This week we decided to bite the bullet and start one of the Skills Builders. The girls had all voted in a previous week so we first got the girls who hadn't been there that week to vote for which one they wanted to do. We then reminded the girls which one they had voted for and got them into the two groups. One group were doing the Rope Race from the Lead Skills Builder and the others were doing Mime Time from the Innovate Skills Builder. We copied the instructions from the card onto paper which we gave to the older girls in each group and let them get on with it themselves.
We milled around a bit and supervised, which ended up consisting mainly of bickering mitigation for the Lead group. They had sort of split into two groups and were making an obstacle course from tables and chairs but some of them had mis-understood the instructions and were using the skipping ropes as obstacles instead of holding onto them. We stepped in, paused what they were doing, and explained it to all of them. Once they understood, things went a little smoother, although we then had the problem of them not working well as a team - the one at the front was going too fast, and moaning at the one at the back for pulling on the rope too much. They did eventually get round the obstacle course a few different ways with different people at the front so we considered the section completed!
The other group did far better. We had gathered a random assortment of items, including plant pots, frisbees, a stick, a roll of packing tape, a scarf, and some half done knitting we found in cupboard. The girls then had to choose an object and mime it being something that it wasn't for the other girls to guess (the example on the cards is an umbrella being a walking stick). The girls spent some time playing around with a few items and deciding what they wanted to do and then our YL stepped in and got them sat down in a circle so they could all mime their object for the rest of the group to guess. Brown Owl and I were focussing all our attention on the Lead group and turned round to check the other group were still OK and were pleasantly surprised! They had finished a bit earlier than the Lead group so our YL had decided to play the Iranian Smiling Game with them, from last week. She is an ex-Brownie so we trust her but it's nice to see her leadership skills coming out a bit more each week.
We then did a bit more of the Century Time Travel UMA - this week we did the part about naming birds, flowers or trees. We stood the girls in a circle and went round it getting them to name one from any of the 3 categories, but it had to be one that no one else had said. I was very surprised at how well the girls did with this. You often hear people bemoaning the fact that children these days spend all their time on phones inside and don't know anything about the outdoors but our girls named some very obscure birds (including a Crested Pigeon and a Blue Footed Boobie - which got a lot of giggles). We also discussed the Health Rules that girls lived by 100 years ago:
“ Only feed on wholesome fare, Through your nostrils breathe fresh air,
Clean yourself both in and out, Twist and turn and run about. ”
It was then time to say goodbye to the girls and for us Leaders to empty the cupboard of all the things we need for pack holiday this weekend. It always surprises us how much stuff we end up taking with us... I'm hoping that I will manage to get the Pack Holiday blogs up fairly quickly after this weekend, but that all depends on the amount of sleep I get and whether I catch the cold that Brown Owl has (or one from any of the girls)...
No comments:
Post a Comment