, and are a perfect size!  Secondly, instead of masking tape, we used duct tape (and I found sparkly tape at Dollarama as well and the girls had a field day with it) - three pieces of duct tape about two inches longer than the opening works best.  I pre-hot glued them together before Brownies.  Gives the glue enough time to dry.

Then we made Brownie Phones.  We used cotton wool from Wal-Mart.  A small ball was enough for 21 Brownies. And we used about two yards for each phone.

Then Nana Owl arrived for the last half hour.  She went through drumming with the girls, answered their questions about her time in West Africa, and talked about what we can hear anywhere.

Finally - we've been working with our Brownies on their knots.  They've all mastered their Reef Knots, so we decided that the next knots should be a stopper knot (chose the double stopper) and the two knots for flags, Sheet Bent and Clove Hitch.  I made up three sets of these, one for each sixes' box.

Traditional Enrollment

Twist me and turn me - those are some powerful words to me, and I have to admit that I tear up every year during enrollment.


This year with the girls we chose a traditional enrollment.  The toadstool sitting on a carpet of grass, surrounding a small pool of water with a mirror inside it.  We doubled our brownies from last year to this year (proof we are doing something right, right?) so all the new girls came up with their sixers and seconds, and were enrolled by them one at a time.

After twisting and turning they got to shake hands with the District Commissioner, then our Area Commissioner, then Brown Owl.

They got certificates, their title tape, enrollment pin, year pin and circle patch.


Around the toadstool we put two of the crafts they've done with their key to Brownies (and then they got to take them home).

The first was a toadstool made from recycled egg cartons.

The second were pinecones stuffed with cotton balls and two googly eyes.

Which Way Badge

A few weeks ago we went to a local corn maze.

A wonderful thing about the world of Guiding is finding a sister Scout who has a great idea for your Brownies at a corn maze.

Before we got there, she sent her Eagle Scout into the corn maze and had him create a compass map for the girls to use.

The girls were divided into groups, and went into the corn maze with a leader, two compasses and a compass map.  The map basically read "go to the first fork and then go" insert compass point directions.  Halfway through the maze they ran across Brown Owl, who took back the compass map and gave them an overhead view of the maze, with a North pointing arrow and a "you are here" dot.


Once they got out of the maze we showed them how to find south using moss on trees, and how to tell time using the sun.


Then they got to run off to the jungle gym that bordered the maze and play.



On the way back the bus ride was full of laughing, chattering, singing Brownies.

Opening

Our first week started with learning the Brownie song, as well as the songs for all of our sixes.  Our numbers doubled this year!  Wow! We must be doing something right!  As leaders we want the sixers and seconds to do a little bit more of the leading this year, so wanted to give them each their own space.

Each board was made out of one of the three-fold boards that you can use for science fair projects, I found pictures of each of the creatures, and we put the promise, motto, law, sign, how to tie your tie, along with the Brownie song and the circle song for that circle.  This year we have Elves, Fairies, Gnomes and Kelpies.  (Which reminds me, why are kepies in red hats when they're horse mermaids?)

Brown Owl took them when I was done to mac-tac the pictures down.  

Then we had the girls make themselves Promise cards out of this owl pattern.  We had all the hearts precut for them, and the center of the belly had the promise printed on them.  We used leftover foam sheets and construction paper - trying to use our resources wisely!

Random End of Year Musings....

Last week the Sparks visited the Brownies and the Brownies visited the Guides.  Since my daughter is a second year Brownie, I went with the Brownies to Guides to keep ratio.  

At Guides, the girls did half of the Guide science badge.  They made a polymer, a lava lamp, and started a seed gestating.

I got home after the Guide meeting, and a long week, to find a present in my mailbox from Girl Guides Alberta - a key ring with two removable coins for shopping carts.  It brightened my whole day and I decided to pay that forward.

Our unit's Brown Owl has a hard time finding a tuque that fits - so using the pattern from the Fall 2015 Canadian Guider - I made her a hat!  I made it quite a bit bigger than the original pattern - and I also added the words Brown Owl after the trefoil design.

