21/03/19
This evening we did the fifth and final part of the two Skills Builders we have been working on, Innovate and Lead Stage 2. The girls who were doing Lead did "Design Time" and the girls doing Innovate did "Made to Measure". I was with the Lead group. Our task was to create a zoo. The girls first had to think of 5 animals that they would like to put in their zoo, on their own. We provided lots of books on animals to give them some ideas and they could be as rare and unique as they wanted (we even had a few dragons!). I then paired the girls up by pulling names out of a hat. In their pairs they had to create their zoo but there was only space for 5 animals. They had to discuss which animals they would like and why. Finally, the pairs had to join up into 4s and do the same thing again so they were left wth 5 animals from the 20 each 4 would have started with. I had an odd number of pairs so I had one group with 3 pairs in who were allowed 7 animals in their zoo instead. Once they had narrowed down their choice, they could draw a picture of their zoo and give it a name. I was quite impressed with most of the girls - when narrowing down their animals, lots of them said they could each choose 2 and then the 5th one would be a joint decision, and the same happened when they got into bigger groups - they all chose 1 and the last one was a group decision. That was a suggestions written on the card but we stopped giving the girls the card as it just caused confusion so I was quite proud that they came up with that idea all by themselves!
The group doing Innovate were making sponge boats. We had bought lots of the scourer sponges (the yellow ones with a rough green side) and the girls could make a sail for their boat which was stuck on a cocktail stick in the sponge. They then had a straw and they blew their boat in a tub of water. We measured the distance that it travelled 3 times and they worked out the average (we provided calculators!). They could then look at the boats that went the furthest and redesign their sail based on the best ones.
Once we had finished the activities, we all sat in a Brownie circle and the Lead girls showed the pictures of their zoo and explained what animals they had in them. The girls who had been doing Innovate then voted on what they thought was the best zoo. We then handed out the badges to those girls who had been at all 5 meetings. We had 17 of our 26 girls get a badge. Of those who didn't get a badge, 5 were new starters who joined after we started and the other 4 have only missed 1 meeting each. We have told those girls that we are going to do a catch up session soon and that we haven't forgotten about them! This was quite a good evening, and I was very surprised that my group got along without arguments this week! Perhaps it's something to do with the fact that we muddled them up and they weren't working with their friends for once.
Showing posts with label express myself theme. Show all posts
Showing posts with label express myself theme. Show all posts
Monday, 25 March 2019
Monday, 18 February 2019
Skills Builders Part 4
14/02/19
This week we continued with the 2 Skills Builders we have been working towards - we are now on activity 4 of 5. The girls doing Lead were teaching each other dance moves, and the girls doing Innovate were building towers from fruit and veg. I was assisting the girls doing Lead. They had to split into 4 teams (ours had 3/4 girls in each). They had to choose a song in their team and then each come up with 2 dance moves to it. They had to teach their dance moves to the rest of their team and then combine them all into a routine which they then performed. We had a wide range of songs, from A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman, to Katy Perry's Firework - all of which were sung by the girls as they performed because we had no way to play a recording. The girls worked pretty well in their teams, although we had one that split into two because they couldn't decide on a song. They didn't fully grasp the concept of all choosing moves so one of the groups had the older girl teach the two younger ones a routine to a song she knew instead. As leaders, we had to observe the groups and award each team one of 4 awards:
The girls doing Innovate were first given slices of various fruits and veg and asked to try and build the tallest tower they could with them. When they started struggling a bit, they were then given large slices of apples and cocktail sticks - the foundations and support beams - and then they could try again. The aim was to try and show them why buildings don't fall over, although we found that the girls didn't really care about the specifics, they just wanted to build towers and then eat the food! We had some quite impressive structures by the end though:
Once we had finished, we then played 2 games of Pirates before doing the Brownie circle and sending the girls home. This meeting was fairly laid back as we did not have to plan too much. The girls also seemed to enjoy the activity they were doing, and we had very few girls ask if they could swap to the other one.
Next week is half term so I am taking week off from blogging (so I can focus on finalising things for our Thinking Day trip in a few weeks!).
