New from the BC Camping Department is a series of Camp Skills challenges for every branch (and a special one for Trex). Each challenge includes challenges around being a no trace camper, the camp experience, camp cooking and staying overnight. They all look great! This could be a great way to introduce basic camp skills to the younger girls or challenge the older girls to up their game.
camp skills
Fire Camp
A Camp for Girl Guides
Theme: This camp is based on the element Fire. It was largely based on the BC Camps to Go: Guiding Elements Fire and their . For this camp cooking is a core part of the program and it is a great choice if your girls don’t have a lot of experience doing outdoor cooking because you can make room in the program to take your time with the food.
Guide Program Work: This camp was designed to allow girls to work on their Outdoor Cooking badge and Basic Camper emblem.
Patrols: Patrols could be named after different types of wood or types of fires.
Activities
- Make a fire starter
- waterproof matches (from the Fire instant meeting)
- buddy burners and Tin Can Stoves
- Practice Lighting matches/jar over candle what do fires need (from BC Girl Guides Fire Camp)
- Light a camp stove/ camp stove safety
- Woodpiles
- fire safety
- fire drama activity (also from the Fire instant meeting)
Crafts
Games
Food
- edible campfire snack
- roasted hot dogs over coals
- tin foil dinners
- campfire desserts such as banana boats, baked apples, gingered peaches or oatmeal surprise.
Songs
Readings
Trail Signs
Trail signs can be a lot of fun for the girls. Not only do they give them a usable skill to lay a trail but I’ve found that most girls like to play with rocks and sticks and this gives them a good excuse.
When I run a trail sign activity I normally split the girls into two or more groups and have each group lay a trail starting in a different direction. Ideally, I pick an area where they will be able to find two or more materials to make markers out of. Once all the girls have returned, we switch trail starting points and they try to follow another groups trail. If you’d like you can leave some sort of treasure at the end of the trail (camp crests or a snack for example).
Soaping a Pot
Soaping a pot is a technique used to make washing pots after cooking over an open fire easier. If your girls are new to the technique it is important to go over it carefully with them. I’ve seen many rushed Guiders giving instructions that were misinterpreted by the girls. This often results in soapy stew and is not recommend.
How to soap a pot:
- Turn the pot over so the bottom of the pot faces upwards.
- Squirt a little liquid dish soap on the bottom of the pot.
- Uses your hand or a dish rag to spread the soap all over the bottom of the pot and up the sides of the pot but not in the pot.
- Cook over an open fire. The outside of the pot will turn black.
- When it is time to do the dishes, you will find the black rinses easily off the pot. Unsoaped pots require a lot of scrubbing to remove the black.
Edible Campfires
Edible campfires can be a fun and tasty way to discuss fire safety and/or fire building.
The fire instant meeting from BC Program has a really extensive edible campfire including water bucket, fire starters etc.
For my unit we wanted to keep it a little simpler and healthier.
ingredients:
- Red grapes cut in half
- pretzel sticks
- small bits of cheese
- napkins or paper towel
instructions:
- lay the napkin down in front of each girl
- arrange the red grapes like a ring of stones
- set up your wood (pretzel) inside the ring of grapes
- add cheese to represent the flames.
The Food Network has another take on these with their Campfire Cookies.
Waterproofing a Sleeping bag
The goal when you are waterproofing a sleeping bag is to ensure that the bag does not get wet either during transportation or at camp. Dry and warm campers are happy campers. I often find that parents are surprised that we really do expect our girls to carry their own bags. And at some of the camp site sites we go to, the bus can’t get right to the site so it may be several hundred meters from the bus to the campsite. So the bag must be waterproof and strong enough that it can take a couple of bounces as the girls take their bag to their campsite. These are the three options I provide the girls…
Traditional Bedroll
Need:
- ground sheet
- rope (not the yellow plastic rope it doesn’t knot well)
This may be the most cost effective option and girls often need tarps and rope at camp anyways.
Lined Stuff Sack
Need:
- Large stuff sack
- Heavy duty plastic bag
If you are using a foam pad, make it into a tube with about a 1.5 foot hole in the middle. Wrap plastic bag around that and the stuff sack around that. Put the sleeping bag, pillow, PJs and stuffed bed friend inside the middle of the foam pad. Twist the plastic bag closed and stuff the end down the side (or seal it if it is a giant zip lock) and then seal stuff sack. If you aren’t using foam pads (i.e. staying in cabins) then you can follow this video.
Dry Sack
Need:
- One large dry sack
Make sure it is large enough for your bedding and still has enough room to be properly sealed. Dry sacks can be the most expensive option but if the girls already have one or if the family does a lot of camping they can be a good option.
