24/1/14
This week was our annual visit to the panto. We used to go to the one at the local big theatre but their prices slowly went up and we swapped to going to a (slightly more amateur) one hosted at a local private school which some of our Brownies have been in in previous years -although not this year. I think it is actually better as it is a smaller venue so the atmosphere seems better. Either way, the girls always thoroughly enjoy themselves every year!
It is always a bit chaotic making sure we have all the girls before we go in, especially if another Brownie unit decided to go on the same night! We managed to get in without too many problems though and eventually got all the girls settled in the correct rows and seats! Brown Owl told them that, once it had started, they were not to make any noises with their sweet wrappers as most of them had bought sweets with them. A couple of them were getting bored because it hadn't started but then it did and they all shut up! The panto this year was Robin Hood and it was as good as it usually is! We had one or two girls who had to be told to sit down or be quiet once but it was on;y because they were excited!
The most chaos came during the interval... We had told the girls that they could bring money for ice cream or drinks if they wanted and most of them had done so. Almost all of them decided to get ice creams and I ended up being the one to supervise them. Most of them seem to understand the values of coins though so that wasn't the issue; it was more getting them to make a quick decision because there were other people in the queue too! And some of the girls had only come because their friend had and were just getting in the way... They did all eventually get their ice creams but then several of them decided that they actually needed the toilet too so the other Young Leader and I ended up looking after a mountain of ice creams and sweets while we waited for them. We finally got them all back in and sat down just before the second half began but then a couple of other girls decided that, actually, they wanted an ice cream too and tried to go out on their own to get some. Brown Owl stopped them on her way back through the door and got them to sit down again though because they had stopped selling ice cream by then.
The second half was just as good as the first half, if not better. I enjoy the fact that they cater for adults and children in the way of jokes, although it does cause a slight issue if the girls ask why I'm laughing if they haven't understood it..! When we came to leave, we got all the girls to pick up their coats and sweet wrappers and took them all out into the foyer. I stood by the door and directed them towards the corner while Brown Owl and Snowy made sure they went home with the person they were supposed to. That was going fine until the other unit that was there decided that our idea was a good one and tried to congregate their girls in the same corner as us. Luckily we'd almost got rid of all our girls and grouped together a bit further over but it seemed a little inconsiderate of them.
All in all, a good night out and one that the girls enjoy as much as the adults!
Monday 27 January 2014
Monday 20 January 2014
Promise activities and matchbox drawers
16/01/14
This week we had two girls making their promises so we decided to start the meeting off by teaching the girls about the new promise. For those of you who don't know, the promise recently changed so it better included girls from other religions and countries. Here is an explanation from Guiding UK and below are the old and new promises:
Old promise:
Then we got out all the tables and the girls made matchbox drawers which had been left over from pack holiday and we hadn't got round to doing it. We gave each girl 4 empty matchboxes, a piece of cereal box, a piece of shiny card and some patterned paper. They had to stick the four matchboxes together, two on the bottom and two on the top and the leaders went round with thick needles and split pins, making holes in the matchbox trays for the handles. They then covered the 4 matchboxes in the patterned paper (or they could use white paper and draw their own design), which was quite difficult for some girls for some reason. They they cut their piece of cereal box into the shape they wanted for the back of the dresser, covered it in their paper and stuck it on using sticky tape and not glue because otherwise the drawers won't come out! I did have to rescue one girl because she'd glued it without realising but I think I managed to save hers! Finally, they cut the shiny card out in whatever shape they wanted and stuck it to the cereal box as a mirror. They all seemed to really like this craft and it's a perfect one to do as part of the toymaker badge (which is the badge we did on pack holiday).
Whenever we have girls making their promise, we also have a couple of girls doing their hostess badge. Every girl will get the chance to do their badge at some point during their Brownie life; we chose the girls based on their enrolment date. I was tasked with helping the girls who were doing their hostess badge tonight. They have to provide a table decoration and some cakes or biscuits so we first got out some tables and chairs so they could lay out their things. Once the parents of the girls making their promise had arrived they two hostesses asked if they would like tea or coffee and then we made it. Both parents wanted tea (which was good because I drink lots of tea and can make it easily but I don't drink coffee so I have to remember how to make it each time!) so I showed the girls how to fill the kettle and turn it on. We then got the tea bags ready (and I had to explain the function of the string on the ones Brown Owl had bought as they were planning on just dropping them straight in!) and then had to wait for the kettle to boil. Both girls kept complaining that it was taking too long to boil! Finally I poured it into the mugs for them and instructed them on how much milk and sugar they needed to put into each and they carried it into the hall to give it to the parents. I think it went quite well this time - some of the girls have no interest in doing it at all but these two were asking me fairly sensible questions and following instructions.