This week we continued with the 2 Skills Builders we have been working towards - we are now on activity 4 of 5. The girls doing Lead were teaching each other dance moves, and the girls doing Innovate were building towers from fruit and veg. I was assisting the girls doing Lead. They had to split into 4 teams (ours had 3/4 girls in each). They had to choose a song in their team and then each come up with 2 dance moves to it. They had to teach their dance moves to the rest of their team and then combine them all into a routine which they then performed. We had a wide range of songs, from A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman, to Katy Perry's Firework - all of which were sung by the girls as they performed because we had no way to play a recording. The girls worked pretty well in their teams, although we had one that split into two because they couldn't decide on a song. They didn't fully grasp the concept of all choosing moves so one of the groups had the older girl teach the two younger ones a routine to a song she knew instead. As leaders, we had to observe the groups and award each team one of 4 awards:
- Leadership Star: for the team that gives the best directions to each other
- Teamwork Champions: for the team that works the best together
- Top Encouragers: for the team that's most encouraging towards each other
- Best Listeners: for the team that listened best to each other
The girls doing Innovate were first given slices of various fruits and veg and asked to try and build the tallest tower they could with them. When they started struggling a bit, they were then given large slices of apples and cocktail sticks - the foundations and support beams - and then they could try again. The aim was to try and show them why buildings don't fall over, although we found that the girls didn't really care about the specifics, they just wanted to build towers and then eat the food! We had some quite impressive structures by the end though:
Once we had finished, we then played 2 games of Pirates before doing the Brownie circle and sending the girls home. This meeting was fairly laid back as we did not have to plan too much. The girls also seemed to enjoy the activity they were doing, and we had very few girls ask if they could swap to the other one.
Next week is half term so I am taking week off from blogging (so I can focus on finalising things for our Thinking Day trip in a few weeks!).
Monday, 28 January 2019
Skills Builders Part III
24/01/19
This evening we started off by naming our new Polar Bear who arrived a few weeks ago. We wrote all the suggested names on pieces of paper and spread them out around the room on chairs. Each girl was then given 2 tokens with which to vote for her favourite. Once everyone had voted, we removed the names which got no or very few votes and everyone took back their 2 tokens and voted again. This time there was a very clear winner so we accepted it as his name - Snowy. If the votes had been more spread out, we would have removed the lower few again and repeated until a winner was found.
Now we had named our polar bear, the 5 new girls were given the opportunity to choose which of our two Skills Builders groups they wanted to join. I then took the Innovate group and we did the 'I Have an Idea' activity. We started off with Kim's game - we had a variety of different items which we hid under a blanket. We then uncovered the items and the girls had 30 seconds to look at them all and remember as many as they could. They then had to go and write down all the ones they could remember in small groups. We then came back to the pile and went through all the different items. I was quite impressed - one group managed to get 16 of the 17 items! The girls then split off into their groups again and thought of an invention they wanted to make. They had to draw a picture of their idea, label it, and give it a name. We had varying degrees of success with that activity - one group, with the help of the Young Leader, came up with a hob which you could set a maximum temperature for an it would turn off if it went over that temperature, so your food didn't bubble over. The second group designed a robot that would do anything you asked it to. They ended up with 4 slightly different designs of the same thing, as each girl wanted to do it 'her way'! The third and final group ended up with 3 completely different inventions - a pizza maker, a toy maker, and a tree house maker. We then had all the girls present their ideas to the rest of the groups and then we voted on the girls favourite one - this time they had 3 tokens and placed them on the ideas they thought were the best. The winner, by 1 point, was the pizza maker, followed by the hob.
The Lead group were doing the 'Leader Goals' card. They had to think of all the qualities a good leader should have and then think about a role model (real or fictional) who was a good leader. They had to draw a picture of them and write all their leadership traits around them. They then had to draw a picture of themselves and write their leadership traits around their picture. Finally, they had to compare the role model with themselves and see where they could improve to become a better leader.
The girls all seemed to enjoy this evening, although the girls who chose Innovate back when we chose got the better deal tonight in my opinion. I think the activity the Lead girls were doing was by far the least interesting of the 5 but at least they have got it out the way and can have fun for the remaining sessions.
This evening we started off by naming our new Polar Bear who arrived a few weeks ago. We wrote all the suggested names on pieces of paper and spread them out around the room on chairs. Each girl was then given 2 tokens with which to vote for her favourite. Once everyone had voted, we removed the names which got no or very few votes and everyone took back their 2 tokens and voted again. This time there was a very clear winner so we accepted it as his name - Snowy. If the votes had been more spread out, we would have removed the lower few again and repeated until a winner was found.
Now we had named our polar bear, the 5 new girls were given the opportunity to choose which of our two Skills Builders groups they wanted to join. I then took the Innovate group and we did the 'I Have an Idea' activity. We started off with Kim's game - we had a variety of different items which we hid under a blanket. We then uncovered the items and the girls had 30 seconds to look at them all and remember as many as they could. They then had to go and write down all the ones they could remember in small groups. We then came back to the pile and went through all the different items. I was quite impressed - one group managed to get 16 of the 17 items! The girls then split off into their groups again and thought of an invention they wanted to make. They had to draw a picture of their idea, label it, and give it a name. We had varying degrees of success with that activity - one group, with the help of the Young Leader, came up with a hob which you could set a maximum temperature for an it would turn off if it went over that temperature, so your food didn't bubble over. The second group designed a robot that would do anything you asked it to. They ended up with 4 slightly different designs of the same thing, as each girl wanted to do it 'her way'! The third and final group ended up with 3 completely different inventions - a pizza maker, a toy maker, and a tree house maker. We then had all the girls present their ideas to the rest of the groups and then we voted on the girls favourite one - this time they had 3 tokens and placed them on the ideas they thought were the best. The winner, by 1 point, was the pizza maker, followed by the hob.
