Monthly Archives: May 2016

Art Studio Sparks Outing

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A few weeks ago girls in the 1st Burnaby Mountain Sparks group visited 4 Cats Art Studio (Capitol Hill), one of their favourite outing places! Visiting 4 Cats has become a springtime tradition for the unit, an activity that is partially funded by their spring Girl Guide Cookie campaign.

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Girls who were in the unit last year remembered coming to this place to make awesome Van Gogh-inspired sunflower paintings. This year, they got to try something new — sculpting fairy princesses out of polymer clay and mounting them on starry painted backgrounds.

The staff at this art studio are absolutely amazing. The program leader, Dino, showed great patience and expertise working with girls of this age and helped them work through the art process one step at a time until each of them had created unique and beautiful art.

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Visiting the art studio is a real treat because it exposes girls to supplies and techniques that are much more sophisticated than we can use for our regular unit meeting crafts. Girls love the chance to put on their smock, and make a mess… I mean, a work of art!

Guides Reach High Places

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This past weekend the 22nd Burnaby Mountain Guides enjoyed a fun night of rock climbing at the Richmond Olympic Oval. Girls had a great time conquering the 44 foot climbing wall. For many of them, this was a new experience and they all had a great time.

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Each girl had the opportunity to take several tries at the wall and some were able to reach rather impressive heights. The climbing wall is appropriate for beginners or for people with more experience, and the staff was very helpful. Lots of fun was had in the spirit of friendship and active living.

This fun activity was a cool way for the girls to take advantage of visiting Richmond. They tied the event in with a sleepover at Guiding’s own Richmond Guide House. At Guide House, the unit met up with the 2nd Burnaby Mountain Sparks who were also having a sleepover there that night — the Sparks slept inside, while the Guides got to practice their tenting in the back yard.

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The Guides had a really fun time sharing some of their camping knowledge with the Sparks and everyone had a nice time sharing a barbecue hot dog supper and campfire (complete with s’mores!) together.

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Over all it was a really fun over night event. The girls loved trying the rock climbing, as well as developing leadership skills with the younger girls. Thank you to all of the hard working leaders who made the night possible.

Teddy Bear Picnic

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For every bear that ever there was will gather there for certain
Because today’s the day the Teddy Bears have their picnic

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A couple of weeks ago two Burnaby Mountain Sparks units attended the West Coast Area Teddy Bear Picnic, which was organized by the camping committee for Sparks and Brownies all across the Area. The picnic was at Confederation Park in Burnaby and was a “beary” fun day!

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The girls had a blast participating in classic picnic activities like potato sack races and scavenger hunts. It is always a treat to have such classic outdoor fun with your friends. There were lots of fun teddy-bear themed games, stories, and songs.

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Of course, everyone took a break from the festivities to eat their picnic lunch as well. In addition to all that, each girl had the chance to get her face painted, and everyone got a ride on the miniature train!

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Thank you “beary” much to the West Coast Area camping committee for planning such a fun event. The girls all had a wonderful time.

District Science Day at SFU

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Last weekend Burnaby Mountain District partnered with SFU Let’s Talk Science to hold an all-ages interactive Science Day at Simon Fraser University!

Enthusiastic university volunteers led the girls through a variety of activities and demonstrations touching on several disciplines within STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). Girls got to work together to try hands on science activities and had a lot of fun.

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Sparks learned about good bacteria and bad bacteria and got to to design their own cute bacteria buddies. They also learned about weather and clouds.

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Brownies enjoyed dissecting owl pellets to reassemble whole rodent skeletons — they thought it was a little bit gross, but really cool! They also explored physics by designing bottle-propelled rockets that they got to launch for an audience of Sparks.

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Guides and older girls tackled environmental science, considering problems like how oil spills and water pollution can be safely cleaned. They also rocked out with a variety of lasers, using problem solving skills to power high tech gadgets.

Over all it was a really educational and entertaining day. Girl Guides prides itself on being able to offer girls the chance to try new things, especially by helping them develop interest in areas like STEM where women are underrepresented in the professional fields. Thank you to Let’s Talk Science for hosting us!   We in Burnaby Mountain are very lucky to have SFU situated conveniently in our district. Many of our Guiders are SFU students and it is always great to take advantage of the opportunities that having a world class university in our district has to offer!