13/12/18
This week was our last meeting before Christmas and we visited our local fire station. We arrived and met all the girls in the foyer. A fireman came out to say hello and then took us all upstairs to their lecture room to go through some theory towards the Fire Safety badge. He was really good at fielding questions from the girls and turning them into the correct answers (for example, on asking what could cause a fire, one girls said "leaving an oven on and forgetting about it" and so he said "shall we call that 'unattended cooking' then?"). The leaders and parents at the back also had a bit of a chuckle when one girl said "using a match to turn on a candle" could cause a fire! Once we had covered the basics of what to do if your clothes caught on fire, the common causes of fires, and why smoke alarms are on the ceiling then we split into two groups and went on a bit of a tour of the fire station.
The group I was with first went down to see the fire engines. Our fireman was explaining how each engine had a callsign in the window that they used to tell them apart and one of the girls asked why they didn't just have names. He then asked them what they thought the engines should be called, to which the response was "Bob, Steve, Frank, and Kevin"! We worked our way around the engine and he opened up the different doors and showed the girls all the equipment inside and let them ask questions. We then swapped over and the other group came into see the fire engines and we got to go outside and play with the hose! Each girl got a chance to hold the hose (with the fireman's help) and spray it into a pit. I think that may have been the highlight of the girls evening!
We then headed back inside and he gave a demonstration of the alert they get for a call - they did a test using our unit name as the text which they girls thought was pretty cool too. I then took my group into the community room and started handing out their baubles from last week while the second group got to see the alert process. As their fireman was showing them the printout, the printer whirred into life again and a real call came in for a chimney fire! We then got to see the firemen load up into their engine and drive off. It was a bit eerie to then give all the girls to their parents and leave without actually saying godbye and thank you to the two firemen who had given us the tour. I think the girls all enjoyed their evening, although they were all a bit excitable - probably a combination of the end of term looming and the fact we were at a fire station.
We are now done for the term until January 10th, although I may post another Queen's Guide update at some point over the holidays. Merry Christmas to all.
Monday 17 December 2018
Monday 10 December 2018
Paint It Yourself Pottery
06/12/18
This week we went to our local pottery painting place and all the girls got to paint a bauble. We spent the first 30 minutes drawing a rough design on paper first, and then we transferred the design onto the bauble using a felt tip pen. When the bauble is glazed and put in the kiln, the felt tip pen burns off so it is perfect for planning out a design before painting. We were then given a plate with a few colours on and lots of paintbrushes of different sizes. They recommended that the girls paint all the large areas with the paintbrushes and then they would come round with paint pens to help do outlines and fiddly bits. A few of the girls struggled to come up with ideas so the Leaders offered up a few simple suggestions (reindeer, santa, presents etc.) and then they were all happy getting on with it with limited assistance.
Once the girls had finished painting the large areas with the paintbrushes, they were allowed to use a paint pen to do outlines - basically a squeezy pot of paint with a needle thin point. A few girls had a lot of problems with using the pens as they couldn't squeeze them hard enough, or too much came out at once so they needed a lot more help then.
We left the baubles there to be kilned and glazed, we will pick them up in time to hand them out next week. I think the girls really enjoyed painting their baubles, even if some of the struggled a little bit, and they also enjoyed having some time to sit and chat with their friends.
This week we went to our local pottery painting place and all the girls got to paint a bauble. We spent the first 30 minutes drawing a rough design on paper first, and then we transferred the design onto the bauble using a felt tip pen. When the bauble is glazed and put in the kiln, the felt tip pen burns off so it is perfect for planning out a design before painting. We were then given a plate with a few colours on and lots of paintbrushes of different sizes. They recommended that the girls paint all the large areas with the paintbrushes and then they would come round with paint pens to help do outlines and fiddly bits. A few of the girls struggled to come up with ideas so the Leaders offered up a few simple suggestions (reindeer, santa, presents etc.) and then they were all happy getting on with it with limited assistance.
Once the girls had finished painting the large areas with the paintbrushes, they were allowed to use a paint pen to do outlines - basically a squeezy pot of paint with a needle thin point. A few girls had a lot of problems with using the pens as they couldn't squeeze them hard enough, or too much came out at once so they needed a lot more help then.
We left the baubles there to be kilned and glazed, we will pick them up in time to hand them out next week. I think the girls really enjoyed painting their baubles, even if some of the struggled a little bit, and they also enjoyed having some time to sit and chat with their friends.
Monday 3 December 2018
Christmas Cards
29/11/18
A year or so ago, one of our Brownie's Grandmas was clearing out some craft items and donated a lot of card making stuff to us. A lot of it was Christmassy, so we were going to use it last year and then forgot so we saved it for this year. We laid out all the stickers and coloured card and other items on a table at the front of the hall, gave each girl a blank white card, and then let them come up, a table at a time, to pick 2 items from the table to start with. When everyone had been up once, they could all start making their cards, and they could come up to the front table at any point to swap what they currently had for something different.
It was a perfect evening from a leaders perspective because we literally had to do nothing, short of peeling off a few stickers and stopping minor disagreements over who was using the scissors or the sticker sheet next. Which was probably a good thing because 2 of our leaders couldn't make it and we had to have a parent helping instead!
The girls absolutely loved being given free reign to do whatever they wanted to do on their card and would happily have carried on for longer than we gave them. I was also pretty impressed with the speed at which most of them helped tidy up at the end too - our Young Leader went round with a broom, but the girls put all their rubbish in the bin; pens, glue, and scissors in the correct boxes; unused stickers back on the front table; and their cards with their coats with very little prompting! Definitely an evening we will be running again, not least because we still have reams of card making stuff left over, and not all of it is Christmas themed!
A year or so ago, one of our Brownie's Grandmas was clearing out some craft items and donated a lot of card making stuff to us. A lot of it was Christmassy, so we were going to use it last year and then forgot so we saved it for this year. We laid out all the stickers and coloured card and other items on a table at the front of the hall, gave each girl a blank white card, and then let them come up, a table at a time, to pick 2 items from the table to start with. When everyone had been up once, they could all start making their cards, and they could come up to the front table at any point to swap what they currently had for something different.
It was a perfect evening from a leaders perspective because we literally had to do nothing, short of peeling off a few stickers and stopping minor disagreements over who was using the scissors or the sticker sheet next. Which was probably a good thing because 2 of our leaders couldn't make it and we had to have a parent helping instead!
The girls absolutely loved being given free reign to do whatever they wanted to do on their card and would happily have carried on for longer than we gave them. I was also pretty impressed with the speed at which most of them helped tidy up at the end too - our Young Leader went round with a broom, but the girls put all their rubbish in the bin; pens, glue, and scissors in the correct boxes; unused stickers back on the front table; and their cards with their coats with very little prompting! Definitely an evening we will be running again, not least because we still have reams of card making stuff left over, and not all of it is Christmas themed!
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