The Lead group were doing the 'Leader Goals' card. They had to think of all the qualities a good leader should have and then think about a role model (real or fictional) who was a good leader. They had to draw a picture of them and write all their leadership traits around them. They then had to draw a picture of themselves and write their leadership traits around their picture. Finally, they had to compare the role model with themselves and see where they could improve to become a better leader.
The girls all seemed to enjoy this evening, although the girls who chose Innovate back when we chose got the better deal tonight in my opinion. I think the activity the Lead girls were doing was by far the least interesting of the 5 but at least they have got it out the way and can have fun for the remaining sessions.
Monday, 19 November 2018
More Skills Builders
15/11/18
This week we started by playing one of the games the girls had created a few weeks ago but didn't have time to play that week. This game involved having a group of girls in the middle as chasers, and the rest of the girls split into 4 corners. Each corner chose a name and then the girls in the middle would name 2 corners and an action. The two corners had to swap places while doing the action and the girls in the middle had to try and catch them while also doing the action. If a girl was caught then she became a chaser and the girl who caught her went into her corner instead. Actions that they chose included 'hopping', 'jogging', 'hopscotch', and 'walking'. We played the game for 5 minutes and then stopped the girls as there was no way the game would end otherwise!
We then split the girls into their skills builder groups and did another activity towards the skills builders. The group doing Lead did Change The Rules and the group doing Innovate did Move and Shake. The group doing Lead split into 2 smaller groups and each came up with a game that they were going to change the rules to. They had to write down the rules of the game they had chosen and then, in pairs, chose one rule to change. Each pair could then teach the rest of the group how to play their variation of the game. In the group that are doing Lead, there is one sixer so she sort of took charge of instructing both subgroups. At one point, when neither group was paying any attention to her at all, she just looked at me and said 'how do you do it?'! One subgroup chose Sleeping Lions and the other chose Wink Murder. The group who chose Wink Murder were then getting on fairly fine with changing one rule, but the group doing Sleeping Lions didn't really understand (they were a younger group of girls). They ended up playing a game they called Sleeping Narwhals (one girl had a Narwhal toy with her!) but that was where the similarities to Sleeping Lions stopped! I ended up having to intervene and re-explain the instructions to them. They then came up with a pretty clever rule change which sort of combined Sleeping Lions with Musical Statues and Musical Bumps. All the girls started off curled up on the floor, as if they were asleep and one girl left the room and counted to 10 (quietly). All the other girls could get up and dance around as much as they liked while she was out but as soon as she opened the door, they had to be curled up asleep again. Any girls who were spotted moving when the door was opened joined the girl outside. This led to a hilarious moment at the end of the meeting, when we let them run it with the whole pack, when the double doors swung open slowly to reveal half our unit stood the other side!
The group doing Innovate also split into two smaller groups. They had to choose a dance which had actions. They then had to write the actions on pieces of paper, with the body part on one colour and the motion on another colour. For example, they might write 'left hand' on white paper and 'on head' on yellow paper. They then had to mix up all the actions and pair them up randomly and then attempt the new dance. The idea behind this is it introduces them to computer algorithms. A computer will do the instructions you give it in the exact order you give them in, so if you accidentally get the instruction in the wrong order then the computer will do something silly. One group decided to do the Macarena and at one point ended up with 'hips on head' (from 'hips - rotate' and 'left hand on head') which caused a lot of giggles. At the end of the meeting, we let both groups perform their new dances to the rest of the unit. One group had decided prior to performing what order they were going to do their moves in whereas the other group made it up on the fly as they had 2 girls in the group who didn't want to perform. These two girls stood behind the audience, one with the yellow paper and one with the white and called out different moves for them to do. Both approaches worked well and it was nice to see the girls take a bit of initiative when they had member who didn't want to do it exactly as stated.
This was a tricky evening from a leaders perspective as the girls all needed a lot of help understanding the instructions and we had to guide them a lot more than we anticipated. The girls all seemed to have a fairly good time doing the activities though so I think we'll mark those two as a semi-success. I was also pretty impressed with the Sleeping Narwhals game, once I had intervened to get them on the right track.