Backwards Camp

Our Brownie Camp this year is Backwards Camp!

When we broke the girls up into their groups for camp chores, we had them pick Palindrome names.  Palindromes are phrases or words that are the same backwards and forwards.

The group names we gave the girls to pick from are as follows -

TACO CAT  -  CAMP MAC  -  DR AWKWARD  -  EVIL OLIVE  -  GO DOG  -  I DID DID I?  -  KAYAK  -  LLAMA MALL  -  NURSES RUN  -  RACECAR  -  STAR RATS  -  TOP SPOT  -  TUNA NUT  -  WE FEW

The girls chose Top Spot and Go Dog as their team names.

Friday night we had campfire, mug up and went off to bed.

Saturday we - set up a 28 sign trail signs course for the girls and had them complete it in pairs (it was through the woods, so each pair had a leader following them to make sure they were ok), practiced our knots (slip knot, bow, reef, half hitch and sheetshank), made suncatchers by melting plastic pony beads in metal cookie cutters, practiced our lashings, and then make a weaving out of them and wove in feathers and grass from camp, made memory bags on a sewing machine, had an egg hunt, wrote messages backwards on paper for a partner, made our own dinner and snack, had two campfires (one run by our Guide helper so she could get her campfire leader badge), and had two flag ceremonies!

Since it was backwards/break the rules camp the girls got to have their dessert first for every meal, and we also had breakfast for dinner and dinner for breakfast.

With the suncatchers, we had each girl make two - one to keep and one to give away.  We're dropping off the suncatchers at meals on wheels in our community to drop off when they drop the meals off.

Our suncatchers - use an old cookie tray, they leave bits of plastic behind!

Weaving and Lashing

Another weaving and lashing - the girls could choose three sticks or four.

Our campfire!

We had the best weather!  Oftentimes Alberta in April is either rainy or snowy, which ends up giving the girls a bit of cabin fever!  It was +19 on Saturday, so we spent 90% of our time outdoors soaking up the fresh air and sunshine!

Building Birdhouses

Our local Home Depot no longer offers Birdhouse Building classes for kids.  They do, however, have boxes of these birdhouses in the back and were more than happy to let us build some on our own!

We used this as a great opportunity for our Brownies to bring their parents with them to help build the birdhouses.  We did ask them to make sure that the Brownies were doing the work - not their parent!

Brown Owl, bless her, had a bunch of different high-quality paints to paint them with.

Multifaceted Training 2016

A few weekends ago I got to go to a Guider training weekend in Red Deer, called Multifaceted.  On top of being an awesome weekend of friends, training and fun, we got a crest for going!

There were five sessions, and I got to learn about Adventure Camping, Food for Adventure Camping, Volunteer Management, Financials, and learned a bit about Building Strong Teams.  As a whole group we played around the world in 80 minutes, learned a bit about a bunch of different countries' Guiding traditions, made some awesome crafts and shared them with each other, and had a great big campfire!

A great idea the organizers had was a silent auction of old badges - they asked those who came to donate old badges they didn't need any more, and the proceeds were donated to CWFF.

Cookies Rising 2016

One of the awesome things about Canadian Guiding is the Cookies Rising badges.  They're for the girls to learn about marketing, money management, and customer service!  

My daughter has a Money in the Bank kit - it has all the different Canadian coins, as well as 5 and 10 dollar bills.  I printed out even smaller twenties for them to use.

We split the girls into four groups.

At my table, the girls practiced making change for cookie orders.  One girl would pretend to buy the number of boxes I told her to, a second would make the change and say thank you and a third would observe.

Next to me, Sparkle Owl helped the girls make advertising posters for our cookie booth.

Then Brown Owl talked to the girls about safe cookie selling and how to keep themselves safe.

Finally, Snowy Owl and Baby Owl taught the girls some cookie songs.

