21/11/13
This week we gave the girls a choice of two crafts they could do in preparation for the church's Christmas Fayre which is this Saturday. One of the leaders is attending and a few of the girls will go and help her run a stall, open to the local community. Some years we make cards or tree ornaments and other years we have some games for people to play. This year we decided to run two games, 'Fish for Stockings' and 'Where Has Santa Been?' which are two that we've done previously relatively successfully.
The girls were given the choice of colouring in cardboard stockings or cardboard houses. With the stockings we then put a paper clip on the top of each with a folded up piece of paper saying either 'win' or 'lose'. People then use a magnetic fishing rod (left over from a game I had when I was younger) to pull one out of a box and will get a sweet if their paper says 'win' on it. The houses started off flat although some of the girls asked for theirs to be stuck together to make it easier for them to see what part of the house was what. They coloured them in and then each one would have a piece of paper under it saying either 'yes' or 'no' and a prize would be given for all the 'yes's. Some of them didn't really seem to enjoy it though as we had a few houses which had to be sent back to have windows and doors added! A couple of the girls though got very engrossed in it and drew chairs and tables inside the house. One girl even drew a full set of rooms, including upstairs and downstairs, in hers which looked really nice when it was done!
Unfortunately, we had under anticipated how many girls would want to colour in stockings and therefore didn't have enough which caused a bit of friction from the girls who had been last to chose but they were then told they could make the posters advertising what the games were instead which solved the problem. One of the older girls was also given the privilege of drawing a road map for all the houses to stand on to look like they were in a village which she seemed quite proud of.
We finished off by playing a quick game of fishes (instructions here) and then all the girls went home.
It was quite a relaxed evening although I didn't get to sit and talk to the girls because I spent most of the time sticking houses together!
Monday 25 November 2013
Monday 18 November 2013
Visit from the RSPCA
14/11/13
This week a lady from the RSPCA came to talk to the girls and to collect the money we raised in June by holding a sale (which the girls organised and ran themselves). RSPCA stands for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and is a charity here in the UK which cares for animals which people abandon and also raises awareness of all animal illnesses and care requirements. In June we held a sale where the girls ran stalls in small groups, ranging from cake stalls and raffles to jumble sales and nail painting, and we raised over £180! We always invite someone to come and collect their money and talk to the girls because it means they get the chance to find out exactly how they're helping.
She gave a brief talk on what the RSPCA does and asked them a few questions on what they thought the '5 Freedoms for Animals' are (freedom from: hunger and thirst; discomfort; pain, injury and disease; fear and distress and freedom to behave normally). Then she gave the girls the opportunity to tell any stories they had about their pets and other animals they'd encountered. We ended up spending almost 45 minutes listening to various stories ranging from what animals the girls had been bitten by (mostly nibbles from small animals) to the various antics of all kinds of pets! The girls who didn't have any pets seemed to get bored quite quickly (which is understandable) and I think she could have cut it a bit shorter but the rest of the girls were very enthusiastic about sharing their stories. She did manage to fit in a few extra details, such as teaching them how to deal with a dog if it runs towards you (stand still and don't make eye contact) after one of the girls told a story about when she tried to outrun a dog at a park which I thought was quite a subtle way of teaching them things.
Brown Owl then presented her with the cheque and she gave the unit a certificate to say thank you. We then lined all the girls up so that we could take a photo of them all as a record of who raised the money (we keep a scrapbook of photos and certificates the unit has gained) and then she announced that she had RSPCA stickers and paw shaped badges for each girl which cheered up most of the ones who'd been looking a bit bored! There was then a long queue of girls all deciding what colour they wanted and then changing their mind and going back! Eventually they all settled on the colour they wanted and she left, just in time for the girls to go home.
It was a good evening, in my opinion, because I'm a huge supporter of what the RSPCA do and an animal lover on top of it but I don't think some of the girls really enjoyed the evening because they had nothing to input and weren't that interested in what was being said. I do, however, think she could have drawn the story session to a close faster than she did as even I was getting a bit fed up with the girls stories (and I'm usually pretty patient when it comes to hearing stories!).
This week a lady from the RSPCA came to talk to the girls and to collect the money we raised in June by holding a sale (which the girls organised and ran themselves). RSPCA stands for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and is a charity here in the UK which cares for animals which people abandon and also raises awareness of all animal illnesses and care requirements. In June we held a sale where the girls ran stalls in small groups, ranging from cake stalls and raffles to jumble sales and nail painting, and we raised over £180! We always invite someone to come and collect their money and talk to the girls because it means they get the chance to find out exactly how they're helping.
She gave a brief talk on what the RSPCA does and asked them a few questions on what they thought the '5 Freedoms for Animals' are (freedom from: hunger and thirst; discomfort; pain, injury and disease; fear and distress and freedom to behave normally). Then she gave the girls the opportunity to tell any stories they had about their pets and other animals they'd encountered. We ended up spending almost 45 minutes listening to various stories ranging from what animals the girls had been bitten by (mostly nibbles from small animals) to the various antics of all kinds of pets! The girls who didn't have any pets seemed to get bored quite quickly (which is understandable) and I think she could have cut it a bit shorter but the rest of the girls were very enthusiastic about sharing their stories. She did manage to fit in a few extra details, such as teaching them how to deal with a dog if it runs towards you (stand still and don't make eye contact) after one of the girls told a story about when she tried to outrun a dog at a park which I thought was quite a subtle way of teaching them things.
Brown Owl then presented her with the cheque and she gave the unit a certificate to say thank you. We then lined all the girls up so that we could take a photo of them all as a record of who raised the money (we keep a scrapbook of photos and certificates the unit has gained) and then she announced that she had RSPCA stickers and paw shaped badges for each girl which cheered up most of the ones who'd been looking a bit bored! There was then a long queue of girls all deciding what colour they wanted and then changing their mind and going back! Eventually they all settled on the colour they wanted and she left, just in time for the girls to go home.
It was a good evening, in my opinion, because I'm a huge supporter of what the RSPCA do and an animal lover on top of it but I don't think some of the girls really enjoyed the evening because they had nothing to input and weren't that interested in what was being said. I do, however, think she could have drawn the story session to a close faster than she did as even I was getting a bit fed up with the girls stories (and I'm usually pretty patient when it comes to hearing stories!).
Wednesday 13 November 2013
Games and Voting
7/11/13
This was our first meeting back after the holiday. Next year is the Big Brownie Birthday as Brownies are going to be 100 years old and there is a badge that all girls can complete to show they were a Brownie during the centenary year. You must do 9 things to get the badge, 1 compulsory and 2 chosen ones each from 3 different topics (You, World, and Community) so we decided to let the girls vote on what they wanted to do as the chosen activities. Knowing our girls as we do though, we knew that we couldn't just sit them down and do all the voting in one go; they would go crazy! We decided instead to intersperse it with playing various games, which we also let them choose.
We started off by playing fishes (instructions here) which is always requested by the majority of girls. It went well for once although we did have one girl in tears because she tripped over when she was caught out. When we were done we sat the girls down for the first of the votes.We handed out the choices for the 'You' section of the badge and then Brown Owl went down the list explaining to the girls exactly what each thing entailed. Each girl was told to mark each item with either a line through (don't like at all), one tick (would do without objection) or two ticks (really like) and there was no limit on the number of ticks they were allowed. It took a while to get through all the things (there were about 10 of them) because the girls were talking quite a bit but we eventually reached the bottom of the list and collected them all in.
Then we sang 'The Thousand Legged Worm' (lyrics here) which we used to sing when I was a Brownie but haven't done for a while so none of the current girls knew it. They seemed to quite like the song though, which is good because I really enjoy it too.
We did the second round of voting which was slightly quicker although I did notice that some girls (mainly the older ones) seemed a bit bored and were just ticking and crossing randomly without listening to what they actually meant.
The final game we played was wigwams (instructions here) which was also a request from the girls and then we did the final load of voting before the girls went home.
It was quite a relaxed evening because I didn't have to do too much beside talk to girls and hand out pens for the voting. When we got home though, I volunteered to count up all the votes which turned out to be more complicated than I first thought..! Most girls had voted in the way they had been instructed which made it fairly easy to add up their votes but a handful of girls either hadn't listened or didn't understand because some of them had put more than 2 ticks (which I counted as 2) and some of them had gone down and put 2 ticks next to every item on the list! A fair few girls had also crossed something out and then changed their mind and ticked it too which made their voting slips quite complicated. I eventually finished counting them up, after a lot longer than I had anticipated, and marked the two highest (or 3 in one case) which we will now do over the next few months so the girls can get their badge.
This was our first meeting back after the holiday. Next year is the Big Brownie Birthday as Brownies are going to be 100 years old and there is a badge that all girls can complete to show they were a Brownie during the centenary year. You must do 9 things to get the badge, 1 compulsory and 2 chosen ones each from 3 different topics (You, World, and Community) so we decided to let the girls vote on what they wanted to do as the chosen activities. Knowing our girls as we do though, we knew that we couldn't just sit them down and do all the voting in one go; they would go crazy! We decided instead to intersperse it with playing various games, which we also let them choose.
We started off by playing fishes (instructions here) which is always requested by the majority of girls. It went well for once although we did have one girl in tears because she tripped over when she was caught out. When we were done we sat the girls down for the first of the votes.We handed out the choices for the 'You' section of the badge and then Brown Owl went down the list explaining to the girls exactly what each thing entailed. Each girl was told to mark each item with either a line through (don't like at all), one tick (would do without objection) or two ticks (really like) and there was no limit on the number of ticks they were allowed. It took a while to get through all the things (there were about 10 of them) because the girls were talking quite a bit but we eventually reached the bottom of the list and collected them all in.
Then we sang 'The Thousand Legged Worm' (lyrics here) which we used to sing when I was a Brownie but haven't done for a while so none of the current girls knew it. They seemed to quite like the song though, which is good because I really enjoy it too.
We did the second round of voting which was slightly quicker although I did notice that some girls (mainly the older ones) seemed a bit bored and were just ticking and crossing randomly without listening to what they actually meant.
The final game we played was wigwams (instructions here) which was also a request from the girls and then we did the final load of voting before the girls went home.
