Tag Archives: Brownies

Tea-rrific Tea Party

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One of the most exciting things about this Guiding year is that we’re allowed to have sleepovers again! Sparks and Brownies in Burnaby Mountain District recently held a Tea-rrific Tea Party sleepover at Richmond Guide House. For all of the girls, it was their first-ever Girl Guide sleepover, and it was a huge success!

It was a full-house, with Sparks and Brownies from the 1st Sparks, 27th Guiding, and 47th Guiding Units coming together for the tea party. The group cooked strawberry jam on a camp stove, made fascinators (headbands) to wear to the tea party, and made tea sandwiches. Of course, dinner was a high-tea with the sandwiches and other treats!

The group also played a rousing game of pass the parcel and ended the evening with a movie night, watching Disney’s Alice in Wonderland.

Thank you to all of the Guiders who worked hard to make this sleepover happen, and to all of the Sparks and Brownies for attending. It was such a fun evening!

Keeping Traditions Alive

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This week the 54th Burnaby Mountain Brownies celebrated their enrollment. This is a special day when the new girls “officially” become Brownies by making their promise and having a celebration. Of course, this year’s celebration looked a little different.

Luckily the school yard’s basketball court provides a bit of light!

The group was outside, and a limited number of guests came (while keeping distance) to witness the special day. Although they couldn’t do some traditions — such as the leader taking each girl by the shoulders to “twist her and turn her and show her an elf” — they introduced others like giving each girl a camp blanket to display their beautiful crests (which will come in handy when they’re meeting outside on chilly autumn nights!).

The camp blankets went over really well.

The leaders did an excellent job making the area special with fairy lights and the thoughtful gifts for the girls. One of the parents even commented that it was kind of cool that all the regular meetings are outside right now because it’s like a little bit of camping at every single meeting. Way to look on the bright side!

Gingerbread Houses

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At their last meeting, the 2nd Sparks and 47th Brownies had a blast decorating gingerbread houses. It was a great way to get the holiday season kickstarted with some Guiding friends.

The large cookie pieces were tricky to maneuver, so the delicious treats actually needed a surprising amount of engineering skill! Frosting is a sticky glue, to be sure, and while the girls did make a pretty spectacular mess, they all ended up pretty proud of their creations.

Stay tuned this month as we’re likely to see updates from other units getting up to some holiday fun with awesome outings and special meetings.

Sparks and Brownies and Fish (oh my)

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The 54th Brownies and 27th Guiding (Sparks & Brownies) units recently had a fun-filled, fish-filled sleepover in the local Steveston and Richmond communities. The visited the Gulf of Georgia Cannery, ate fish and chips at a local restaurant, and then returned to Richmond Guide House for a fun sleepover with fish-themed crafts and activities.

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Did you know the Gulf of Georgia Cannery offers tours specifically catered to Girl Guide programming? The excellent staff at the cannery have developed a program for girls to explore their local cultural and natural heritage through stories, activities, and a guided tour. The cannery was built in 1894 and it is fascinating to learn about the history of the fishing industry, the people who worked there, and the ways that this effected the local communities.

The group then took a lovely stroll through historic Steveston, ending up at the Sockeye City Grill for a delicious meal of fish and chips. The staff was impressed by how well mannered this large group of Sparks and Brownies was, and the girls and leaders all thoroughly enjoyed their meals.

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After supper the group enjoyed a ride on local public transit, riding the bus to Richmond Guide House, one of our favourite local spots for Guiding sleepovers. There the group did a variety of fun activities including a bright colourful fish-themed craft before finally getting some sleep.

It was a fish-tastic time. And a great oppor-tuna-ty to learn all about fish and the local community.

 

Physics & Astronomy Sleepover

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The 2nd Sparks and 47th Brownies recently had an awesome science-themed sleepover with activities facilitated by volunteers from the UBC Department of Physics and Astronomy.

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They learned about light and electricity and fulfilled a part of the Experiment and Create program area!

One highlight was the experiment using special spectrum glasses. The foil in the spectrum glasses breaks the light into its different visible electromagnetic waves creating a continuous rainbow of colours when they look at their flashlight or any light source around them.

The girls got to talk about what electricity is and then each Spark and Brownie built a flash light using a breadboard, a switch, an LED light, wires, and a battery. Each girl got to take home their LED flashlight at spectrum glasses.

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The girls really enjoyed the activity and had a great time with the UBC volunteers. After the volunteers left, girls watched a movies and got some sleep. It was a great night!

 

Brownie Fairies, Unicorns & Rainbows Camp

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Our 54th Brownies, plus Brownies from the 27th Guiding unit, recently enjoyed a weekend at lovely Camp Olave, staying at the Nawilak site. The girls took the lead choosing the theme for camp and collaboratively agreed on Fairies, Unicorns & Rainbows — this is a theme sure to be magical and colourful!

