Tuesday 23 December 2014

Reindeer are better than people

To end the year, the Brownies had a pajama and movie night watching their current favorite movie, Frozen. They sang along with Anna, Elsa and Olaf and shouted, "He's a liar!" when Hans came on the screen. 

One of the best things about the end of the year is the sweet Christmas cards I receive from the girls. One of the handmade cards I received even included a drawing of a new badge. Isn't it great?!

Monday 15 December 2014

Drawing dragons

Approximately half of the Brownie Guides are currently working on their Junior B.P. award, the peak achievement award for girls aged 7 years and older.

The award requires 12 challenges to be completed, two from each of the seven Fundamentals of the Australian Guide Program:
  • Promise and Law
  • Guiding Traditions
  • Service
  • Outdoors
  • World Guiding
  • Patrol System
  • Leadership Development

One of the Promise and Law challenges is to "think about something you are good at and share your talent with your Patrol. It may be music, cooking, writing or something else."
Not every girl selects this particular challenge, however those who have completed it over the past few years have chosen a great range of talents to share, including telling jokes, craft, baking and playing hockey. 

The latest talent that was shared was extremely unique and you may have guessed by the title of this post that it was... drawing dragons!



Miss 10 years (with a little Leader prompting), led her Patrol through a dragon conversation, discussing appearances of dragons in books and movies and the various types and their features, strengths and weaknesses. She then went on to teach the Patrol how she draws dragons and then assisted them to create their own. It was definitely an original topic and her Patrol had a great time working together for 40 minutes, before I finally had to stop them to do other activities. I was really impressed with how they worked together - it was the most cohesive i've even seen them!

There were over 20 dragons drawn, here are the few I managed to capture in a photo.



Thursday 4 December 2014

Bath bombs

Last week we made coconut scented bath bombs using chocolate moulds and ice cube trays. They take a minimum of four fours to set, so the girls took them out of the moulds this week. They looked lovely, especially once they were placed in glass jars wrapped with ribbon and a printed label. 

You may notice the flower shaped bath bombs in the photo below are the same shape as the melted crayons we made for our craft stall. Those moulds were definitely a great purchase!


If you are interested in making your own, we used this recipe from Bakingdom

Wednesday 3 December 2014

Crafting up a storm

The girls have been working extremely hard all term to make Christmas crafts to sell at our annual market stall, which raises money for a charity that the Guides have nominated. This year more than one organisation was chosen, which resulted in the older and younger Guides joining forces to create as many crafts as possible.

The weather on the day of the stall was gorgeous, resulting in many people out and about. All the customers were lovely, praising the Guides for their hard work. By the end of the day, the girls had raised over $800 by selling their crafts along with homemade cakes. A tremendous effort!

Below are some of the crafts the girls made. I'll be posting tutorials for many of them over the coming weeks as Christmas approaches. They are all very simple and able to be created by girls aged 7+.

Paper hearts


Cardboard roll reindeer


Gift tags and Christmas cards. These were our best sellers!!


Woven string ornaments


Salt dough ornaments


Rosette book ornament (made with an old dictionary)


Origami paper cranes


Pom-pom Christmas pudding


Candy cane felt mice


Crayons - made by melting leftovers scraps of used crayons. Instructions HERE.



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Have you made any of these crafts before?

Tuesday 2 December 2014

Let it snow!

Now that December has begun, it is getting impossible to go anywhere without hearing carols sing of dashing through the snow and a winter wonderland. With all these reminders of snow, I though that I would recap on our camp this past winter.

We were lucky enough to be invited to a camp (organised by another Leader), which just happened to be at the snow. Despite being a country largely covered in desert, almost every Australian state has at least one city that experiences snowfall annually. The bus ride to and from the snow was extremely long - the longest any of the girls had experienced. Looking back, we were very fortunate to have only had one issue with a girl getting travel sick!

The camp was just a long weekend away during the school term, but we packed a lot of fun into every minute of those three days. Each morning the girls took skiing lessons, giving the Leaders time to enjoy the snowfields. The Brownies were in the beginners ski class but by the end of camp were taking the same trail as I was! Many of the girls had never even seen snow before, so it was really an amazing experience for them and they were so proud to have conquered the ski lift!


In the afternoons, we built snowmen, slid down snow hills and the girls proudly showed off their new skills by holding skiing races.

Everybody went home with huge smiles and wonderful stories to share. The girls that didn't attend are dreadfully envious and are always asking if we will be able to return next year!


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Have you even taken your Guides skiing or on a snow camp?