It was quite a relaxed evening because I didn't have to do too much beside talk to girls and hand out pens for the voting. When we got home though, I volunteered to count up all the votes which turned out to be more complicated than I first thought..! Most girls had voted in the way they had been instructed which made it fairly easy to add up their votes but a handful of girls either hadn't listened or didn't understand because some of them had put more than 2 ticks (which I counted as 2) and some of them had gone down and put 2 ticks next to every item on the list! A fair few girls had also crossed something out and then changed their mind and ticked it too which made their voting slips quite complicated. I eventually finished counting them up, after a lot longer than I had anticipated, and marked the two highest (or 3 in one case) which we will now do over the next few months so the girls can get their badge.
Monday 4 November 2013
Campfire Songs
These are some of the songs we sang around our campfire on pack holiday last month. You may be able to find the tunes on the Internet but they can all work with any tune with the right number of beats in, do some experimenting! You can also see them all, along with other songs we sing regularly, here.
Campfire's Burning
This one is good as a starter (particularly if your campfire is taking a while to get going!). It can also be sung as a round with the second group coming in as the first group start the third line.
Campfire's burning,
Campfire's burning,
Draw nearer,
Draw nearer,
In the glowing,
In the glowing,
Come sing and be merry!
Cecil is my Caterpillar
One of our unit's favourites! It's generally spoken although you could make up a tune if you wanted to.
Cecil is my caterpillar,
Cecil is my friend,
The last time I saw Cecil he was this big (hold fingers a short distance apart)
I said 'Ooh, Cecil! What have you done?',
He said 'I've eaten all the leaves in [insert small local area such as the name of the town], that's what I've done!'
Repeat, increasing the size of 'Cecil' gradually along with the area of leaves he's eaten. In our unit it usually goes something along the lines of campsite -> town -> county -> UK -> Europe -> world -> universe.
Final verse:
Cecil is my caterpillar,
Cecil is my friend,
The last time I saw Cecil he was this big (hold fingers a short distance apart again)
I said 'Ooh, Cecil! What have you done?',
He said 'I've been sick!'
3 Little Angels
3 little angels, all dressed in white,
Tried to get to heaven on the end of a kite,
But the kite string was broken,
Down they all fell,
They couldn't get to heaven so they all went to
2 little angels, all dressed in white,
Tried to get to heaven on the end of a kite,
But the kite string was broken,
Down they all fell,
They couldn't get to heaven so they all went to
1 little angel, all dressed in white,
Tried to get to heaven on the end of a kite,
But the kite string was broken,
Down they all fell,
They couldn't get to heaven so they all went to
Don't be mistaken,
Don't be misled,
They couldn't get to heaven,
So they all went to bed!
Other verses include:
3 little devils (or Rainbows), all dressed in red, tried to get to heaven on the edge of a bed.
But the bed springs were broken, down they all fell, they couldn't get to heaven so they all went to...
3 little Brownies, all dressed in brown, tried to get to heaven, but their knickers fell down,
The elastic was broken, down they all fell, they couldn't get to heaven so they all went to...
3 little Girl Guides, all dressed in blue, tried to get to heaven on the edge of the loo,
But the loo seat was broken, down they all fell, they couldn't get to heaven so they all went to...
3 Blind Jellyfish
(sadly)
3 Blind Jellyfish,
3 Blind Jellyfish,
3 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.
(spoken)
And one fell off. Oh no!
2 Blind Jellyfish,
2 Blind Jellyfish,
2 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.
(spoken)
And one fell off. Oh no!
1 Blind Jellyfish,
1 Blind Jellyfish,
1 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.
(spoken)
And he fell off. Oh no!
(very sadly)
No Blind Jellyfish,
No Blind Jellyfish,
No Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.
(spoken)
And then one jumped back on again. Yay!
(happier)
1 Blind Jellyfish,
1 Blind Jellyfish,
1 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.
And another one jumped back on. Yay!
2 Blind Jellyfish,
2 Blind Jellyfish,
2 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.
And the third jumped back out again. Yay!
(really happily)
3 Blind Jellyfish,
3 Blind Jellyfish,
3 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.
Campfire's Burning
This one is good as a starter (particularly if your campfire is taking a while to get going!). It can also be sung as a round with the second group coming in as the first group start the third line.
Campfire's burning,
Campfire's burning,
Draw nearer,
Draw nearer,
In the glowing,
In the glowing,
Come sing and be merry!
Cecil is my Caterpillar
One of our unit's favourites! It's generally spoken although you could make up a tune if you wanted to.
Cecil is my caterpillar,
Cecil is my friend,
The last time I saw Cecil he was this big (hold fingers a short distance apart)
I said 'Ooh, Cecil! What have you done?',
He said 'I've eaten all the leaves in [insert small local area such as the name of the town], that's what I've done!'
Repeat, increasing the size of 'Cecil' gradually along with the area of leaves he's eaten. In our unit it usually goes something along the lines of campsite -> town -> county -> UK -> Europe -> world -> universe.
Final verse:
Cecil is my caterpillar,
Cecil is my friend,
The last time I saw Cecil he was this big (hold fingers a short distance apart again)
I said 'Ooh, Cecil! What have you done?',
He said 'I've been sick!'
3 Little Angels
3 little angels, all dressed in white,
Tried to get to heaven on the end of a kite,
But the kite string was broken,
Down they all fell,
They couldn't get to heaven so they all went to
2 little angels, all dressed in white,
Tried to get to heaven on the end of a kite,
But the kite string was broken,
Down they all fell,
They couldn't get to heaven so they all went to
1 little angel, all dressed in white,
Tried to get to heaven on the end of a kite,
But the kite string was broken,
Down they all fell,
They couldn't get to heaven so they all went to
Don't be mistaken,
Don't be misled,
They couldn't get to heaven,
So they all went to bed!
Other verses include:
3 little devils (or Rainbows), all dressed in red, tried to get to heaven on the edge of a bed.
But the bed springs were broken, down they all fell, they couldn't get to heaven so they all went to...
3 little Brownies, all dressed in brown, tried to get to heaven, but their knickers fell down,
The elastic was broken, down they all fell, they couldn't get to heaven so they all went to...
3 little Girl Guides, all dressed in blue, tried to get to heaven on the edge of the loo,
But the loo seat was broken, down they all fell, they couldn't get to heaven so they all went to...
3 Blind Jellyfish
(sadly)
3 Blind Jellyfish,
3 Blind Jellyfish,
3 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.
(spoken)
And one fell off. Oh no!
2 Blind Jellyfish,
2 Blind Jellyfish,
2 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.
(spoken)
And one fell off. Oh no!
1 Blind Jellyfish,
1 Blind Jellyfish,
1 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.
(spoken)
And he fell off. Oh no!
(very sadly)
No Blind Jellyfish,
No Blind Jellyfish,
No Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.
(spoken)
And then one jumped back on again. Yay!
(happier)
1 Blind Jellyfish,
1 Blind Jellyfish,
1 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.
And another one jumped back on. Yay!
2 Blind Jellyfish,
2 Blind Jellyfish,
2 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.
And the third jumped back out again. Yay!
(really happily)
3 Blind Jellyfish,
3 Blind Jellyfish,
3 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.
Thursday 31 October 2013
Halloween evening
24/10/13
I ran this evening as a Halloween themed evening. We told the girls at the end of last week to come in fancy dress and we had loads of different outfits, ranging from princesses to witches and vampires. Some of them had really gone to town with their outfit and had face paint or had died their hair with a shop bought costume and others had clearly tried their best with what they had at home. We've had Halloween evenings in the past and they've not gone as smoothly as we would have liked so I decided to try something a little different. Instead of having them all doing one activity and then the next I decided to have it as a rotation type evening, like our craft evening from a few weeks back. I chose 4 Halloween themed activities and then let the girls move from one to the next whenever they were ready.
We did apple bobbing, doughnut-on-string eating, Halloween biscuit decorating and face painting. Each leader was assigned an activity which they stayed on all evening and the Young Leaders mingled with the girls. I was in the kitchen, doing the biscuits. We bought a few boxes of Halloween shaped biscuits and used the icing left over from pack holiday. Sadly we only had yellow, blue and black but the girls made use of them the best they could (some of them realised that yellow and blue make green and were mixing them together on their biscuit however this became a little out of control and I had to put a stop to it). Some of the biscuits came out looking really good and others didn't so much! We also had the issue that the scouts in the next hall were having their AGM so we had to be quieter than we normally would and we couldn't have as many girls in the kitchen as we would ordinarily have had so we had to rush them to make sure everyone could have a go.
The girls seemed to be split down the middle about apple bobbing - some of them thought it was unhygienic and refused to do it and others were so keen we couldn't keep them out of the bucket! We had a separate apple for each girl and the water was changed regularly so it was perfectly hygienic but it was quite funny listening to some of them talking to their friends about how 'disgusting' it was to 'share saliva with someone'!
The face painting started off with mum painting small motifs on the girls' cheeks (we'd emailed all the parents a few days before to check that none of the girls were allergic) and then some of the girls asked if they could do each others' faces. This was going OK and the girls ended up looking quite nice with little bats although several of them commented on how talented mum was to be able to do it so well!
Overall, I think this evening was a success and went a lot better than Halloween evenings have in the past (usually we have a load of girls stood around with nothing to do...) however I think that it could have gone even better if we had had more space in the kitchen so we could have had more girls in there at one time.
Now for a week off for half term and then back on the 7th of November.
I ran this evening as a Halloween themed evening. We told the girls at the end of last week to come in fancy dress and we had loads of different outfits, ranging from princesses to witches and vampires. Some of them had really gone to town with their outfit and had face paint or had died their hair with a shop bought costume and others had clearly tried their best with what they had at home. We've had Halloween evenings in the past and they've not gone as smoothly as we would have liked so I decided to try something a little different. Instead of having them all doing one activity and then the next I decided to have it as a rotation type evening, like our craft evening from a few weeks back. I chose 4 Halloween themed activities and then let the girls move from one to the next whenever they were ready.
We did apple bobbing, doughnut-on-string eating, Halloween biscuit decorating and face painting. Each leader was assigned an activity which they stayed on all evening and the Young Leaders mingled with the girls. I was in the kitchen, doing the biscuits. We bought a few boxes of Halloween shaped biscuits and used the icing left over from pack holiday. Sadly we only had yellow, blue and black but the girls made use of them the best they could (some of them realised that yellow and blue make green and were mixing them together on their biscuit however this became a little out of control and I had to put a stop to it). Some of the biscuits came out looking really good and others didn't so much! We also had the issue that the scouts in the next hall were having their AGM so we had to be quieter than we normally would and we couldn't have as many girls in the kitchen as we would ordinarily have had so we had to rush them to make sure everyone could have a go.
