As members of The World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), we’ve all heard about world thinking day, but we might not know what it’s all about. Come along with me to find out what it is, why we have celebrate it and how we celebrate it!
The first thing to know is its held on the 22nd of February. World thinking day (or WTD for short) has been celebrated by Girl Guides and Girl Scouts since 1926, nearly 100 years! On world thinking day we like to think of all our other Girl Guides and Scouts all over the globe.
World thinking day was first celebrated in 1926 in the 4th world conference of Girl Guides, held in the USA. At this time It was only known as Thinking Day as it was mainly celebrated in the US. Did you know Thinking Day is the same day as Lord Baden-Powell and his wife Lady Olave Baden-Powell's birthday! At the 7th world conference in Belgium they decided that as thinking day is held on their joint birthdays and birthdays usually involve gifts, they decided that the girls could gift just a penny to Girl Guides and Girl Scout organisations. Eventually in 1999 at the 30th world conference in Dublin they changed the name to the World Thinking Day that we now know and celebrate!
Today we celebrate the day in many different ways! WAGGGS theme for this years WTD is ‘Our World, Our Equal Future!’ Which focuses on gender equality and climate change. They are planning on keeping this theme for the next 3 years! You can see their activity pack here. With over 21 activities you’ll be prepared for WTD.
At LaSER we have a WTD activity pack too! There are 16 fun filled activities which you can see here.
You might not want a big activity pack, so here’s a few things we are doing with our units at The Hive;
- At my brownies we have made some thinking day cards. We have sent these off to units across the UK! The units we’ve sent to have also sent us some back! Me and the girls were all shocked to see that there was some areas with 71 units!
- In a Ranger unit they are trying some snacks from across the world. We're also doing a quiz, that you need to get the answer right to earn fruits and vegetables to make some flags.
We’ve all got lots of fun plans for the day, but we’d love to hear what you’ve got planned! Reach out to us with your own blog and let us know how your unit is celebrating.