Finally we could get going with our promise ceremony. We start off as we normally would at the beginning of the meeting - skipping round out toadstool and owl, singing the Brownie song. The girls then sing their six songs and move into a circle, in their sixes, with two of the oldest girls holding the pack's flag. I stand next to Brown Owl and hold the boxes with various badges and books in for the new girls. Each girl is bought up to Brown Owl by her sixer who says 'This is [name] and she would like to become a Brownie' and then returns to her space. Brown Owl then says something to the effect of 'Before you can make your Promise, you need to say the Brownie Guide Law because you are about to promise to keep the Law. Do you know the Law?' and the girl will then say her law (or the pack will say it with her if she is a little nervous). The Brown Owl then gets every girl who has already made her Promise to salute while the girl makes her Promise, occasionally with a little bit of prompting from Brown Owl. I then hand her the Promise badge which she pins onto the girl's top and then I give her the various other badges; six emblem, county silk, unit name badge and finally the box and book. The two girls who made their promise this week did very well, especially our Norwegian girl who sometime struggles with English a little. Once she'd got going, she was word perfect.
After the meeting the two hostesses had to wash up - they get given their badge in the circle before everyone goes on the condition they complete it by washing up afterwards! They were less enthusiastic about this than they had been about the making of tea but they did a pretty decent job of things never-the-less.
All in all, I think this was a very successful meeting and the girls thoroughly enjoyed themselves and learnt the new promise which hopefully will slowly become as natural for me to say as the one I've been saying for 11 years of my life! I will just add here that I, as an atheist, am completely supportive of the removal of God from the Promise but, at the moment, it doesn't roll off my tongue as nicely as the old one did!
This week we had two girls making their promises so we decided to start the meeting off by teaching the girls about the new promise. For those of you who don't know, the promise recently changed so it better included girls from other religions and countries. Here is an explanation from Guiding UK and below are the old and new promises:
Old promise:
I promise that I will do my best,New promise:
To love my God,
To serve the Queen and my country,
To help other people,
And to keep the Brownie Guide Law
I promise that I will do my best,Brown Owl cut up 4 copies of the promise into 7 sections and gave them out to the girls, one piece each. The girls were then told to reassemble the four promises without any help from the leaders (although I'm not sure we'd have been that much help anyway because I still don't know it!). There was quite a lot of confusion and chaos for the next few minutes. The girls seemed to get the idea that they needed to get into 4 groups with one of each part and then rearrange them into the correct order but they couldn't seem to actually coordinate this. We had one girl almost in tears because none of the groups wanted her in their group and another group that told us they were done and they only had 6 parts of the promise! I was quite amused that none of the girls thought to ask the two girls who were making their promise tonight as they should know the new promise perfectly (and not the old one to confuse things)... After leaving them to their own devices for a bit, Brown Owl stopped them and told them the actual promise and they got themselves into the right groups. We then got them to swap pieces of paper with another girl and got the sixers and seconders to go to one side of the room and all the other girls to stand in the middle. The sixers and seconders then were tasked with collecting a full set of the promise and arranging them in the correct order. That went infinitely better as the girls then knew what the promise was supposed to be.
To be true to myself and develop my beliefs,
To serve the Queen and my community,
To help other people,
And to keep the Brownie Guide Law
Then we got out all the tables and the girls made matchbox drawers which had been left over from pack holiday and we hadn't got round to doing it. We gave each girl 4 empty matchboxes, a piece of cereal box, a piece of shiny card and some patterned paper. They had to stick the four matchboxes together, two on the bottom and two on the top and the leaders went round with thick needles and split pins, making holes in the matchbox trays for the handles. They then covered the 4 matchboxes in the patterned paper (or they could use white paper and draw their own design), which was quite difficult for some girls for some reason. They they cut their piece of cereal box into the shape they wanted for the back of the dresser, covered it in their paper and stuck it on using sticky tape and not glue because otherwise the drawers won't come out! I did have to rescue one girl because she'd glued it without realising but I think I managed to save hers! Finally, they cut the shiny card out in whatever shape they wanted and stuck it to the cereal box as a mirror. They all seemed to really like this craft and it's a perfect one to do as part of the toymaker badge (which is the badge we did on pack holiday).