We had enough time at the end for Baby and Snowy Owls to teach them how to tie a bedroll up, and for us to talk to the Brownie Parents about our camp next month.

I Can!

We did the second half of Key to I Can tonight.  We also did what many leaders tremble to teach - sewing!  (Which was a lot of fun!)  For this activity, it is important to make sure that you have enough needles for ALL the girls.  I only had a dozen, which meant that a few girls needed to wait and/or trade off needles with other girls.

I used one of the needles to freehand each girl's initials on a card.

In the future, I'd buy all the same colour of thread, and start them all before the girls got to them.

Brown Owl and Sparkle Owl helped the girls make stamped wrapping paper at the second station.

Please note - this took all the leaders helping out with the sewing, and the girls being awesome and patient - but they all got them completed!  Huzzah!

Special Days Badge

We did the Special Days badge last week.  Hey - Leap Year only happens once a year, so why not have them work on it now?

We first talked about different Special Days for all of us.  Birthdays, anniversaries, first and last days of school, holidays etc.  Then we split into two groups.

Brown Owl and Tawny Owl talked to the girls about China, and made a Chinese lantern.

Sparkle Owl and I took the other group.  Sparkle Owl is from the Lakes district in the UK - I spent three years in India.  We had pictures of our travels and talked about special days that happen in those countries.  Sparkle Owl talked about Guy Fawkes day and recited the rhyme "Remember Remember" and I talked about Holi.  If you're looking to talk to your girls about those holidays, search terms "India, Holi" or "England, Guy Fawkes" on Youtube!

Then we switched!

The girls got to vote on how they'd like to celebrate their "bonus day" in 2016.  They decided leap frog was the best idea on how to celebrate leap day.  So we played leap frog.

Muttart Conservatory and Alberta Girl Guide House

Sorry I haven't kept up this month - I had houseguests!  But now they're gone and I can get back to it!

A few weeks ago we went to Edmonton's Muttart Conservatory in the morning, and then the Alberta Girl Guide House in the afternoon.

Amazingly enough, our facilitator at the Muttart was ALSO a Spark leader!  So she knew exactly what the girls would like to learn, and had a great way about her.  The girls were happy and relaxed with her from the very beginning.

We did the Ladybugs & Friends program.  We got a tour of each of the four pyramids (Rainforest, Desert, Temperate and Feature), and there was a game for the girls to participate in in each pyramid as well.  They got to put on glasses that made the world look like it does to a bee, search for matching ladybugs, learn about the different shapes of cacti, learn about plants that humans can eat, and, in the feature pyramid, they got to release their very own ladybug!

My ladybug - I called her Emily.

The feature pyramid had the theme of Chinese New Year - Year of the Monkey.

The girls also got to pot a small plant to take home with them.  Mine are currently sitting on my windowsill and growing really well!  All the girls earned the Key to the Living World: Special Interest Badge for this!

This was a WONDERFUL program.  The girls were happy and engaged for 2.5 hours, and it wasn't expensive either!

We ate lunch on the bus between the Muttart and Alberta's Girl Guide House.  Once we got to the Girl Guide house, the girls learned a bit about how the House got built, and why it's important to Alberta Girl Guides.  We learned that you can spend the night in the basement (which sounds awesome).  Then the girls got to put on historical costumes.  We had enough girls, and the right sizes to have everything from the early mustard dresses with bucket hats to the 2005 uniform of blue and orange shirt with a sparkly Brownies across the chest and a skort.

They also got to find Fiona Mouse, and had a scavenger hunt through the archives.

Alberta Arts Challenge 2016

It's that time of the year again - the Alberta Arts Challenge!  Every year they come out with a new theme, which makes this a great challenge crest for every year.  This year's challenge is centred around Canada, which makes this a great time for us, as we've just completed the All About Canada badge.

We had the girls decorate some cookies for Valentine's day.  We had them draw Canadian symbols on at least one.