Outdoor Skills
This is not a Girl Guides of Canada challenge but rather one from e-patches and crests. It is, however, designed to be completed by Girl Guide units. They sell challenge kits for $5 per kit.
You can preview the kit here. The sample includes activities on tracking, tree identification, astronomy, tie dyeing and fire safety. I know many units do a lot of outdoor skills at camp so this might be a great companion.
The challenge kit and the crest is available from e-patches and crests.
Camping Skills Booklet
If you are looking for reference material for camp skills for your Guides, check out the Basic Camping Skills for Guiding booklet put together by the BC Camping Committee. This booklet includes basic information on outdoor skills, outdoor cooking, tent pitching etc. I can see two great uses for this booklet, one it would be a great reference for a Guider planing pre-camp meetings to make sure no important skills go over looked (for example: What does it mean to soap the pots). And then a laminated copy or two a camp could allow the girls to look up something they’ve forgotten while at camp.
Cut Throat Camping
Game shows can be a great inspiration for making program fun. This is a camp skills game based on the Food Network show Cutthroat Kitchen.
You will need:
- 3 camp skill challenges
- Auction items (see below)
- Markers to act as victory points and camp points
Each patrol will be issued 25 camp points at the beginning of the game. In each of three rounds a challenge will be announced. After the challenge is announced several auction items are announced. The patrol leaders can bid their camp points to win the auction items. After a set time for the challenge, a Guider (ideally one who wasn’t watching) will judge the job done on the challenge. Up to 10 victory points will be awarded to each patrol depending on how well they completed the challenge. At the end of three rounds the patrols remaining camp points and their victory points are added together and which ever patrol has the most total points wins.
The challenges should be fairly straight forward and things the girls are familiar with.
Challenge Ideas:
- 15 min to gather wood and build a wood pile
- 20 min to build an emergency shelter with the provided materials
- 15 min to build a small fire and toast a marshmallow
- 15 min to build an tin foil oven
- 10 min to assemble a waterproofed bed roll
- 15 min to build a camp gadget
- 15 min to either put up a tent or take it down and fold it.
Auction items can either be sabotages or advantages. Advantages are kept by the winning patrol. Sabotages are gifted to another patrol (or two). In picking sabotages be sure to pick ones that won’t cause any safety concerns.
Auction Item Ideas:
- Tied Together: Everyone in the patrol are tied together at the waist with a rope.
- Friends Forever: Patrol members must pair off and hold hands (This could also be done as a three legged race)
- Having a ball: Each member of the patrol must hold a ball off the ground throughout the challenge. A camp point will be lost if they let a ball drop.
- Mittens: All members of the patrol must wear oven mits
- Tag team: Only one member of the patrol can work at a time and they need to switch every two minutes
- Insurance: It allows a patrol to ignore a sabotage sent to them later in the game
- Ask an Expert: Allows the winning patrol to ask any of the Guiders (except the one acting as judge) a single question during the round
- That will be Useful: winning patrol gets something that will make the challenge easier such as a commercial fire starter for a fire lighting challenge or the instructions for a tent pitching challenge
- Limited Resources: Some important resource is limited in quantity such as the matches in a fire lighting challenge or string in a gadget making challenge.
- Substitutions: A item in the challenge is replaced with a less useful one. Example garbage bags replace the tarp in a shelter building challenge or an odd shaped boxes replaces a square one in a tin foil oven challenge.
Firestarters
Homemade fire starters are a great “craft” to make before you go camping. They will help get your campfire going a lot faster and with less frustration. There are lots of different ways to make firestarters so you can use what you have readily available.
To make fire starters you will need:
- A burnable cup
- cardboard egg cartons
- paper mini-cupcake liners
- 3 oz paper cups
- Fill
- sawdust
- dryer lint
- dry pine needles
- shredded paper
- dried coffee grounds
- Wick (optional)
- matches
- candle wick
- wax
- Commercial paraffin
- old candles
- Empty soup can to use as a double boiler
- Make sure your cups are on a solid surface. If you are using cupcake liners, sent time in a cup cake pan. You may want to cover the surface first in case of spilled wax.
- Put the fill in your cups. You should fill them almost all the way to the top.
- If you are adding wicks or matches you want to put them in the center of the fill, sticking upwards.
- Always melt wax in a double boiler. I like to use an old can as the inner pot for easier clean up. You can squash the can a little before you start to make a pouring spout.
- Cover the fill in each cup with hot wax
- Wait for them to cool. If you are using egg cartons you’ll want to cut them apart after cooling.
Girl Guide Adventures 