Whenever we have girls making their promise, we also have a couple of girls doing their hostess badge. Every girl will get the chance to do their badge at some point during their Brownie life; we chose the girls based on their enrolment date. I was tasked with helping the girls who were doing their hostess badge tonight. They have to provide a table decoration and some cakes or biscuits so we first got out some tables and chairs so they could lay out their things. Once the parents of the girls making their promise had arrived they two hostesses asked if they would like tea or coffee and then we made it. Both parents wanted tea (which was good because I drink lots of tea and can make it easily but I don't drink coffee so I have to remember how to make it each time!) so I showed the girls how to fill the kettle and turn it on. We then got the tea bags ready (and I had to explain the function of the string on the ones Brown Owl had bought as they were planning on just dropping them straight in!) and then had to wait for the kettle to boil. Both girls kept complaining that it was taking too long to boil! Finally I poured it into the mugs for them and instructed them on how much milk and sugar they needed to put into each and they carried it into the hall to give it to the parents. I think it went quite well this time - some of the girls have no interest in doing it at all but these two were asking me fairly sensible questions and following instructions.
Finally we could get going with our promise ceremony. We start off as we normally would at the beginning of the meeting - skipping round out toadstool and owl, singing the Brownie song. The girls then sing their six songs and move into a circle, in their sixes, with two of the oldest girls holding the pack's flag. I stand next to Brown Owl and hold the boxes with various badges and books in for the new girls. Each girl is bought up to Brown Owl by her sixer who says 'This is [name] and she would like to become a Brownie' and then returns to her space. Brown Owl then says something to the effect of 'Before you can make your Promise, you need to say the Brownie Guide Law because you are about to promise to keep the Law. Do you know the Law?' and the girl will then say her law (or the pack will say it with her if she is a little nervous). The Brown Owl then gets every girl who has already made her Promise to salute while the girl makes her Promise, occasionally with a little bit of prompting from Brown Owl. I then hand her the Promise badge which she pins onto the girl's top and then I give her the various other badges; six emblem, county silk, unit name badge and finally the box and book. The two girls who made their promise this week did very well, especially our Norwegian girl who sometime struggles with English a little. Once she'd got going, she was word perfect.
After the meeting the two hostesses had to wash up - they get given their badge in the circle before everyone goes on the condition they complete it by washing up afterwards! They were less enthusiastic about this than they had been about the making of tea but they did a pretty decent job of things never-the-less.
All in all, I think this was a very successful meeting and the girls thoroughly enjoyed themselves and learnt the new promise which hopefully will slowly become as natural for me to say as the one I've been saying for 11 years of my life! I will just add here that I, as an atheist, am completely supportive of the removal of God from the Promise but, at the moment, it doesn't roll off my tongue as nicely as the old one did!
Sunday 19 January 2014
First meeting back - team building games
09/01/14
This week we started the Big Brownie Birthday Challenge badge. For those of you who don't know, here is an explanation but it's basically just a variety of challenges the girls can do based around Guiding through the ages and at the end of it they get a badge.
We decided to start with one of the compulsory tasks which was team work, something our girls struggle with sometimes! For the first game, we had the girls in their sixes and gave each six 3 sheets of newspaper. We then told them that there was a river in front of them which they had to cross using their newspaper pieces as stepping stones. The stepping stones could hold any number of girls as long as not so much as a toe touched the floor - at which point the offending girl had to return to the start! They were told that they would get 4 points for each girl who made it to the other side of the room and the first team across would get an extra 10 points. They were also told that, if a girl fell off, her six could chose to either leave her behind and carry on or they could all go back for her and start again. Having explained these rules to the girls, each leader was assigned a six and told to be quite ruthless in picking up on toes off the newspaper and the race was on! It was quite a close race between the sixes with a fair few girls being left behind by her sixes (and one sixer who told her six to go and leave her behind because they were winning). The girls then added up their points and there was some celebration because the six that got there first had the most points, despite having left 2 of their number behind. Brown Owl then told the girls that she'd forgotten to tell them one of the rules! This 'forgotten' rule was that, for every girl they'd left behind, they lost 10 points. This caused some dissent because the original winning team went down to last place because they'd left behind the most people and the team which originally was in last place ended up coming first because they hadn't left anyone behind! This was quite a good game to show girls that, by working together as a team, they could do better than when they were just thinking of themselves.