Songs - we had Nana Owl come in tonight - she's a retired Guider, but she's also a wonderful songsmith, and does a lot of music education, and graciously came in to sing with the girls.  

She sang the Our Cabana song, the Our Chalet song, along with a song in Spanish and another in German.

She also had the girls make a few musical instruments.  They made a clacker with a long stick, electrical tape, and tin with holes in them, as well as a wooden spoon rattle, with two bells to make noise.

Then we did some dancing.  The girls were taught a polka, the Mexican hat dance, and a gigue.

Finally we passed out Valentines between the girls, and gave Nana Owl a great howl sendoff.

STEM Challenge

Today we finished up the STEM challenge.  We decided to do a modified version of this challenge - but for the full challenge click on the badge above!

To begin - we did some astronomy last week (and counted it for this challenge).

This week we started by making goop with cornstarch, water, and a few drops of food colouring.  We mixed it, allowed the girls to poke at it, then put it over a speaker and turned up the bass.  It's a non-Newtonian substance.  So it's solid when you poke at it/hit it with soundwaves and it's a liquid when it isn't.


Then we divided into three groups.

Sparkle Owl helped the kids fold themselves paper airplanes and had the girls run races with them down the length of the room.

Tawny Owl ran the microscope.  Our local library (after having you sign that if you break it you bought it) will allow you to borrow their really nice microscope, along with 25 pre-prepared slides.  The girls got to look at a blood smear, corn root tip, a penicillum and some other cool slides.

I ran the snap circuits station.  We can also borrow one from the library, and I have a copy, so in our groups we were able to have the girls work in pairs to complete some of the experiments.  Here's the link.  Using the kit they were able to make some electrical circuits - minimally they all got through making a light turn on, a motor spin and a sound start.

All About Canada Badge

Tonight the girls completed the All About Canada badge.  We decided during planning that we'd like to complete one badge from every key that we're getting this year, and All About Canada seemed like a good fit.

We started with circle and singing O Canada as well as God Save the Queen.  Then we talked a little about how cool and wonderful it is to live in a country like Canada.

Then we split into circles, and rotated centers.

Tawny Owl and I ran the center where the kids got to draw Canadian symbols on fabric.  We asked them at the same time what other symbols they think represent Canada to the wider world.  We also taught them the chorus to the Canada in my Pocket song.

The Canada In My Pocket song my Michael Mitchell.  The lyrics are easily google-able.  This is a way more fun way to talk about the coins and symbols they represent than just talking about them.

Sparkle Owl printed out lots of copies of Alberta's provincial mineral (petrified wood), flower (wild rose), bird (great horned owl), animal (big horned sheep) and tree (lodgepole pine).  The girls got to colour them in, cut them out and glue them together.

Brown Owl's station ran something a little bit different.  We're doing a STEM night next week and since you can't predict the weather, she talked about stars, constellations, the stories we tell about them and had them make their star sign out of marshmallows and toothpicks (she drew the star signs on paper and each girl got to make their own star sign).

Finally we got back together in circle and the girls sang the chorus of Canada in my Pocket and I sang the verses while showing pictures of the coins.  I just found pictures of the penny, nickel, dime, quarter, loonie and toonie online and printed them out so they were on 8x11 paper (big enough for the girls to see).

The song only goes to the quarter, so we passed around the loonie and toonie coins, as well as paper money.  We had a five, ten, twenty, fifty and a hundred.  We told the girls what the bills used to look like as well (five dollar used to have hockey players on it, now has the Canadarm) and why we pick different things as the years go by.

Closing and good night!

Winter Outside Badge

This week all the girls completed the Winter Outside badge.

We started around a table, where I showed the girls a variety of fabrics - tshirts, sports fabrics, jeans, long underwear, wool socks and cotton socks - and I poured water over them.  They had a chance to feel the fabrics, and saw how the water on the wool basically beaded up and ran off.  I told them we'd have a look at the end of the night as well.