The girls seemed to be split down the middle about apple bobbing - some of them thought it was unhygienic and refused to do it and others were so keen we couldn't keep them out of the bucket! We had a separate apple for each girl and the water was changed regularly so it was perfectly hygienic but it was quite funny listening to some of them talking to their friends about how 'disgusting' it was to 'share saliva with someone'!
The face painting started off with mum painting small motifs on the girls' cheeks (we'd emailed all the parents a few days before to check that none of the girls were allergic) and then some of the girls asked if they could do each others' faces. This was going OK and the girls ended up looking quite nice with little bats although several of them commented on how talented mum was to be able to do it so well!
Overall, I think this evening was a success and went a lot better than Halloween evenings have in the past (usually we have a load of girls stood around with nothing to do...) however I think that it could have gone even better if we had had more space in the kitchen so we could have had more girls in there at one time.
Now for a week off for half term and then back on the 7th of November.
Wednesday 30 October 2013
Card Bingo
17/10/13
This evening was run by Snowy Owl and was an activity she had on the side for pack holiday, had we needed it.
The girls were told to get into groups of 4 and sit around a table. I ended up playing, along with another Young Leader, because we didn't have a multiple of 4 girls! Each group was given a pack of playing cards which were dealt out to the 4 girls around the table (giving 13 cards for each girl) and they laid them all out, face up, in front of them, making sure they didn't get them confused with the other people on their table. We then had to do a quick lesson on what each suit looked like because most of the girls had absolutely no idea. Once we'd cleared that up we started the game. Snowy had a pack of giant cards which she shuffled. She then selected a card from the pack at random and called it out while holding it up. Whichever girl on each table had that card turned it over. It took a few turns for the girls to get the hang of it - one of them even asked us "does it have to match the picture and the umber or just one of them?"..! But once they'd all figured out how it worked, the game sped up. When a girl had one card left face up, she stood up and, once she could turn that card over, she shouted out BINGO!
The first game that we played went quite slowly although there was a lot of shouting as they got very excited when they were winning on their table! We then played again and, this time, Snowy went much quicker so the game took about half the time of the previous one. I think the one thing I would have changed about it would have been to have a winner on each table and not stop after one girl had won. It would have taken more time but the girls who were one or two cards away seemed quite put out that they had to stop when they were so close to beating the other girls on their table.
I think they girls enjoyed this evening but I think it could have gone a bit smoother. I acknowledge the fact that Snowy is new to Guiding and has to learn from her mistakes but sometimes I can't quite understand why people do the things they do when I can clearly see it won't work so well (for example, I would have continued the game without a second thought to keep the girls engaged)... I guess it's just a by-product of having been brought up surrounded with Guiding that these things come so naturally to me.
This evening was run by Snowy Owl and was an activity she had on the side for pack holiday, had we needed it.
The girls were told to get into groups of 4 and sit around a table. I ended up playing, along with another Young Leader, because we didn't have a multiple of 4 girls! Each group was given a pack of playing cards which were dealt out to the 4 girls around the table (giving 13 cards for each girl) and they laid them all out, face up, in front of them, making sure they didn't get them confused with the other people on their table. We then had to do a quick lesson on what each suit looked like because most of the girls had absolutely no idea. Once we'd cleared that up we started the game. Snowy had a pack of giant cards which she shuffled. She then selected a card from the pack at random and called it out while holding it up. Whichever girl on each table had that card turned it over. It took a few turns for the girls to get the hang of it - one of them even asked us "does it have to match the picture and the umber or just one of them?"..! But once they'd all figured out how it worked, the game sped up. When a girl had one card left face up, she stood up and, once she could turn that card over, she shouted out BINGO!
The first game that we played went quite slowly although there was a lot of shouting as they got very excited when they were winning on their table! We then played again and, this time, Snowy went much quicker so the game took about half the time of the previous one. I think the one thing I would have changed about it would have been to have a winner on each table and not stop after one girl had won. It would have taken more time but the girls who were one or two cards away seemed quite put out that they had to stop when they were so close to beating the other girls on their table.
I think they girls enjoyed this evening but I think it could have gone a bit smoother. I acknowledge the fact that Snowy is new to Guiding and has to learn from her mistakes but sometimes I can't quite understand why people do the things they do when I can clearly see it won't work so well (for example, I would have continued the game without a second thought to keep the girls engaged)... I guess it's just a by-product of having been brought up surrounded with Guiding that these things come so naturally to me.
Tuesday 29 October 2013
Challenge evening
10/10/13
This evening we ran a challenge evening which can go towards their Adventure/Adventure On badge. They were all split into their sixes and rotated through 5 different activities. Each leader was given an activity to run and the girls had 5 minutes to complete them, after which the leader would write down their score to be added up later.
Before we started, the girls were read a 'shopping list' which they were told to remember for the end of the meeting, as a six. Some of the girls all tried to remember all the items whereas some sixes had each girl remembering one or two items from the list, which seemed to make sense to me.
1. Cities
I was on this activity. I was given a map of Britain with 10 dots on it and an envelope of 10 city names. The girls were given the challenge of matching up the names to where they are. They ranged from places they should know (such as London and the local town), others they should have been able to guess (Aberystwyth - the only dot in Wales!) and a few which even I struggled with (Penzance for example). Most of them got the 'easy' ones although we had a few interesting placements of our own town, including in Scotland! One of the sixes resorted to asking me "Is this number 1? Is it number 2? Is it number 3?..." until they got it right..! Others tried to guess but were generally unsuccessful. I don't understand how they can not know anything about our country; even I could make educated guesses for the few I didn't know straight off and, when I was their age, I had a greater knowledge of our country than they appear to...
2. Paperclip chains
The six was given a box of around 100 paperclips and told to make the longest chain they could. Obviously, the best way to go about this would be for each girl to take a few and start making a short chain and then join them together at the end but some sixes didn't seem to get this idea and were all trying to add to the same chain. Unsurprisingly, the sixes that made the longest chain (using all the paperclips) were the ones who made several chains and joined them together!
3. Don't Say That
In this activity one girl was chosen and she had to stand facing all the others. She was then given a card with a word at the top to describe and a list of 4 words underneath that couldn't be used in describing the top word. The rest of her six had to guess what word she was describing.
4. Sugar Cube Tower
In this activity the girls were given a box of sugar cubes and they had to make the tallest tower they could with them. If a tower reached 6 blocks and fell over, 6 was recorded as the highest and then they started again to see if they could beat that height. I think the highest they got to was around 15/16. This has always been a favourite amongst our girls although they always ask if they can eat the sugar even though it's been all over the floor!
5. Balloon keepy-uppy
The girls were given a balloon and were instructed to not let it touch the floor in the 5 minute period (although they weren't allowed to hold it.) It was quite interesting watching different sixes doing this activity - some had a system in which everyone was given an order and the balloon was passed around everyone and in others it was a free-for-all which resulted in tears from some of the younger (and therefore shorter) girls because the taller ones could reach the balloon first.
After all the girls had done all the activities they were given a piece of paper in their six and told to write down the shopping list form the beginning of the evening. Unsurprisingly, the groups who had shared out the items to remember did better than the groups who had all tried to remember it all. Finally, we added up the points and announced the winner before the girls all went home.
This evening was interesting as I got to see how each six worked as a group and which sixers had good ideas. It was very intriguing to find out which girls were naturally good at working in a group and which ones weren't.
This evening we ran a challenge evening which can go towards their Adventure/Adventure On badge. They were all split into their sixes and rotated through 5 different activities. Each leader was given an activity to run and the girls had 5 minutes to complete them, after which the leader would write down their score to be added up later.
Before we started, the girls were read a 'shopping list' which they were told to remember for the end of the meeting, as a six. Some of the girls all tried to remember all the items whereas some sixes had each girl remembering one or two items from the list, which seemed to make sense to me.
1. Cities
I was on this activity. I was given a map of Britain with 10 dots on it and an envelope of 10 city names. The girls were given the challenge of matching up the names to where they are. They ranged from places they should know (such as London and the local town), others they should have been able to guess (Aberystwyth - the only dot in Wales!) and a few which even I struggled with (Penzance for example). Most of them got the 'easy' ones although we had a few interesting placements of our own town, including in Scotland! One of the sixes resorted to asking me "Is this number 1? Is it number 2? Is it number 3?..." until they got it right..! Others tried to guess but were generally unsuccessful. I don't understand how they can not know anything about our country; even I could make educated guesses for the few I didn't know straight off and, when I was their age, I had a greater knowledge of our country than they appear to...
2. Paperclip chains
The six was given a box of around 100 paperclips and told to make the longest chain they could. Obviously, the best way to go about this would be for each girl to take a few and start making a short chain and then join them together at the end but some sixes didn't seem to get this idea and were all trying to add to the same chain. Unsurprisingly, the sixes that made the longest chain (using all the paperclips) were the ones who made several chains and joined them together!
3. Don't Say That
In this activity one girl was chosen and she had to stand facing all the others. She was then given a card with a word at the top to describe and a list of 4 words underneath that couldn't be used in describing the top word. The rest of her six had to guess what word she was describing.
4. Sugar Cube Tower
In this activity the girls were given a box of sugar cubes and they had to make the tallest tower they could with them. If a tower reached 6 blocks and fell over, 6 was recorded as the highest and then they started again to see if they could beat that height. I think the highest they got to was around 15/16. This has always been a favourite amongst our girls although they always ask if they can eat the sugar even though it's been all over the floor!
5. Balloon keepy-uppy
The girls were given a balloon and were instructed to not let it touch the floor in the 5 minute period (although they weren't allowed to hold it.) It was quite interesting watching different sixes doing this activity - some had a system in which everyone was given an order and the balloon was passed around everyone and in others it was a free-for-all which resulted in tears from some of the younger (and therefore shorter) girls because the taller ones could reach the balloon first.
After all the girls had done all the activities they were given a piece of paper in their six and told to write down the shopping list form the beginning of the evening. Unsurprisingly, the groups who had shared out the items to remember did better than the groups who had all tried to remember it all. Finally, we added up the points and announced the winner before the girls all went home.