The Brownies unleashed their creativity with crafts related to the theme like personalized place mats and adorable fairy houses.

The girls were especially proud of the fairy houses. They each got to bring home their own wind chime, excited to hear it tinkling with fairy magic in the window at home.

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It was a beautiful weekend for outdoor activities as well! Girls had a great time swimming, doing low ropes, blind trail, and more. Camp Olave’s waterfront is amazing!

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The girls got to join some of Burnaby Mountain’s Guides for campfire as they were camping there that same weekend. Camp is one of the best parts of the year and these Brownies celebrated all their excellent memories together.

 

Sparks & Brownies 4Cats Unicorn Outing

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Earlier this year the 2nd Sparks and 47th Brownies (our two Saturday units!) teamed up for a fun day of art at the local 4Cats Studio. Appealing to their joy in all things magical, the girls got the chance to design and create their very own unicorn mug!

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The 4Cats staff was fantastic at helping the girls through the process. This involved drawing their own unicorns, working with clay, and painting their creations.

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Step-by-step instructions helped the group figure out what to do. Though these girls are young, they are great listeners. They worked hard on their mugs.

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Finally, after creating the mug and painting it with the special glaze paint for clay, the mugs got left behind at the studio for them to be baked and glazed. A couple of weeks later, girls got their finished products. They were pretty proud of what they created.

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4Cats is fun for girls of all ages. A few weeks ago we posted about the 10th Pathfinders visiting a 4Cats studio. Since then, we received this great photo of their final product — how adorable are these?!?

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Whether it’s a unicorn mug or a panda planter, 4Cats is always a good time.

Brownies to the Theatre

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Recently the 54th Brownies took a trip to the theatre! They went to the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage in Vancouver to see an Arts Club production of Matilda the Musical!

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This trip was special because it represented some of the hard work these girls did selling Girl Guide Cookies this year. The unit was able to heavily subsidize tickets to the professional theatre show by using cookie money. Way to go, girls!

Everyone really enjoyed the showing, saying it was an excellent production. The girls were also very well behaved… unlike the kids in one of the show’s catchiest songs:

We are revolting children 
Living in revolting times. 
We sing revolting songs 
Using revolting rhymes. 
We’ll be revolting children 
‘Til our revolting’s done, 
It is 2-L-8-4-U  
WE ARE REVOLTING!

These Brownies are anything but revolting — even if they may have gone home singing this song! They had a wonderful trip to the theatre.

Girl Guide Cookies on the Mind

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Happy Spring Equinox! What’s your favourite part of spring? Ours is classic chocolate and vanilla Girl Guide Cookies, of course! Cookies are now on sale throughout the community. Cookie sales help support excellent girl programming including sleepovers, camps, guest speakers, craft supplies, outdoor adventures, building skills, and international travel.

The girls at the 54th Brownies recently had cookies on their mind, celebrating spring cookies season with a bunch of fun cookie related games and activities. Here you can see them trying to get cookies from their foreheads to their mouths using only their face muscles! It wouldn’t be Brownies without laughter.

Watch out for Girl Guides in your local community and support our fun and friendship by buying a delicious box for only $5.00.

District Spark/Brownie Sleepover

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This past weekend, girls from all five Spark and Brownie units in Burnaby Mountain District gathered at Camp Capilano in North Vancouver for a really fun sleepover.

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One highlight of the sleepover was the special guests for the Vancouver Aquarium. Staff from their mobile outreach program turned Camp Capilano into an AquaZone, including live inter-tidal animals and other interactive display items.

The aquarium staff were super engaging and the girls learned a lot about marine life. They also chatted with the girls about the importance of protecting our oceans and some things we can all do to help keep our waters safe and clean for aquatic life.

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The mobile outreach program was a great way to let our girls learn about the ocean in a program specifically designed to work well for them. Older girls in the district can look forward to having their own way to connect with the Vancouver Aquarium later this year — stay tuned!

Sparks and Brownies also got the chance to tap into their artistic side by decorating masks. The leaders were really impressed by their efforts! Girls did such a great job using the paints, jewels, feathers, and other decorations to create awesome masks. They turned out so well.

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Masks are fun at all time of year, but especially with Halloween coming up it seemed like a great time to embrace pretend play.

A sleepover is a great way to start introducing camp skills, and these girls loved the chance to have a real campfire (with s’mores!) outside. Camp food was also a big hit.

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Also very impressive is how well all of the girls did at this sleepover. There were no tears, and no problems getting to bed or packing up in the morning. You’d never have guessed that this was the very first sleepover for many of these girls. Great job!

Thank you to all the adults who made this happen, especially the amazing Vancouver Aquarium staff!