A long time ago I posted about an Australian Guider who made a Girl Guide Taboo. She had added extra sheets for UK and American leaders plus some banks to customize it for your own country. As much as I liked that I wished there was a Canadian version.
This year I was also looking for ways to engage my Pathfinders in reviewing the Promise and Law while socially distanced and I ended up creating a taboo game. The first two sheets are Promise and Law specific. Add the second two if you want to add some more general Canadian Guiding words. Make a copy to edit in your own words.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18q740fwL1Lcg-UVyDdwj_cTRRu8uvCBzOMN_Bvb95MA/edit?usp=sharing
Make a Bundle
This is a teaching game suitable to be played with a small unit or patrol. It can be easily adapted to lots of subjects where there are facts to be learned.
Preparation:
- Make three piles of cards. You can use index cards or print them out on card stock. You may want to make each pile a different colour to make set up easier.
- On one side of the card write a monetary value, so that one pile is $1, one pile is $2 and one pile is $5. There should be the same number of cards in each pile
- On the reverse side of each card put a question and answer. The questions on the $2 cards should be harder then on the $1 cards etc. You should prepare at least two or three questions per expected player in each category.
To Play:
- Put the cards in the respective piles with the question facing down and the money side up.
- Players take turns choosing the top question of any of the the three piles.
- If the player answers the questions correctly, they can keep the card
- If the questions is incorrectly answered, the question is put back at the bottom of it’s respective pile
- The player with the highest amount of “money” when all the questions have been successfully answered is the winner.
Sound Maps
Here are a couple of videos on how to make a sound map. This could be a fun activity for any age group as a rest stop on a hike or a reason to get outside at a meeting.
Mental Maps
Mental maps are a tool used by Geographers to gain understanding of how a person views their world. This would be an interesting activity for Pathfinders or Rangers to try out.
- Give each person a blank sheet of paper and a pencil.
- Ask them to draw a map of the neighbourhood around your meeting place without discussing it with others or looking at what others are drawing. Tell them to be as detailed as they can be but not to be worried if they don’t know many details.
- Spread everyone’s maps out on a table or the floor together and see what is similar or different about each map.
- Try arranging the maps in different groups to see if you can spot patterns for example:
- Are the maps of those who drive to meetings different from those who walk or take a bus?
- Are the maps of those who live further away from the meeting place different from those who live close?
- Are the maps of those who go to different schools/clubs/sports teams/stores/places of worship different?
- Are the maps of those who have lived in the area a long time different from those who are new to the community?
- If you have siblings in the unit, are their maps more similar to each other then to others in the unit?
Space Dice
I found these fun paper dice that would a fun way to teach about the phases of the moon or the surface of other planets. In all cases, print one copy for each girl. Cut out the pattern. Crease along the lines. Then glue or tape the edges.
8 Sided Phases of the Moon Dice
20 Sided Planet Dice
Observation Tests
These videos were put out a number of years ago as part of an education program to encourage drivers in London to watch out more for cyclists. But they make great Kim’s game type activities for Pathfinders and Rangers.
How Similar are you to….
This would be a fun get-to-know you or being you activity for Pathfinders or Rangers. Print a bingo card like the one above for each girl. Have her fill in each box with things she likes, hobbies, favorites, expressions etc. Give each participant 24 markers of some sort and then have them rotate around looking at each others sheets to see whom they have the most in common with.
Portable Zen Gardens
A zen garden is a style of gardening dating back to the 6th century in Japan that was first created by Zen Buddist monks as a aid to meditation. This was an idea I brought home from Connect 2018.
Materials:
- A small tin or container with a tight fitting lid
- Course sand (with a large enough group you may want to offer a choice of colours)
- plastic cocktail forks or other items to be used as tools
- garden decorations which could include pretty rocks, shells, crystals or tiny bits of driftwood.
Instructions:
- Before starting this activity you might want to have a discussion about how being outdoors and looking at natural things can help with our mental health. This craft lets you take a little bit of that with you even if you find yourself in a situation were getting out into nature isn’t possible.
- Fill your container about one third with sand.
- Uses the tool (cocktail fork) to smooth out the sand. Then draw lines in it (straight or curved).
- Add a few decorative items to complement the lines. Don’t over crowd it.
- When you are done, tuck the fork into the container and attach the lid. Now you can take your garden with you and set it up whenever you’d like.
Here is a similar idea from the blog: Projects with Kids:
Cloud Viewer
This image is from the blog Sprout, Squidge and Moppet. The idea is to print the image on card stock. Then cut the window out in the middle so you can hold it up to the sky and identify the cloud types.
Making a Junk Journal
Junk Journals are fun and creative way to create a journal for Pathfinders or Rangers. These journals can be used to scrapbook a Guiding year or a specific camp or trip. You can also uses to them to save favourite quotes, readings or lyrics for uses in Guides Owns.
Step 1: Make a collection of different types of paper. Start by cleaning out your craft box and look for papers with different textures. You can uses light card stock, textured paper, decorative paper, lined paper, graph paper, printer paper, sketch book paper etc. Next collect some recycled paper you can uses such as magazine pages, paper bags, large envelopes, greeting cards etc. If you don’t have enough paper on hand you can consider going to a second hand store and buy some old books (preferably ones on their last leg or with outdated info) that you can rip pages out of. You can also uses old sheet music, maps or other interesting paper ephemera. If you’d like to extend the activity you can consider tea dyeing some of the paper or making your own paper to add to the journal.
You will also need scissors, large eyed needles and embroidery floss or thin cord. You may also want a small pair of plyers to help pull the needles though the binding material.
Step 2: Decided how big you want your journal to be. I find that half a letter sized page is a useful size by you can go smaller if you’d like. Fold 10 – 20 pieces of paper in half (depending on how big you want your journal). You may need to cut or tear some of the paper to resize it. The paper doesn’t need to all be the same size but you probably want most of the pages to be roughly the same size. Take some time to decided on the order of pages. You probably want a heavier page on the outside. You also want to mix up the pages so that pages with similar textures aren’t right next to each other.
Step 3: Using the needle and floss or cord, sew your journal together. Start by putting the needle though the middle of the booklet. Then make a big stitch to almost the top of the journal. Run the cord all the way down to the bottom and pass it though again. Finally pass it though the hole in the middle again and knot it off.
Step 4: Start filling your journal. Rangers may want to look at #junkjournal on Instagram to see some examples of how others junk journal. Encourage them to uses a mixture of mediums to fill their journals.
This video walks you though theses basic steps.
Girl Guide Adventures 