We then did another team activity to see if they could put what they'd just learnt into practice. Each sixer was given a whiteboard and pen and the sixes were told they had to think of a job and create a short mime for the other sixes to guess. We left them to it for this and just observed the different approaches. Three of our four sixes took the 'free for all' approach, where all the girls were talking at once and refusing to listen to each other or back down from their idea when no one else wanted to do it. The fourth six (incidentally, the one that won the previous game) had a much better approach where the sixer asked each girl in turn for her idea and then they chose their collective favourite. They had 5 minutes to practice their mime and then we went round the room watching each mime. The other three sixes had to come up with one guess from their six which they wrote on the whiteboard and then they all showed them simultaneously. For each six that guessed the job correctly, the performing six and the guessing six got one point, which they noted as a dot on their whiteboard. This bit went OK with only one disagreement within a six which was quickly resolved. Once all four sixes had finished the girls went back to their six corners. They were then told to add a point (dot) to their whiteboard for every suggestion that had been made and listened to and another point for each girl who took an active part in the mime (i.e. didn't just stand there, not helping). The girls then sat in a circle in their six, facing outwards. The board was passed round each girl and they had to add a dot if they thought their six worked well together and listened to each other and remove a dot if they didn't think they had worked well together. It took a while to coordinate all this point distribution but, once it was complete, it was quite interesting to see which sixes had the most points! The six who won the previous game came first by a long margin, having not lost any points and the other sixes were lagging behind quite significantly. I'm not sure quite how much they took from this meeting but it's nice to see that at least one of our sixers is capable of making her six work as a team.
We finished off the evening by singing 'Cookie Jar' (lyrics here) and then the girls went home. This was quite an interesting evening from the point of view of a Young Leader because I was able to see which girls are the 'problem girls' in each six, i.e. the ones who refuse to back down and just continually shout at their team or cry until they get their own way. It means that in future team activities we can avoid putting all these girls in the same team or can keep an eye on groups with them in try and resolve problems before they get too severe. Overall, a success and one step closer to our Big Brownie Birthday Adventure badge!
(Apologies for the long post this time - I haven't written in a while so I'm struggling to say things in a condensed manner at the moment!)
This week we started the Big Brownie Birthday Challenge badge. For those of you who don't know, here is an explanation but it's basically just a variety of challenges the girls can do based around Guiding through the ages and at the end of it they get a badge.
We decided to start with one of the compulsory tasks which was team work, something our girls struggle with sometimes! For the first game, we had the girls in their sixes and gave each six 3 sheets of newspaper. We then told them that there was a river in front of them which they had to cross using their newspaper pieces as stepping stones. The stepping stones could hold any number of girls as long as not so much as a toe touched the floor - at which point the offending girl had to return to the start! They were told that they would get 4 points for each girl who made it to the other side of the room and the first team across would get an extra 10 points. They were also told that, if a girl fell off, her six could chose to either leave her behind and carry on or they could all go back for her and start again. Having explained these rules to the girls, each leader was assigned a six and told to be quite ruthless in picking up on toes off the newspaper and the race was on! It was quite a close race between the sixes with a fair few girls being left behind by her sixes (and one sixer who told her six to go and leave her behind because they were winning). The girls then added up their points and there was some celebration because the six that got there first had the most points, despite having left 2 of their number behind. Brown Owl then told the girls that she'd forgotten to tell them one of the rules! This 'forgotten' rule was that, for every girl they'd left behind, they lost 10 points. This caused some dissent because the original winning team went down to last place because they'd left behind the most people and the team which originally was in last place ended up coming first because they hadn't left anyone behind! This was quite a good game to show girls that, by working together as a team, they could do better than when they were just thinking of themselves.