This evening was interesting as I got to see how each six worked as a group and which sixers had good ideas. It was very intriguing to find out which girls were naturally good at working in a group and which ones weren't.
Monday 28 October 2013
Using up old crafts
Before I start, I would like to apologise for the lack of posts in a while. I have had quite a chaotic few weeks (I've been applying to uni (have had my first offer :D ) and organising a school House Music competition) so I haven't had a chance to sit down and write anything... I will be catching up with the last few meetings this week as I'm not at school and hopefully, I will resume reglar posting next week!
3/10/13
This evening we decided to use up a load of our old crafts as it meant we didn't have to plan too much following pack holiday. We gave the girls 3 crafts they could chose to do and let them go and do the ones they wanted to. The options were design-your-own jigsaws (which were left over from pack holiday), bead geckos (always a favourite) and friendship bracelets.
I was helping out with the bead geckos. I started off with 4 of the quieter girls on my table which was really nice because it meant I could just sit and chat to them. They were all girls who've never made the geckos before (it's quite a popular craft in our unit so most girls can make them!) so I got to practice my explaining which is something I've never been so good at... It went quite well though and they all ended up finishing theirs. One of the girls was very independent and didn't seem to want to ask me for help but she did in the end and was very grateful for my help. She is a really quiet and I was proud that I had managed to get her involved in the activity. After a while, girls who had been doing other activities started finishing and moving on to other ones which is where the evening got more complicated! As opposed to having 4 girls al at the same stage in making their gecko, I had 10 or so at various stages of making so I was just running around the table trying to help everyone at once! I had numerous geckos shoved under my nose with requests ranging from 'what do I do now?' to 'please finish it for me'! While I sound like I'm complaining about it, I do actually quite enjoy helping several girls at once. If I didn't, I wouldn't be helping at Brownies!
The other activities seemed to go down well but, as you can probably imagine, I didn't really have much time to go and have a look!
It was a chaotic but enjoyable evening!
3/10/13
This evening we decided to use up a load of our old crafts as it meant we didn't have to plan too much following pack holiday. We gave the girls 3 crafts they could chose to do and let them go and do the ones they wanted to. The options were design-your-own jigsaws (which were left over from pack holiday), bead geckos (always a favourite) and friendship bracelets.
I was helping out with the bead geckos. I started off with 4 of the quieter girls on my table which was really nice because it meant I could just sit and chat to them. They were all girls who've never made the geckos before (it's quite a popular craft in our unit so most girls can make them!) so I got to practice my explaining which is something I've never been so good at... It went quite well though and they all ended up finishing theirs. One of the girls was very independent and didn't seem to want to ask me for help but she did in the end and was very grateful for my help. She is a really quiet and I was proud that I had managed to get her involved in the activity. After a while, girls who had been doing other activities started finishing and moving on to other ones which is where the evening got more complicated! As opposed to having 4 girls al at the same stage in making their gecko, I had 10 or so at various stages of making so I was just running around the table trying to help everyone at once! I had numerous geckos shoved under my nose with requests ranging from 'what do I do now?' to 'please finish it for me'! While I sound like I'm complaining about it, I do actually quite enjoy helping several girls at once. If I didn't, I wouldn't be helping at Brownies!
The other activities seemed to go down well but, as you can probably imagine, I didn't really have much time to go and have a look!
It was a chaotic but enjoyable evening!
Sunday 6 October 2013
Pack Holiday 2013 - Sunday
29/9/13
We were woken at 7:30 this morning by the girls so I got out of bed and went into their room to try and keep them quiet for a little longer so that the adults could wake up. Most of them were fine until one girl went into the toilet and came running back out shouting about a daddy long legs which was in there! I ended up having to go and get a glass and a piece of paper to get it out because they were refusing to go near the bathroom with it in there... After a while Snowy came up and said that all the adults were awake, they just hadn't left their room so we let the girls go down to the living room as long as they were quiet. All the ones who went down there ended up reading some of the really old Brownie Annuals which are on a bookcase in there which was a bit unexpected as none of them had brought a book with them (as far as I'm aware) and I've heard quite a few of them say how much they dislike reading in the past... I'm not complaining though, it was nice to see loads of them sat quietly reading; it reminded me of my pack holidays when I was a Brownie.
Eventually the adults got up and started to make breakfast, which was the same as yesterday. I ended up helping in the kitchen for most of the time which meant that, by the time I sat down to eat, there was only the one sausage for me not the two I'd been promised. I didn't really mind because I quite enjoy helping out the cooks by co-ordinating the girls who come to take the food through to the table (it gets too complicated for the cooks to try and do it while they're serving the food and they are always grateful for the extra pair of hands) and I know there will be more food during the day.
The craft for this morning was owl 'cushions' which were more like mini stuffed toys because they were quite small... They were pre-cut out and had holes punched in them to make it easier for the girls to sew them. They worked quite well as they were fairly easy although Snowy hadn't trialled it beforehand (second nature to Mum and I) so she didn't know that you also needed glue (for the feet) or that starting below the ear wasn't a good idea because it made it quite hard to sew it up once you had stuffed it... I know that I have to let her make these mistakes and learn from them but I find it quite hard to comprehend not trying out a craft before giving it to the girls because it's pretty much been drummed into me from the beginning. Some of the girls were getting quite frustrated with theirs which I think was a combination of them being very tired and them finding it quite complicated, especially after they had stuffed it. Snowy ended up having the leave the room at one point because one girl was continually crying because it wasn't going how she wanted it to! Eventually all the girls finished though and they all thought that the owls were cute.
We then had elevenses, basically a drink and cake/biscuit/fruit to keep them going. I was surprised at the number of girls who chose to have fruit as well as their cake; when I was their age, my parents struggled to get me to eat fruit and veg (I'm much better now, although there are still a fair few things I can't stand)...
Once they had finished one of the sixes was tasked with finding a couple of hymns that the other girls would know and a prayer for our mini church service which we have every Sunday morning. I don't really know why or when it started but we've always done it since before I was a Brownie! Most of the girls go to the same school and therefore know the same songs for the most part. I went to the same school as them and the songs they learn haven't changed much so I know most of them too. The prayer they chose was a prayer we used to say before lunch when I was in the infants (age 5-7) and I was surprised (and pleased) that I could still remember the words! After the brief service, we sang Happy Birthday to one of the girls because she turned 9 today. All the girls had signed a card for her last night too which Snowy gave to her as well. She seemed happy that we hadn't forgotten, particularly as she had been crying earlier because she couldn't see her Dad for her whole birthday.
Then we had a cooked lunch. We had roast chicken with potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, veg and gravy which went down really well with the girls, who almost all finished every mouthful! We had a small glitch at the beginning though because the two plates with no gravy on had gone missing... The cooks said that they had definitely sent those two out first but no one knows what happened to them because not only did they never made it to their intended recipients, they never made it to the table! They decided that they must have come back to the kitchen but I don't remember any plate coming back and I was in there the whole time... I suppose we'll never know what happened to them but the two girls who didn't want gravy were given food from other plates which hadn't touched any gravy and everyone tucked in happily. Once they had finished, I went back to the kitchen to help serve pudding, jelly and ice cream. We had a small mishap when one of the girls was sick (she thinks it was because she ate too quickly because she didn't want to be last to finish again) but we managed to get all the food out without losing any this time!
After lunch, the girls had rest hour again where they were supposed to be packing all their stuff away, ready to go home. This went well, for the most part, although several girls complained that they had lost things. Most of them showed up while other girls were packing but a couple of things had to be located under beds and other people's stuff. Mum suspects malicious intent but we can't be sure and no harm was done so we just left it be. We then had our tuck shop and then it was time to go home. We had a quick circle where all the leaders were given thank you presents and the girls got a badge to say they had been to Macaroni Woods, their toymaker badge (everything we did this weekend counted towards it) and a Brownie bear ornament as a memento.
Finally, at 4pm, we let the parents in to take the girls home. All the girls were very pleased to see their parents again but also sad to leave, as they are every year. After everyone had gone, us leaders were left to tidy up and pick up any lost property (surprisingly we only had an odd sock which was claimed by one of the cooks as being her daughter's). We finally left around 5:30 and went home ourselves. I was absolutely shattered and pretty much had some food, a bath and went to bed!
This year's pack holiday, while being slightly different because Snowy was running it, was still thoroughly enjoyable, as usual! As much as we complain about it, I think all the leaders actually really enjoy it because it lets us get closer to some of the girls as they always seem to open up a bit and talk about more during a meal or walk than they can during an hour and half's meeting. It also brings back really good memories for me from the many other pack holidays I have been on over the years from basic ones of the building to more specific ones about old friends I haven't seen in years... All in all, a very good weekend!
We were woken at 7:30 this morning by the girls so I got out of bed and went into their room to try and keep them quiet for a little longer so that the adults could wake up. Most of them were fine until one girl went into the toilet and came running back out shouting about a daddy long legs which was in there! I ended up having to go and get a glass and a piece of paper to get it out because they were refusing to go near the bathroom with it in there... After a while Snowy came up and said that all the adults were awake, they just hadn't left their room so we let the girls go down to the living room as long as they were quiet. All the ones who went down there ended up reading some of the really old Brownie Annuals which are on a bookcase in there which was a bit unexpected as none of them had brought a book with them (as far as I'm aware) and I've heard quite a few of them say how much they dislike reading in the past... I'm not complaining though, it was nice to see loads of them sat quietly reading; it reminded me of my pack holidays when I was a Brownie.
Eventually the adults got up and started to make breakfast, which was the same as yesterday. I ended up helping in the kitchen for most of the time which meant that, by the time I sat down to eat, there was only the one sausage for me not the two I'd been promised. I didn't really mind because I quite enjoy helping out the cooks by co-ordinating the girls who come to take the food through to the table (it gets too complicated for the cooks to try and do it while they're serving the food and they are always grateful for the extra pair of hands) and I know there will be more food during the day.
