Paper Plane Evening

31/01/19

This evening we started the meeting with a UMA - "Lend a Hand" from the Know Myself theme. We tweaked the card slightly by just writing the items on pieces of card instead of finding the physical items to bring in. We then shuffled them all and pulled one out randomly. The girls then had 30 seconds, in their sixes, to come up with a way they could lend a hand with that item. We then went round the sixes asking them for their idea and the winner (or two occasionally) got a token. Some of the girls seemed to understand the point of this, but others got a bit confused and started thinking of ways other people could help them with the item instead. My personal favourite ideas were the girls who were going to decorate a hammer and use it as a door stop when the door broke, and the girls who were going to use a duster to catch a spider when their friend was scared of it! By doing this activity, quite a few of the girls will now have completed an hour of the Know Myself UMAs and will get a sticker on our wall chart.

We then did our paper plane evening. We had found a book over Christmas which contained instructions for making paper planes, coloured paper to make them, and a variety of games to play once you had. We chose 2 designs for the girls to make - a simple one and a slightly more complex one and they could choose which to make. I ended up helping a group of girls with the more complex one as they were struggling to follow the written instructions. When they had finished, we set up some boxes in the four corners which they could try and throw their plane into in the fewest number of throws. We also set up two games from the book - there was a fold out hangar and a runway and they had to throw their plane along the runway into the hangar at the end. A couple of girls managed, although their planes were generally upsidedown! We also had a piece of card with three holes in it, one underneath the other, which they could try and throw their planes through. That one was quite difficult as the holes were not much bigger than the planes but we didn't have anything bigger to use instead. The girls just got closer until they were able to do it more often!

We finished up the meeting by handing out a few badges - an advanced swimmer, and 3 fire safety ones. The girls seem to have got a burst of energy to do interest badges, having been told that the old ones are stopping at the end of the year! It's almost like they enjoy doing those ones and want to get in as many as they can before they go..! We haven't had a single girl ask about the new badges yet, despite telling them about them on multiple occasions. The girls all seemed to really enjoy this evening too - it was nice to be able to do whatever we wanted, instead of having to follow the new programme and the girls don't seem to know the difference so no problems there!