We then did another team activity to see if they could put what they'd just learnt into practice. Each sixer was given a whiteboard and pen and the sixes were told they had to think of a job and create a short mime for the other sixes to guess. We left them to it for this and just observed the different approaches. Three of our four sixes took the 'free for all' approach, where all the girls were talking at once and refusing to listen to each other or back down from their idea when no one else wanted to do it. The fourth six (incidentally, the one that won the previous game) had a much better approach where the sixer asked each girl in turn for her idea and then they chose their collective favourite. They had 5 minutes to practice their mime and then we went round the room watching each mime. The other three sixes had to come up with one guess from their six which they wrote on the whiteboard and then they all showed them simultaneously. For each six that guessed the job correctly, the performing six and the guessing six got one point, which they noted as a dot on their whiteboard. This bit went OK with only one disagreement within a six which was quickly resolved. Once all four sixes had finished the girls went back to their six corners. They were then told to add a point (dot) to their whiteboard for every suggestion that had been made and listened to and another point for each girl who took an active part in the mime (i.e. didn't just stand there, not helping). The girls then sat in a circle in their six, facing outwards. The board was passed round each girl and they had to add a dot if they thought their six worked well together and listened to each other and remove a dot if they didn't think they had worked well together. It took a while to coordinate all this point distribution but, once it was complete, it was quite interesting to see which sixes had the most points! The six who won the previous game came first by a long margin, having not lost any points and the other sixes were lagging behind quite significantly. I'm not sure quite how much they took from this meeting but it's nice to see that at least one of our sixers is capable of making her six work as a team.
We finished off the evening by singing 'Cookie Jar' (lyrics here) and then the girls went home. This was quite an interesting evening from the point of view of a Young Leader because I was able to see which girls are the 'problem girls' in each six, i.e. the ones who refuse to back down and just continually shout at their team or cry until they get their own way. It means that in future team activities we can avoid putting all these girls in the same team or can keep an eye on groups with them in try and resolve problems before they get too severe. Overall, a success and one step closer to our Big Brownie Birthday Adventure badge!
(Apologies for the long post this time - I haven't written in a while so I'm struggling to say things in a condensed manner at the moment!)
Saturday 18 January 2014
Catch Up Time..!
Apologies for the lack of posts over the last 2 months... Things just got busier and I couldn't find time to write. Here is what we did for the last few weeks of term and the first two weeks of this term will follow in the next day or so.
28/11/13
This week we made 3D foam Christmas trees. We bought kits which contained all that the girls needed; the tree, a star, baubles, snowflakes and candy canes. Each kit came with enough for 4 trees so we had to cut up the sheets of baubles so the girls could have 4 of each colour bauble which left me with a lot to do at the beginning of the meeting because we'd forgotten to do it before the meeting. The girls seemed to enjoy themselves and there were quite a few really detailed trees.
Once they had finished they could chose a colourful sheet of paper and make paper chains. We had loads of really long chains by the end of the evening and it was definitely a big hit with the girls!
5/12/13
This week we did some more Christmas crafts - baubles and cutlery holders. The baubles were made from clear plastic balls and the girls made a snowman from polystyrene balls. They had cardboard hats and scarves and beads on needles for eyes and noses! Each bauble also had a small amount of fake snow at the bottom. It was quite a tricky craft so we had one table making them with Brown Owl (who invented the craft!) while all the other girls did Snowy's craft; cutlery holders.
Each girl had a piece of red card from which they cut out the main shape using a template Snowy had made. They then folded it up and stapled the edge together. They had to cut out a square of white card and then cut out two slits in it for the belt buckle and then they had to thread sticky black felt through the buckle before sticking it round the main body. This was extremely tricky for the majority of girls and, if we did it again, I would use regular felt and glue instead.They also had the option of putting a parcel label on it with a name on (for use on their table at Christmas). Snowy had provided enough material for each girl to make 4 but they started to get bored after one so I think she needed to have chosen something else too. Luckily we still had paper from last week so the girls made even more paper chains!
