Sparks Sleepover at Reptilia!

We love our weekly Sparks meetings but we wanted to give them some sort of overnight experience as an end of the year event. Since we took them to the Ontario Science Centre last year we decided to try a sleepover at Reptilia. 

Reptilia is a fairly local education centre/indoor zoo that focuses on reptiles. They have alligators, snakes, turtles, lizards, all sorts of fun creatures. These people were AMAZING to work with. We ended up having the place to ourselves for the night and their staff was wonderful 

When we got there the girls got settled in and did a craft (alligators of course). After that they got a private show with 6 live animals. The animal keeper answered all of their questions and the girls got to touch all the animals too. After that we got a guided flashlight tour of the facility to check out all the other cool creatures. 

One the flashlight tour was over we had an evening snack and set up our beds for the night. The coolest part? You got to pick an animal to sleep beside! I chose this guy over here. 

Overall an amazing experience. We are already planning to go back next year with the Brownies!

Unicorn Challenge from the UK!

So this past summer I was in England visiting family and I got to see what Guiding is like across the pond. Spoiler its awesome! One thing I LOVE about the UK guiding model is that groups create challenges/challenge badges as fundraisers. This results in a huge amount of things you can do with your kids and some amazing badges. While I was over there I picked up some adorable Unicorn Challenge Badges to do back home with the Sparks. 

First up was a craft. The Sparks were given various pieces of felt, some stuffing and a headband and sewed their own unicorn horn and ears. We used rainbow thread so they all came out sparkly and unique. We made these first so the girls ended up wearing them for the entire meeting. It was adorable. 

After the craft was a unicorn game. It was a little bit like what time is it Mr. Wolfe but "What time is it Mrs. Unicorn"

And of course what is a unicorn party without some sugar? Our leader Jellybean happily taught the girls how to make rainbow cupcakes. They had blue icing for the sky and then fruit roll up for the rainbow and mini marshmallows for the clouds. Super cute!

Here are our lovely unicorns. I think this was one of the best meetings of the year!

Cooking Selling at the Eaton's Centre!

This year we set a pretty big cookie selling goal. Our unit of 15 girls was determined to sell 60 cases altogether to help pay for camp and a bunch of challenge badges the girls wanted to do.

Out of the blue i got a call from my ACL asking if we wanted to take part in a cookie selling opportunity outside of the Gap at the Eaton's centre. Of course we did! Together with three eager girls we sold just over 10 cases of cookies in 2 hours. It was a ton of fun!

A huge thank you goes out the Gap and the Eaton's Centre for having us!

Great Canadian Shoreline Clean-Up & The Cross Canada Challenge

Have you heard of the Great Canadian Shoreline Clean-Up? (http://shorelinecleanup.ca/)

Its an amazing organization that encourages you to clean up local waterways. We always do a community clean up in the fall but this year we thought we would focus on a shoreline and decided to clean up a nearby creek. 

 A few years ago we purchased 20 sets of BBQ tongs at our local dollar store. We've found that they are perfect for picking up trash (girls don't actually have to touch any garbage) and when you're done you can just pop them all in the dishwasher for a quick clean.  Here are some photos of our clean up.

The girls were super eager to help and ended up picking up 8 bags of garbage!

Ignite, Inspire, Innovate Conference!

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of being an Adult Ally at the Ignite, Inspire, Innovate Conference in Toronto. Over the weekend over 100 Pathfinder/Ranger aged girls came to a conference to learn and talk about issues that they are really interested in. There were sessions on LGBTQ+ issues, Dating and Relationships, Social Media, Mental Health, Starting a Service Project and more. I was blown away that the organizers were able to keep the whole weekend so youth focused. The National Youth Council and the Event Organizers put in a ton of work and it showed.

Over the weekend I got to meet amazing girls and guiders from all over Canada. I had such an amazing time! Thank you GGC!