The craft for this morning was owl 'cushions' which were more like mini stuffed toys because they were quite small... They were pre-cut out and had holes punched in them to make it easier for the girls to sew them. They worked quite well as they were fairly easy although Snowy hadn't trialled it beforehand (second nature to Mum and I) so she didn't know that you also needed glue (for the feet) or that starting below the ear wasn't a good idea because it made it quite hard to sew it up once you had stuffed it... I know that I have to let her make these mistakes and learn from them but I find it quite hard to comprehend not trying out a craft before giving it to the girls because it's pretty much been drummed into me from the beginning. Some of the girls were getting quite frustrated with theirs which I think was a combination of them being very tired and them finding it quite complicated, especially after they had stuffed it. Snowy ended up having the leave the room at one point because one girl was continually crying because it wasn't going how she wanted it to! Eventually all the girls finished though and they all thought that the owls were cute.
We then had elevenses, basically a drink and cake/biscuit/fruit to keep them going. I was surprised at the number of girls who chose to have fruit as well as their cake; when I was their age, my parents struggled to get me to eat fruit and veg (I'm much better now, although there are still a fair few things I can't stand)...
Once they had finished one of the sixes was tasked with finding a couple of hymns that the other girls would know and a prayer for our mini church service which we have every Sunday morning. I don't really know why or when it started but we've always done it since before I was a Brownie! Most of the girls go to the same school and therefore know the same songs for the most part. I went to the same school as them and the songs they learn haven't changed much so I know most of them too. The prayer they chose was a prayer we used to say before lunch when I was in the infants (age 5-7) and I was surprised (and pleased) that I could still remember the words! After the brief service, we sang Happy Birthday to one of the girls because she turned 9 today. All the girls had signed a card for her last night too which Snowy gave to her as well. She seemed happy that we hadn't forgotten, particularly as she had been crying earlier because she couldn't see her Dad for her whole birthday.
Then we had a cooked lunch. We had roast chicken with potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, veg and gravy which went down really well with the girls, who almost all finished every mouthful! We had a small glitch at the beginning though because the two plates with no gravy on had gone missing... The cooks said that they had definitely sent those two out first but no one knows what happened to them because not only did they never made it to their intended recipients, they never made it to the table! They decided that they must have come back to the kitchen but I don't remember any plate coming back and I was in there the whole time... I suppose we'll never know what happened to them but the two girls who didn't want gravy were given food from other plates which hadn't touched any gravy and everyone tucked in happily. Once they had finished, I went back to the kitchen to help serve pudding, jelly and ice cream. We had a small mishap when one of the girls was sick (she thinks it was because she ate too quickly because she didn't want to be last to finish again) but we managed to get all the food out without losing any this time!
After lunch, the girls had rest hour again where they were supposed to be packing all their stuff away, ready to go home. This went well, for the most part, although several girls complained that they had lost things. Most of them showed up while other girls were packing but a couple of things had to be located under beds and other people's stuff. Mum suspects malicious intent but we can't be sure and no harm was done so we just left it be. We then had our tuck shop and then it was time to go home. We had a quick circle where all the leaders were given thank you presents and the girls got a badge to say they had been to Macaroni Woods, their toymaker badge (everything we did this weekend counted towards it) and a Brownie bear ornament as a memento.
Finally, at 4pm, we let the parents in to take the girls home. All the girls were very pleased to see their parents again but also sad to leave, as they are every year. After everyone had gone, us leaders were left to tidy up and pick up any lost property (surprisingly we only had an odd sock which was claimed by one of the cooks as being her daughter's). We finally left around 5:30 and went home ourselves. I was absolutely shattered and pretty much had some food, a bath and went to bed!
This year's pack holiday, while being slightly different because Snowy was running it, was still thoroughly enjoyable, as usual! As much as we complain about it, I think all the leaders actually really enjoy it because it lets us get closer to some of the girls as they always seem to open up a bit and talk about more during a meal or walk than they can during an hour and half's meeting. It also brings back really good memories for me from the many other pack holidays I have been on over the years from basic ones of the building to more specific ones about old friends I haven't seen in years... All in all, a very good weekend!
Saturday 5 October 2013
Pack Holiday 2013 - Saturday
28/9/13
The girls woke up at around 7:30 this morning, already hungry! However, because they had kept the leaders up until nearly midnight last night, the adults were all still in bed! The 3 Young Leaders, me included, crawled out of bed at around 8 to try and entertain them quietly while the adults woke up! Finally the pleas of the girls became too great and they got up to make breakfast.
Breakfast was cereals for those who wanted it, followed by eggy bread or toast with a sausage. The waitresses laid the table and the girls had all sat down and were tucking into their cereals and I was in the kitchen, helping to make the eggy bread and toast, when the fire alarm went off. It always goes off when you make eggy bread because the pans are covered in old fat which smokes a lot. Usually, if we know that it was definitely the cooks, we ignore it (as much as you can ignore a high pitched, insistent beeping!) but, because Snowy Owl is doing her test we used it as an opportunity for a full fire drill. We got all the girls outside (amidst complaints that their slippers were getting wet from the grass) and assembled under the tree, as we had told them to do and then did a register. Once we had explained that a real fire wouldn't wait until they were wearing sensible shoes and that they should just leave and had also told them that, because we knew it was a false alarm, the cooks had stayed inside to make sure we didn't cause an actual fire by leaving the food in the cooker, we went back inside to enjoy our breakfast!
After breakfast, the girls were set the task of writing a short play with puppets that they would be making over the course of the day. The three plays were very different; one group did Despicable Me 3, another group did Minions Meet One Direction and the third group did their own version of Romeo and Juliet, involving two frogs who met in a toilet as the title characters..! There were a couple of arguments over who was going to play what character and what the script was going to be but then everything settled down and the scripts all came together. They had a short break and then set about making the backdrop for their play. The were given paper and pens and could create what ever they wanted to be held up during their play. It went OK but some of the girls were getting bored pretty quickly because you only needed a couple of people to do it, not the whole six. If we were running it as a normal pack holiday, we would have had some back up crafts to hand for these moments but Snowy Owl hadn't thought of that so they had nothing to do.
Lunch was sandwiches, crisps and fruit which the girls thoroughly enjoyed, with the majority of them eating their crusts too! After lunch we always have what we call 'rest hour'. All the girls have an hour where they must stay in their room and be fairly quiet. We don't force them to be silent, it's just a time for them to have a break from everyone else if they want and chill out for a bit, without us watching over them all the time! It also gives us leaders a bit of a break, which I used to do a bit more homework (as studious as I seem, this isn't a normal occurrence, it just happened that I quite liked the look of the sheet we had to do...). The other Young Leaders set up our tuck shop. We sell the girls little trinkets that they can keep as a memory of pack holiday. Usually we have some badges, pencils and notebooks as well as the ever popular handmade bead geckos and sweets! We always limit them to 3 sweets so they don't get too hyper although this year Snowy Owl had bought some melody pops which are basically lollies in the shape of whistles which make a rather horrible noise when blown incorrectly (and an irritating one when blown correctly, as proved by one of our Young Leaders..!)! We let in one six at a time so that we didn't get too crowded and we take the opportunity to improve their money skills by asking them to work out how much change they are owed.
After that came the highlight of camp for most girls - always the most talked about afterwards and the first thing new girls hear about camp before their first one anyway - the walk to Eastleach and the River Leach! It is around 1.5 miles from the house to the river and we always have complaints about how far it is, usually before we've even left the woods! This year was no different with a continuous stream of complaints and threats to not walk any further but we all made it to the river eventually. We were confronted by a swan and her young where we would normally have got in so we went a bit further upstream. The two Young Leaders went in first to establish where it was too deep for the girls and then we let them all in! They had all brought wellie boots and all of them got in. In previous years we've always had one or two who'll be apprehensive or won't want to go in (which is fine - we don't force them to and I was one of the ones who never went in) but this year all of them went in with no hesitation! They enjoyed around 20 minutes of walking up and down between the two marks the Young Leaders had decided on and us leaders stood along the bank laughing at them and talking to a few curious members of the public who were walked past. Finally we got them all out and went through several more minutes of wellie emptying and shoe changing (for those who'd thought ahead enough to bring dry shoes and socks) and started the walk back! We always have more complaints on the way back as the girls who didn't bring dry shoes start to regret not doing so when their wellies start to rub and a lot of the girls start to get tired too. I walked back with two girls, one holding each hand, and we had a nice conversation but, somehow, we ended up bringing up the rear. The girls at the back are always the ones who complain the most because they're the most tired and this year was no different... One of the girls swung between being really happy and informing us of all the antics her imaginary friend Mr Frank was getting up to and crying because she was "too tired to walk any further"..! At one point she sat down and started crying in the middle of the road (country lane which was very quiet) and refused to walk any further, although she got up and carried on when I told her that, if she didn't want to walk any more, we would pick her up next year on our walk! 2 minutes later she was in fits of giggles because Mr Frank had run into a field of sheep and was sat on top of one..! We made it back to the house in one piece and then we had the usual trouble of getting the wellies off the feet of some of the girls. When the wellies have a bit of water in them, they become really difficult to remove and sometimes require a leader holding the girl around the middle and another leader pulling the wellie off! The girls found this hilarious but we eventually got all th girls back inside for a quick change of clothes and a dry off before making their puppets for their plays.
Each girl was given a wooden spoon and loads of foam, wool and pipe cleaners as well as a tonne of glue and sticky tape! They could use whatever they wanted, however they wanted, to make their character. As usual, we had some tears as some girls took other girls' comments to heart (always happens when you have a group of tired, young girls all in one place for any length of time) but it was quickly resolved. Some of the puppets were a little dubious (as it always is with Brownies) but some of the others were actually quite imaginative! The testers showed up while the girls were in full swing and had a look round the house and asked a few questions. One of the testers was another Brownie guider from our district so we had a good old catch up too! The girls were quite excited about their visit and all wanted to run down and say hello as soon as the doorbell went but we managed to persuade them to stay in the craft room until they came down to see them.
Next came dinner, meatballs and pasta followed by choc ices for the girls and cheesecake for the leaders. The two testers joined us for the meal so we had to squeeze two extra chairs around our already cramped table! We split them up, as we do with all the leaders, so they could talk to the girls. The leader from our district ended up sat opposite me and near to Snowy so she had some civilised conversation as well as being able to talk to the girls but the other tester somehow ended up sat between two of the most vocal girls in our unit! The poor woman had non stop, totally irrelevant conversation for the whole meal but I think she dealt with it OK...