12/12/13
This week we had gingerbread cookies to decorate so 5 girls at a time went into the kitchen with our 2 other adult helpers and decorated stars with icing and sprinkles. Surprisingly, the girls didn't go excessively overboard with this as they usually do - some of the cookies leaving at the end of the meeting were actually really good quality!
Unfortunately, I can't remember what we did this week other than the cookies... I really need to keep on top of this...
19/12/13
This week was party week! Two girls who were leaving this week organised the evening for the other girls. It was a Christmas colours or onsie theme so naturally most girls showed up in their onsies - I mean, who's going to turn down the opportunity to go out in their pyjamas at that age!? They started off by playing coaches (instructions here) and then fishes (instructions also here) while the other Young Leader and I set up the food on the tables ready for when they were done. We then had to stand by the tables making sure they didn't run into it though..!
Once they were done playing, we let them loose with the food. Before a party, we send home a slip of paper with each girl telling them what food to bring. That way we can have some say over the amount of savoury and sweet items we have (and that we don't end up with 24 lots of the same food!). We let the girls sit on the floor or chairs with their friends so naturally we have a few drinks spillages but it's generally a good atmosphere.
At the end of the meeting we gave each girl a Christmas card and the two girls who were leaving got their certificates and teddy bear keyring before the girls all went home.
It's been a good term with lots going on. I feel I've deserved this rest though! Bring on next term... :D
28/11/13
This week we made 3D foam Christmas trees. We bought kits which contained all that the girls needed; the tree, a star, baubles, snowflakes and candy canes. Each kit came with enough for 4 trees so we had to cut up the sheets of baubles so the girls could have 4 of each colour bauble which left me with a lot to do at the beginning of the meeting because we'd forgotten to do it before the meeting. The girls seemed to enjoy themselves and there were quite a few really detailed trees.
Once they had finished they could chose a colourful sheet of paper and make paper chains. We had loads of really long chains by the end of the evening and it was definitely a big hit with the girls!
5/12/13
This week we did some more Christmas crafts - baubles and cutlery holders. The baubles were made from clear plastic balls and the girls made a snowman from polystyrene balls. They had cardboard hats and scarves and beads on needles for eyes and noses! Each bauble also had a small amount of fake snow at the bottom. It was quite a tricky craft so we had one table making them with Brown Owl (who invented the craft!) while all the other girls did Snowy's craft; cutlery holders.
Each girl had a piece of red card from which they cut out the main shape using a template Snowy had made. They then folded it up and stapled the edge together. They had to cut out a square of white card and then cut out two slits in it for the belt buckle and then they had to thread sticky black felt through the buckle before sticking it round the main body. This was extremely tricky for the majority of girls and, if we did it again, I would use regular felt and glue instead.They also had the option of putting a parcel label on it with a name on (for use on their table at Christmas). Snowy had provided enough material for each girl to make 4 but they started to get bored after one so I think she needed to have chosen something else too. Luckily we still had paper from last week so the girls made even more paper chains!
12/12/13
This week we had gingerbread cookies to decorate so 5 girls at a time went into the kitchen with our 2 other adult helpers and decorated stars with icing and sprinkles. Surprisingly, the girls didn't go excessively overboard with this as they usually do - some of the cookies leaving at the end of the meeting were actually really good quality!
Unfortunately, I can't remember what we did this week other than the cookies... I really need to keep on top of this...
19/12/13
This week was party week! Two girls who were leaving this week organised the evening for the other girls. It was a Christmas colours or onsie theme so naturally most girls showed up in their onsies - I mean, who's going to turn down the opportunity to go out in their pyjamas at that age!? They started off by playing coaches (instructions here) and then fishes (instructions also here) while the other Young Leader and I set up the food on the tables ready for when they were done. We then had to stand by the tables making sure they didn't run into it though..!
Once they were done playing, we let them loose with the food. Before a party, we send home a slip of paper with each girl telling them what food to bring. That way we can have some say over the amount of savoury and sweet items we have (and that we don't end up with 24 lots of the same food!). We let the girls sit on the floor or chairs with their friends so naturally we have a few drinks spillages but it's generally a good atmosphere.
At the end of the meeting we gave each girl a Christmas card and the two girls who were leaving got their certificates and teddy bear keyring before the girls all went home.
It's been a good term with lots going on. I feel I've deserved this rest though! Bring on next term... :D
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)