Our second meeting was a bit more of an introduction to Guiding than the first. We started it off buy giving every girl a reusable bag (from the dollar store). We had made a list on a piece of fun foam that we tied to it of everything they should bring each week. It read:
Did I remember?
– Running shoes
– Guide Shirt
– Scarf
– Sash
– Pen
– Permission forms/money
The girls will have to bring them to every meeting and will get a bead if they have everything and a second bead if everyone in their patrol does as well. It will be the patrol leader’s job to check. We let them decorate them with sharpies and made sure they all had their name on their bag.
Once that was done, we split our girls up into patrols and let them choose their emblem (a flower or a bird). 3 of the 4 patrols wanted the same emblem so of course a giant round of rock paper scissors was necessary.
We had had a bit of trouble getting the horseshoe to work every week last year so I had set about finding a simple version to teach them. It worked quite well after a couple practice rounds. Basically, we had everyone end up marching in a big circle and when it came time to cut down the middle, each patrol leader turned in the opposite direction from the one before her. Hence, the first and third ones went right and the second and fourth ones went left to end up with an even horseshoe.
We had fun giving out some crests from spring and summer camp and preregistration as well as a few leftover badges from last year.
At that point, it seemed like they needed a bit of a break so we played Ladies from Mars before ending with our weekly campfire, during which I put a case of cookies behind each girl to avoid wasting time trying to figure out who I handed them out to. Everyone who was there took one home.
Liz's Guiding Stories and Ideas 