After dinner, the testers left and we had our campfire. The two Young Leaders took a few girls outside before it started getting dark to collect wood and then they went out after dinner to pile it all up ready to light. We then got all the girls outside and sat down before we explained about our jar of ashes (we always tip on some ashes from the previous years' campfire so that our new one has some of the memories of all the previous ones in it) and then lit the fire. We had a few problems getting it going but, once it had caught, it was quite impressive! The wind caught it a few times which scared the girls but we still managed to sing several of the girls favourite songs around it, including 3 Blind Jellyfish, Who Stole The Cookie?, Cecil is my Caterpillar, 3 Little Angels, Tra La La, and Campfire's Burning (lyrics to all follow in another post!). We finished off by making s'mores over the embers which always goes down well with the girls!
Finally they all went back inside and had hot chocolate. The 3 Young Leaders left the adults in charge and stayed outside. We wanted to test the theory that acorns and conkers explode when put in a fire but we didn't think it would be safe with the girls outside too! It turns out that acorns are a bit pathetic because they just make slight popping noises but conkers are quite spectacular as the other two found out when one of them exploded unexpectedly! I had moved away from the campfire a bit and was heading back inside when there was a loud pop from behind me and the two other Young Leaders came running back inside shouting that they had been hit by flying conker! When they got inside they found that it was only a little bit of soot and no harm had been done but most of the girls found it utterly hilarious (as did I, if I'm honest)!
We eventually got the girls to get ready for bed and then we had the same battle as last night where they wouldn't shut up and go to sleep! Us 3 Young Leaders ended up getting into bed around 11 and the girls were still making noise. We heard Brown Owl go into their room and tell them that she was going to bed and did not want to be disturbed until the morning and thought that we would finally be able to sleep but, no, 5 minutes later there was a frantic knocking on our door and 2 girls saying that a friend felt sick but they didn't want to wake up Brown Owl because they were scared to. She wasn't actually asleep at that point and heard too so she dealt with it (the girl was fine, just over tired) and we finally got to sleep after a very busy day!
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Making s'mores:
The girls woke up at around 7:30 this morning, already hungry! However, because they had kept the leaders up until nearly midnight last night, the adults were all still in bed! The 3 Young Leaders, me included, crawled out of bed at around 8 to try and entertain them quietly while the adults woke up! Finally the pleas of the girls became too great and they got up to make breakfast.
Breakfast was cereals for those who wanted it, followed by eggy bread or toast with a sausage. The waitresses laid the table and the girls had all sat down and were tucking into their cereals and I was in the kitchen, helping to make the eggy bread and toast, when the fire alarm went off. It always goes off when you make eggy bread because the pans are covered in old fat which smokes a lot. Usually, if we know that it was definitely the cooks, we ignore it (as much as you can ignore a high pitched, insistent beeping!) but, because Snowy Owl is doing her test we used it as an opportunity for a full fire drill. We got all the girls outside (amidst complaints that their slippers were getting wet from the grass) and assembled under the tree, as we had told them to do and then did a register. Once we had explained that a real fire wouldn't wait until they were wearing sensible shoes and that they should just leave and had also told them that, because we knew it was a false alarm, the cooks had stayed inside to make sure we didn't cause an actual fire by leaving the food in the cooker, we went back inside to enjoy our breakfast!
After breakfast, the girls were set the task of writing a short play with puppets that they would be making over the course of the day. The three plays were very different; one group did Despicable Me 3, another group did Minions Meet One Direction and the third group did their own version of Romeo and Juliet, involving two frogs who met in a toilet as the title characters..! There were a couple of arguments over who was going to play what character and what the script was going to be but then everything settled down and the scripts all came together. They had a short break and then set about making the backdrop for their play. The were given paper and pens and could create what ever they wanted to be held up during their play. It went OK but some of the girls were getting bored pretty quickly because you only needed a couple of people to do it, not the whole six. If we were running it as a normal pack holiday, we would have had some back up crafts to hand for these moments but Snowy Owl hadn't thought of that so they had nothing to do.
Lunch was sandwiches, crisps and fruit which the girls thoroughly enjoyed, with the majority of them eating their crusts too! After lunch we always have what we call 'rest hour'. All the girls have an hour where they must stay in their room and be fairly quiet. We don't force them to be silent, it's just a time for them to have a break from everyone else if they want and chill out for a bit, without us watching over them all the time! It also gives us leaders a bit of a break, which I used to do a bit more homework (as studious as I seem, this isn't a normal occurrence, it just happened that I quite liked the look of the sheet we had to do...). The other Young Leaders set up our tuck shop. We sell the girls little trinkets that they can keep as a memory of pack holiday. Usually we have some badges, pencils and notebooks as well as the ever popular handmade bead geckos and sweets! We always limit them to 3 sweets so they don't get too hyper although this year Snowy Owl had bought some melody pops which are basically lollies in the shape of whistles which make a rather horrible noise when blown incorrectly (and an irritating one when blown correctly, as proved by one of our Young Leaders..!)! We let in one six at a time so that we didn't get too crowded and we take the opportunity to improve their money skills by asking them to work out how much change they are owed.
After that came the highlight of camp for most girls - always the most talked about afterwards and the first thing new girls hear about camp before their first one anyway - the walk to Eastleach and the River Leach! It is around 1.5 miles from the house to the river and we always have complaints about how far it is, usually before we've even left the woods! This year was no different with a continuous stream of complaints and threats to not walk any further but we all made it to the river eventually. We were confronted by a swan and her young where we would normally have got in so we went a bit further upstream. The two Young Leaders went in first to establish where it was too deep for the girls and then we let them all in! They had all brought wellie boots and all of them got in. In previous years we've always had one or two who'll be apprehensive or won't want to go in (which is fine - we don't force them to and I was one of the ones who never went in) but this year all of them went in with no hesitation! They enjoyed around 20 minutes of walking up and down between the two marks the Young Leaders had decided on and us leaders stood along the bank laughing at them and talking to a few curious members of the public who were walked past. Finally we got them all out and went through several more minutes of wellie emptying and shoe changing (for those who'd thought ahead enough to bring dry shoes and socks) and started the walk back! We always have more complaints on the way back as the girls who didn't bring dry shoes start to regret not doing so when their wellies start to rub and a lot of the girls start to get tired too. I walked back with two girls, one holding each hand, and we had a nice conversation but, somehow, we ended up bringing up the rear. The girls at the back are always the ones who complain the most because they're the most tired and this year was no different... One of the girls swung between being really happy and informing us of all the antics her imaginary friend Mr Frank was getting up to and crying because she was "too tired to walk any further"..! At one point she sat down and started crying in the middle of the road (country lane which was very quiet) and refused to walk any further, although she got up and carried on when I told her that, if she didn't want to walk any more, we would pick her up next year on our walk! 2 minutes later she was in fits of giggles because Mr Frank had run into a field of sheep and was sat on top of one..! We made it back to the house in one piece and then we had the usual trouble of getting the wellies off the feet of some of the girls. When the wellies have a bit of water in them, they become really difficult to remove and sometimes require a leader holding the girl around the middle and another leader pulling the wellie off! The girls found this hilarious but we eventually got all th girls back inside for a quick change of clothes and a dry off before making their puppets for their plays.
Each girl was given a wooden spoon and loads of foam, wool and pipe cleaners as well as a tonne of glue and sticky tape! They could use whatever they wanted, however they wanted, to make their character. As usual, we had some tears as some girls took other girls' comments to heart (always happens when you have a group of tired, young girls all in one place for any length of time) but it was quickly resolved. Some of the puppets were a little dubious (as it always is with Brownies) but some of the others were actually quite imaginative! The testers showed up while the girls were in full swing and had a look round the house and asked a few questions. One of the testers was another Brownie guider from our district so we had a good old catch up too! The girls were quite excited about their visit and all wanted to run down and say hello as soon as the doorbell went but we managed to persuade them to stay in the craft room until they came down to see them.
Next came dinner, meatballs and pasta followed by choc ices for the girls and cheesecake for the leaders. The two testers joined us for the meal so we had to squeeze two extra chairs around our already cramped table! We split them up, as we do with all the leaders, so they could talk to the girls. The leader from our district ended up sat opposite me and near to Snowy so she had some civilised conversation as well as being able to talk to the girls but the other tester somehow ended up sat between two of the most vocal girls in our unit! The poor woman had non stop, totally irrelevant conversation for the whole meal but I think she dealt with it OK...
After dinner, the testers left and we had our campfire. The two Young Leaders took a few girls outside before it started getting dark to collect wood and then they went out after dinner to pile it all up ready to light. We then got all the girls outside and sat down before we explained about our jar of ashes (we always tip on some ashes from the previous years' campfire so that our new one has some of the memories of all the previous ones in it) and then lit the fire. We had a few problems getting it going but, once it had caught, it was quite impressive! The wind caught it a few times which scared the girls but we still managed to sing several of the girls favourite songs around it, including 3 Blind Jellyfish, Who Stole The Cookie?, Cecil is my Caterpillar, 3 Little Angels, Tra La La, and Campfire's Burning (lyrics to all follow in another post!). We finished off by making s'mores over the embers which always goes down well with the girls!
Finally they all went back inside and had hot chocolate. The 3 Young Leaders left the adults in charge and stayed outside. We wanted to test the theory that acorns and conkers explode when put in a fire but we didn't think it would be safe with the girls outside too! It turns out that acorns are a bit pathetic because they just make slight popping noises but conkers are quite spectacular as the other two found out when one of them exploded unexpectedly! I had moved away from the campfire a bit and was heading back inside when there was a loud pop from behind me and the two other Young Leaders came running back inside shouting that they had been hit by flying conker! When they got inside they found that it was only a little bit of soot and no harm had been done but most of the girls found it utterly hilarious (as did I, if I'm honest)!
We eventually got the girls to get ready for bed and then we had the same battle as last night where they wouldn't shut up and go to sleep! Us 3 Young Leaders ended up getting into bed around 11 and the girls were still making noise. We heard Brown Owl go into their room and tell them that she was going to bed and did not want to be disturbed until the morning and thought that we would finally be able to sleep but, no, 5 minutes later there was a frantic knocking on our door and 2 girls saying that a friend felt sick but they didn't want to wake up Brown Owl because they were scared to. She wasn't actually asleep at that point and heard too so she dealt with it (the girl was fine, just over tired) and we finally got to sleep after a very busy day!
