Our annual fall Harvest Moon overnight retreat was held at Camp Gilmore in the Malibu Mountains. This was a new location for us and we loved it! Each troop stayed in cabins and each cabin slept 9-10 girls and adults. The girls decorated their cabins in fall/Halloween theme and attended 4 workshops on Saturday. If your service unit or troop wants to plan a retreat, there are many summer camps that offer their cabins during the school year for this purpose. Camp Gilmore is a Salvation Army sleep away camp during the summer for under-privileged children from the inner cities. I especially love that the money we spent on our Girl Scout retreat helps fund their summer programs. Harvest Moon had 167 girls and their leaders/parents attend. The workshops we ran are as follows: 1) Archery. (5-6 year olds did marshmallow archery with bows we purchased off Amazon, since the Archery bows are difficult for the younger girls to handle). 2) Solar Over Cooking (details listed below) and they cooked mini s'mores and cracker pizza snacks in their solar ovens. 3) Scavenger Hunt (the girls had to use maps, work as a team and figure out together the riddle which led them to each treat and the next clue. Each girl received a ziplock bag and one map per team. At each location they went to, they received a scoop of a treat like pretzels, goldfish, marshmallows and they received the next clue). By the end of the scavenger hunt, they had a bag of yummy gorp. 4) Swap craft. The girls made a Harvest Moon swap and a Swap Wall banner, to put their swaps on and hang in their rooms at home. Each troop was responsible for helping with cooking, clean-up, flag ceremony, grace and serving at meals. We made a schedule that gave each troop one to two volunteer roles. We had a taco bar Saturday night and followed that up with the camp fire fun. It's always great to watch all of the girls perform their songs and skits at the camp fire. Our Scout's own ceremony of Sunday morning was an opportunity for the older scouts to lead a younger scout. I had the Cadettes and older meet a younger scout and walk with them on a short hike to the large meeting auditorium. The younger girls loved getting to know the older girls. At the ceremony, the Cadettes read a poem about friendship, sand songs and the girls all sang the Beatles son, "With a Little Help From My Friends."
Solar Oven: Place a large box inside a larger box. Make sure there is at least an inch clearance between the two. Fill the gap with shredded newspaper, which will act as an insulator. Line the inside of the smaller box with black construction paper (attach using tape or glue), to absorb heat. Cut the flaps off of the box and cover with foil. Add each reflector to the top side of the box using glue, staple, or thread...allowing them to flop over. Then, prop each reflector up using, rods or sticks. Instead of reflectors, you can also purchase a piece of plexi-glass to lay over the top of your oven. Position the oven in full sun. Place the item to cook in foil and place inside the solar oven.
Pizza Box Solar Oven: A quick solar oven at day camp is a pizza box solar oven. Line the entire inside of the box with foil and place the item to cook in foil as well and put inside of the pizza box. We make camp s'mores this way and the girls love them!! Mini-pizza's work and grilled cheese snacks are easy to make in solar ovens.
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