Then we had a relay race.  We put all the girls' snowpants, boots and coats in the middle pile, then had the girls race to dress themselves.  The prize for the winners was going outside first.

Outside the girls pulled each other around on sleds and had races with different types of pull sleds and tobogganing.  

Inside we did first aid for frostbite, hypothermia and what to do if you see someone (or are on the ice yourself) and it starts to crack under your feet.  We also talked about what to do if you get stuck to metal in the winter.

I couldn't find a huge number of resources that worked with teaching the Brownies about cold-weather hypothermia, but I did find some -

Pages 16 - 20 in this website.

Paper dolls, learning how to dress in layers.  This resource is from the NWTs - and I love that it includes traditional clothing choices of the Inuit.

Page five at this website.

Staying Safe in the Cold Checklist - for taking home.  If they forget everything, at least they'd have this resource, right?


Finally at the end of the night the girls made hot apple cider, and a cup full of trail mix.  There were a bunch of different choices for them - pretzels, dried fruits, nuts & bolts etc.

C'est la Fete!

The Quebec Girl Guides have a Challenge Crest out right now called "C'est la Fete".  Here's the link.  This week at Brownies we had bring a friend night, and also completed the C'est la Fete Challenge.  It's always fun to run Bring a Friend night like a party - and this badge gave us the perfect excuse!

We first taught the girls as they arrived a few French songs.  Alouette was the favourite.  If you don't speak French, here's the link to a Youtube version of this song for the lyrics and pronunciation.  For us, we do actions as we go along the song, creating a beak for bec, and turning round and miming a tail when you sing "derriere".

We had all but two girls bring friends last night, which was wonderful - but loud at the same time!

Because the girls had almost all brought a friend, we just had them go with their circles from station to station.

At the first station, we read a short picture book about the Maple Sugar Shack, then had the girls try La Tire (hot maple syrup on snow).

At the second they learned about Ceinture Fleshee and tried their hand at making bracelets that look like them.

At the third they made a cute little snowman.  To make this, you need to cut the toe off a sock, then tie the sock around the ball of the foot, and turn it inside out.  Add beans to the bottom as a weight, then stuff it with stuffing.  tie off the top, then use some felt to make a scarf.  Use the toe you cut off as a toque, and a hot glue gun to add the eyes on.  Finally, use a sharpie to add the smile, eyelashes, and buttons down the front, as well as about 1" of orange pipe cleaner for a carrot nose.

My daughter has plans to add arms of brown pipe cleaner.

Then we got together in a group again and we set up some cardboard box sleds and had the girls try some indoor people-sledding.  Sparkle Owl took some empty apple boxes and added string to the ends so the girls could pull each other around.

Finally we let the girls take turns wrapping the leaders in toilet paper.  Those wrapping Baby Owl won.  They were given two rolls of toilet paper and told to cover as much of the leader as possible.  We had them do it as a relay, so they weren't stepping all over each other.


At the end of the night 3/4 of the friends were begging to join!  Which was pretty darned awesome!

Key to the Arts

Last week we did the key to the arts.

We first got all the girls together and talked about WAGGGS and what kinds of crafts other kids around the world did.

Then we split the girls up into their circles, and had them rotate through four stations.  The leader whose station didn't have anyone during that time floated as a helper to any other leader who needed it.

My station was the weaving.  I printed out a bunch of circles on card stock (bright pink of course), and had the girls cut out the circles, cut around the outside edges and then weave on an entire bolt of embroidery floss.  They can use them as decoration or as a coaster.

The other three stations were -

1)  Make a mask out of a half plate held up by a stick (in this case a straw).  The leader who did this also printed out and photocopied a bunch of ears, teeth and tongues so that the kids could colour them and add them onto their mask.

2) Charades and play the Brownie story.  

3) Make a small memory book about your time in Brownies.

At the very end of our meeting we gave out invitations for Bring a Friend night (found in the iMIS site for any leaders reading).  We had the girls think of people they'd like to invite next week and told them to bring them to school/activity/down the street to deliver them.