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Making s'mores:
- Put a marshmallow on a wooden skewer and heat it up in the embers of a campfire until it begins to melt (I personally like mine to have caught on fire so the outside it burnt to a crisp and the middle is warm and squidgy but this isn't a good idea with a lot of girls)
- Spread chocolate spread on 2 digestive biscuits (or alternatively use chocolate digestives)
- Squash your marshmallow between the two biscuits
- Eat and enjoy!
Friday 4 October 2013
Pack Holiday 2013 - Friday
27/9/13
Dad picked me up from school and we drove across to pack holiday. We got there at around 4:30, a few minutes after Mum had got there. We unloaded all the stuff from both cars and then Snowy Owl and the two cooks (parents who help out regularly) arrived. We put up the posters and sorted out all of our things. We go to Campwood House in Macaroni Woods near Eastleach which is a converted WW2 house in the middle of some private woodland. It's owned by the Guide Association and has been refurbished a lot since we first went there in 2002! There is a fully functioning kitchen (complete with dishwasher which we don't use!), a living room/dining room with a long table in and a craft room for all the messy stuff! There is also a guider's room with 4 regular beds, a first aid room with another bed (and a really creepy looking knitted doll!), a small room with 3 bunk beds which we use as a Young Leader's room, two connected rooms containing 9 bunk beds where the girls 'sleep' and 3 bathrooms (with showers and a bath), It really is a very well equipped little building (hence why we've gone back for 12 consecutive years!).
I then sat on the sofa and did some of my homework before the girls started arriving at 6. It is always quite chaotic when the girls arrive and their parents settle them in because the rooms are quite small but, once they've all left, we can get started. Amazingly, no one got lost getting here for the first time in years! It's quite out of the way and, if you miss the turning, it can be quite hard to get back to it so usually we have at least one girl who is late arriving.
We started off with the house rules and gave out the badges and a little booklet including spaces for them to write a diary (if they want their Brownie Holiday badge) and some little puzzles for them to do in any spare time. Then we had some food! We always get the girls to do duties while they're on pack holiday which we've split up into cook (help prepare food), waitress (lay and clean the table) and health (dry up and clean toilets) and the sixes rotate through the different ones during the course of the weekend. The waitresses put out knives and forks and the place cards made yesterday and then we served pizza. We put it out on trays in the middle of the table for the girls to help themselves to as they should have eaten before they arrived anyway. It was rather entertaining as the cooks didn't realise how spicy the pepperoni pizza was so lots of the girls had a slice and then were complaining about how hot it was!
After the food we launched straight into the first activity. Each six was given a black bin bag, a white bin bag, a newspaper and some sticky tape and was tasked with making an outfit for one girl in their six. They were actually quite imaginative with their ideas - one six made a zebra print boob-tube and handbag from theirs! We then did a cat walk down the main corridor in the house. All the girls stood at one end except the model and one other girl who was describing what they were wearing to everyone. I was surprised at how much they seemed to know about how cat walks work and what is usually said on them! I didn't expect a group of primary school students to know that much about them - I certainly didn't when I was their age! Then there was an absolute mess to tidy up - there were bin bags everywhere! The girls did a really good job at cleaning up quickly though and the whole room was spotless again in 10 minutes!
After that, the girls were all allowed a hot chocolate before bed and then went to go and change into their pyjamas. In theory, then they would have all got into bed and fallen straight asleep but when do things ever go to plan! The girls were running around their bedrooms even after lights out, shouting, flashing torches around and planning their midnight feast! The leaders took it in turn to go in and tell them to go to sleep which, as usual, culminated in Mum sitting in the room until the majority of them had fallen asleep! I had a headache so I'd already gone to bed about half an hour after their lights were turned out (about 9:30) but I couldn't get to sleep until around 10:30...
I don't really mind though because I know that it will always happen (I was one of the 'culprits' when I was a Brownie!) and I know that this weekend I won't get much sleep but the enjoyment the girls get from it will make up for it!
Dad picked me up from school and we drove across to pack holiday. We got there at around 4:30, a few minutes after Mum had got there. We unloaded all the stuff from both cars and then Snowy Owl and the two cooks (parents who help out regularly) arrived. We put up the posters and sorted out all of our things. We go to Campwood House in Macaroni Woods near Eastleach which is a converted WW2 house in the middle of some private woodland. It's owned by the Guide Association and has been refurbished a lot since we first went there in 2002! There is a fully functioning kitchen (complete with dishwasher which we don't use!), a living room/dining room with a long table in and a craft room for all the messy stuff! There is also a guider's room with 4 regular beds, a first aid room with another bed (and a really creepy looking knitted doll!), a small room with 3 bunk beds which we use as a Young Leader's room, two connected rooms containing 9 bunk beds where the girls 'sleep' and 3 bathrooms (with showers and a bath), It really is a very well equipped little building (hence why we've gone back for 12 consecutive years!).
I then sat on the sofa and did some of my homework before the girls started arriving at 6. It is always quite chaotic when the girls arrive and their parents settle them in because the rooms are quite small but, once they've all left, we can get started. Amazingly, no one got lost getting here for the first time in years! It's quite out of the way and, if you miss the turning, it can be quite hard to get back to it so usually we have at least one girl who is late arriving.
We started off with the house rules and gave out the badges and a little booklet including spaces for them to write a diary (if they want their Brownie Holiday badge) and some little puzzles for them to do in any spare time. Then we had some food! We always get the girls to do duties while they're on pack holiday which we've split up into cook (help prepare food), waitress (lay and clean the table) and health (dry up and clean toilets) and the sixes rotate through the different ones during the course of the weekend. The waitresses put out knives and forks and the place cards made yesterday and then we served pizza. We put it out on trays in the middle of the table for the girls to help themselves to as they should have eaten before they arrived anyway. It was rather entertaining as the cooks didn't realise how spicy the pepperoni pizza was so lots of the girls had a slice and then were complaining about how hot it was!
After the food we launched straight into the first activity. Each six was given a black bin bag, a white bin bag, a newspaper and some sticky tape and was tasked with making an outfit for one girl in their six. They were actually quite imaginative with their ideas - one six made a zebra print boob-tube and handbag from theirs! We then did a cat walk down the main corridor in the house. All the girls stood at one end except the model and one other girl who was describing what they were wearing to everyone. I was surprised at how much they seemed to know about how cat walks work and what is usually said on them! I didn't expect a group of primary school students to know that much about them - I certainly didn't when I was their age! Then there was an absolute mess to tidy up - there were bin bags everywhere! The girls did a really good job at cleaning up quickly though and the whole room was spotless again in 10 minutes!
After that, the girls were all allowed a hot chocolate before bed and then went to go and change into their pyjamas. In theory, then they would have all got into bed and fallen straight asleep but when do things ever go to plan! The girls were running around their bedrooms even after lights out, shouting, flashing torches around and planning their midnight feast! The leaders took it in turn to go in and tell them to go to sleep which, as usual, culminated in Mum sitting in the room until the majority of them had fallen asleep! I had a headache so I'd already gone to bed about half an hour after their lights were turned out (about 9:30) but I couldn't get to sleep until around 10:30...
I don't really mind though because I know that it will always happen (I was one of the 'culprits' when I was a Brownie!) and I know that this weekend I won't get much sleep but the enjoyment the girls get from it will make up for it!
Thursday 3 October 2013
Place Cards
26/9/13
This evening the girls were quite hyper because we're going on pack holiday tomorrow. We started the evening by playing games of charades in two groups while Snowy Owl sorted out what she wanted to do this evening. I was helping her so I'm not 100% sure how well that worked but it seemed to be quite good. We also sang 'Pass The Didgeridoo' (lyrics here) which the girls always request.
The girls were then designing their place cards to go on the table on pack holiday. Every mealtime we shuffle up the cards and place them out randomly on the table so that the girls sit next to different people, not just their friends (it also helps split up the noisy ones!). Each girl was given a piece of card folded in half to write their name on and then decorate however they wanted. The girls who aren't going on pack holiday were given a piece of card to write a leader's name on and decorate instead, as we only had enough for everyone going on pack holiday. I spent that time sat on a table with some of the girls, just talking about random things... I also collected in all the place cards and made sure we had enough for everyone.
It was quite a sedate evening, even with 18 hyper girls excited for tomorrow!
This evening the girls were quite hyper because we're going on pack holiday tomorrow. We started the evening by playing games of charades in two groups while Snowy Owl sorted out what she wanted to do this evening. I was helping her so I'm not 100% sure how well that worked but it seemed to be quite good. We also sang 'Pass The Didgeridoo' (lyrics here) which the girls always request.
The girls were then designing their place cards to go on the table on pack holiday. Every mealtime we shuffle up the cards and place them out randomly on the table so that the girls sit next to different people, not just their friends (it also helps split up the noisy ones!). Each girl was given a piece of card folded in half to write their name on and then decorate however they wanted. The girls who aren't going on pack holiday were given a piece of card to write a leader's name on and decorate instead, as we only had enough for everyone going on pack holiday. I spent that time sat on a table with some of the girls, just talking about random things... I also collected in all the place cards and made sure we had enough for everyone.
It was quite a sedate evening, even with 18 hyper girls excited for tomorrow!
Monday 23 September 2013
Badges and Brownie Adventure
19/9/13
We started off this evening by making the badges for pack holiday. The girls are split into sixes and choose what character they are going to be (we have Agnes, Lucy and Dave this year) and then the Leaders all choose their own characters for the weekend too. Each girl makes a badge to wear for the weekend so we know what six they are in as do the leaders. Our district owns a badge machine (an absolutely ancient one!) which is loaned out to units who want to make badges. Basically the girls colour in a design (which we had pre-printed from the internet) and then it is placed in the machine, you pull a handle and it creates the badge for you - it fascinates the girls every time! We collect in the badges once they've been made so that they don't get lost between this meeting and next weekend, when pack holiday is. Any girl who is not going on pack holiday can also make a badge, either using a spare design we had printed or colouring in a blank circle however they like, and they are allowed to take it home there and then. I quite enjoy sitting and colouring with the girls because you get to know some of them a bit better as they'll just start to talk about their life and school and stuff. It helps me keep in touch with them too which makes planning evenings a bit easier.
Once the girls had finished, we tidied away the tables and they did a challenge from their Brownie Adventure or Brownie Adventure On book. If you don't know what these are, they are books that the girls have for their first and second halves of being a Brownie respectively which contain stories and activities for them to complete. You can also get a badge for doing a variety of the activities from the book along with a few other things, including doing interest badges, attending extra events and doing various other meetings. The girls were split into two groups; the younger ones and the older ones. I was helping the group of younger girls, who were learning to sign their names, as I can sign the BSL alphabet. I helped a few of them to work out their name from the pictures in their book and then I challenged them to guess my middle name after I had signed it to them. Most of them were really good at it and it turned out that they had had a partially deaf boy in their class for a while so a lot of them had learnt some basic words and phrases. I was quite surprised at this because I never had the opportunity to learn that sort of thing at primary school - I picked it up with a friend for fun a few years back (although I'm looking into doing a course to learn more).
We finished off the evening by singing one of the girls' favourite songs-'Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar' (lyrics here).
This was a good evening because I got to sit and talk to the girls which is one of my favourite parts of helping at the unit. I also found out things about the girls that I didn't already know. It was a nice, relaxing evening - reminding me why I do this.
And finally, just a bit of housekeeping: we are going away on pack holiday on Friday so my next post won't be up next Monday (although you can console yourself with the fact that there will be a couple of posts in the week afterwards about pack holiday!)
We started off this evening by making the badges for pack holiday. The girls are split into sixes and choose what character they are going to be (we have Agnes, Lucy and Dave this year) and then the Leaders all choose their own characters for the weekend too. Each girl makes a badge to wear for the weekend so we know what six they are in as do the leaders. Our district owns a badge machine (an absolutely ancient one!) which is loaned out to units who want to make badges. Basically the girls colour in a design (which we had pre-printed from the internet) and then it is placed in the machine, you pull a handle and it creates the badge for you - it fascinates the girls every time! We collect in the badges once they've been made so that they don't get lost between this meeting and next weekend, when pack holiday is. Any girl who is not going on pack holiday can also make a badge, either using a spare design we had printed or colouring in a blank circle however they like, and they are allowed to take it home there and then. I quite enjoy sitting and colouring with the girls because you get to know some of them a bit better as they'll just start to talk about their life and school and stuff. It helps me keep in touch with them too which makes planning evenings a bit easier.
Once the girls had finished, we tidied away the tables and they did a challenge from their Brownie Adventure or Brownie Adventure On book. If you don't know what these are, they are books that the girls have for their first and second halves of being a Brownie respectively which contain stories and activities for them to complete. You can also get a badge for doing a variety of the activities from the book along with a few other things, including doing interest badges, attending extra events and doing various other meetings. The girls were split into two groups; the younger ones and the older ones. I was helping the group of younger girls, who were learning to sign their names, as I can sign the BSL alphabet. I helped a few of them to work out their name from the pictures in their book and then I challenged them to guess my middle name after I had signed it to them. Most of them were really good at it and it turned out that they had had a partially deaf boy in their class for a while so a lot of them had learnt some basic words and phrases. I was quite surprised at this because I never had the opportunity to learn that sort of thing at primary school - I picked it up with a friend for fun a few years back (although I'm looking into doing a course to learn more).
We finished off the evening by singing one of the girls' favourite songs-'Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar' (lyrics here).
This was a good evening because I got to sit and talk to the girls which is one of my favourite parts of helping at the unit. I also found out things about the girls that I didn't already know. It was a nice, relaxing evening - reminding me why I do this.
And finally, just a bit of housekeeping: we are going away on pack holiday on Friday so my next post won't be up next Monday (although you can console yourself with the fact that there will be a couple of posts in the week afterwards about pack holiday!)
Monday 16 September 2013
Posters and Games
12/9/13
This week we started off the meeting with a game, to try and calm to girls down a bit before starting colouring posters for pack holiday while we had the parents meeting. It was decided that we should play Wigwams (instructions here) however we then had a job settling them down so we could play the game as they couldn't decide on their partners (and two of them desperately wanted to be the other Young Leader's partner!). We finally started playing but we only had time for 4 rounds before we had to stop to allow for the parents meeting to take place.
Before we go on pack holiday, we have a parents' meeting for any parents of girls who've never been on pack holiday before so they can find out what will happen. We have to have it in the corner of the hall so we always colour in posters for pack holiday during the meeting so the girls aren't too noisy. We gave them a choice of a variety of Despicable Me 2 pictures which they could choose from and pretty much left them to it. We ended up having a few arguments though because one table didn't want to share the new pens with the other girls and another table was hoarding yellows (which are kind of essential for colouring in minions...). After we had broken up the minor arguments though, we actually got a lot of surprisingly good pictures; some of the girls had definitely thought about what they were colouring in and hadn't rushed or messed about. The posters will be stuck onto card and put up around the house on camp and then returned to the girls afterwards.
This evening, whilst being quite taxing on my voice from all the shouting to break up arguments, was actually quite enjoyable. I love sitting and talking to the girls and hearing about what they've been doing (especially as I went to the same primary school as most of them so I can find out about my old teachers!) and I hear some rather entertaining stories!
This week we started off the meeting with a game, to try and calm to girls down a bit before starting colouring posters for pack holiday while we had the parents meeting. It was decided that we should play Wigwams (instructions here) however we then had a job settling them down so we could play the game as they couldn't decide on their partners (and two of them desperately wanted to be the other Young Leader's partner!). We finally started playing but we only had time for 4 rounds before we had to stop to allow for the parents meeting to take place.
Before we go on pack holiday, we have a parents' meeting for any parents of girls who've never been on pack holiday before so they can find out what will happen. We have to have it in the corner of the hall so we always colour in posters for pack holiday during the meeting so the girls aren't too noisy. We gave them a choice of a variety of Despicable Me 2 pictures which they could choose from and pretty much left them to it. We ended up having a few arguments though because one table didn't want to share the new pens with the other girls and another table was hoarding yellows (which are kind of essential for colouring in minions...). After we had broken up the minor arguments though, we actually got a lot of surprisingly good pictures; some of the girls had definitely thought about what they were colouring in and hadn't rushed or messed about. The posters will be stuck onto card and put up around the house on camp and then returned to the girls afterwards.
This evening, whilst being quite taxing on my voice from all the shouting to break up arguments, was actually quite enjoyable. I love sitting and talking to the girls and hearing about what they've been doing (especially as I went to the same primary school as most of them so I can find out about my old teachers!) and I hear some rather entertaining stories!
Monday 9 September 2013
First meeting back...
5/9/13
This week was the first meeting back after the summer break and the girls, as always, were hyper! Sadly, I could only attend the first half an hour of the meeting due to a meeting at school (which I could have missed but still...) but I still managed to catch up with a lot of the girls and heard many stories of holidays.
This week was the first meeting back after the summer break and the girls, as always, were hyper! Sadly, I could only attend the first half an hour of the meeting due to a meeting at school (which I could have missed but still...) but I still managed to catch up with a lot of the girls and heard many stories of holidays.
We started the meeting as usual, with the girls singing the song and then their own six songs, while skipping round the toadstool (yes, we are a very traditional unit), and one six did show-and-tell. We then had a PowWow to plan the theme for our camp in a few weeks. Usually we would have chosen the theme well before we broke up to give us a chance to come up with some ideas for crafts and games but our Snowy Owl is running it because she wants her camp permit so we are letting her find some of these things out herself (although admittedly she's been getting some very strong hints that she's leaving things a bit late now). She has decided that we are going to do the Toymaker badge while we're there so she gave the girls the choice of a recent film, clothing designers or toymakers. Brownies, being Brownies, obviously chose the recent film theme and, when asked which one, the unanimous decision was 'Despicable Me 2'! I actually think this is a really good idea because there's a lot of different characters for all the leaders and sixes to be and there are loads of activities that can be based around it easily so I'm thoroughly looking forwards to this camp (even if the girls did decide I should be Gru after I had left..!).
The girls were then split into their sixes for camp which caused much upset, as usual, because friends had been split up. We try to put the oldest 3 as sixers and then have a few girls who've been before and a few who haven't in each six because we've found that, if we let them choose, we end up with a group of younger girls who don't know what they're doing. This way, there are some girls in each six who know what is expected and can help the younger girls out.
At this point, I had to leave. The rest of the meeting was taken up with games and songs, which is our standard first meeting back because they're never able to sit down and do crafts while catching up with friends they haven't seen for a few weeks! Apparently I missed some excitement though because one girl accidentally hit another in the face and caused a nose bleed while another fell over in game and a third started crying because she lost a game (quite a regular occurrence in our unit with girls who seem to think that's the only way to get attention...)! Part of me is glad I had to leave although I would never actually choose to miss a meeting.
All in all, quite an eventful evening!
Friday 30 August 2013
Welcome!
Hi there! Welcome to my new blog 'Thoughts from a Brownie Unit' (slightly based off the vlogbrothers' 'Thoughts from Places' videos, if you know what that is...)! I'm going to use this to tell you about what my Brownie unit does every week and hopefully provide you with some ideas for your units. Or just some light entertainment; our girls can come out with some rather amusing stories..!
But first, a few facts about me:
- My name is Lizzy
- I live in the United Kingdom
- I'm a Young Leader/Adult Leader-in-Training at my local Brownie unit (where Mum is Brown Owl...)
- I joined Guiding when I was 5, as a Rainbow, and have passed through all stages of Guiding
- I have attended the unit since I was born, pretty much, but I've been officially helping since 2006
- I am an avid Whovian, Sherlock fan, Nerdfighter, Youtube watcher and all around nerd... Yep, I just admitted to that!
- I have applied to do Maths and Computer Science at university in September
Now, a few facts about the unit I help at:
- For those of you who don't know, Brownies is for 7-11 year old girls here in the UK
- We meet every Thursday evening in the local church hall
- Our unit was founded in 1963 so we celebrated our 50th birthday a few months back (yes, we share our birth year with Doctor Who!)
- We have 2 Qualified Adult Leaders (Brown Owl and Snowy Owl), a regular parent helper, an Adult Leader in Training (me), a Young Leader, and a Guide helping us!
And, finally, I will endeavour to upload every week, on Mondays, but have some patience in the first few weeks as I figure out how to fit it into my schedule... And bear with me as I figure out what I want this blog to look like.
If there's anything you want to know, feel free to ask it in the comments and I will do my best to answer.
I'm going to shut up now..! Thank you and enjoy!
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