This week we started by playing one of the games the girls had created a few weeks ago but didn't have time to play that week. This game involved having a group of girls in the middle as chasers, and the rest of the girls split into 4 corners. Each corner chose a name and then the girls in the middle would name 2 corners and an action. The two corners had to swap places while doing the action and the girls in the middle had to try and catch them while also doing the action. If a girl was caught then she became a chaser and the girl who caught her went into her corner instead. Actions that they chose included 'hopping', 'jogging', 'hopscotch', and 'walking'. We played the game for 5 minutes and then stopped the girls as there was no way the game would end otherwise!
We then split the girls into their skills builder groups and did another activity towards the skills builders. The group doing Lead did Change The Rules and the group doing Innovate did Move and Shake. The group doing Lead split into 2 smaller groups and each came up with a game that they were going to change the rules to. They had to write down the rules of the game they had chosen and then, in pairs, chose one rule to change. Each pair could then teach the rest of the group how to play their variation of the game. In the group that are doing Lead, there is one sixer so she sort of took charge of instructing both subgroups. At one point, when neither group was paying any attention to her at all, she just looked at me and said 'how do you do it?'! One subgroup chose Sleeping Lions and the other chose Wink Murder. The group who chose Wink Murder were then getting on fairly fine with changing one rule, but the group doing Sleeping Lions didn't really understand (they were a younger group of girls). They ended up playing a game they called Sleeping Narwhals (one girl had a Narwhal toy with her!) but that was where the similarities to Sleeping Lions stopped! I ended up having to intervene and re-explain the instructions to them. They then came up with a pretty clever rule change which sort of combined Sleeping Lions with Musical Statues and Musical Bumps. All the girls started off curled up on the floor, as if they were asleep and one girl left the room and counted to 10 (quietly). All the other girls could get up and dance around as much as they liked while she was out but as soon as she opened the door, they had to be curled up asleep again. Any girls who were spotted moving when the door was opened joined the girl outside. This led to a hilarious moment at the end of the meeting, when we let them run it with the whole pack, when the double doors swung open slowly to reveal half our unit stood the other side!
The group doing Innovate also split into two smaller groups. They had to choose a dance which had actions. They then had to write the actions on pieces of paper, with the body part on one colour and the motion on another colour. For example, they might write 'left hand' on white paper and 'on head' on yellow paper. They then had to mix up all the actions and pair them up randomly and then attempt the new dance. The idea behind this is it introduces them to computer algorithms. A computer will do the instructions you give it in the exact order you give them in, so if you accidentally get the instruction in the wrong order then the computer will do something silly. One group decided to do the Macarena and at one point ended up with 'hips on head' (from 'hips - rotate' and 'left hand on head') which caused a lot of giggles. At the end of the meeting, we let both groups perform their new dances to the rest of the unit. One group had decided prior to performing what order they were going to do their moves in whereas the other group made it up on the fly as they had 2 girls in the group who didn't want to perform. These two girls stood behind the audience, one with the yellow paper and one with the white and called out different moves for them to do. Both approaches worked well and it was nice to see the girls take a bit of initiative when they had member who didn't want to do it exactly as stated.
This was a tricky evening from a leaders perspective as the girls all needed a lot of help understanding the instructions and we had to guide them a lot more than we anticipated. The girls all seemed to have a fairly good time doing the activities though so I think we'll mark those two as a semi-success. I was also pretty impressed with the Sleeping Narwhals game, once I had intervened to get them on the right track.
Monday, 5 November 2018
New UMA Testing - On Pointe
01/11/18
Brown Owl was on holiday for this meeting, so it fell to me to plan and run the whole meeting. Luckily, I was saved from half of that task by an email saying we had been selected to test a new Unit Meeting Activity card. The card we had been given was called 'On Pointe' from the Express Myself theme and was all about exploring ballet moves. There was no prep for me to do as a leader for the activity itself, however I did need to plan how the girls were going to give their feedback - giving them a double sided piece of A4 paper with lots of questions on didn't feel like the best plan! Instead, I printed the 3 questions which required an answer on a scale out with smiley faces for them to colour in.
I then bought some post it notes from Amazon and made up 3 sheets for them to stick them to - "Something I enjoyed" (green post it), "Something I didn't enjoy" (pink post it), and "Something that would make it better" (orange post it). That covered most of the questions that were sent in the feedback questionnaire and then my plan was to shuffle the girls answers into the other questions if they answered those inadvertently! (I was missing "What would make the instructions easier to follow" and "Do you have any other comments").
On the day of the meeting, I set off to the hall nice and early and got myself ready. The girls all arrived and lots of them asked where Brown Owl was. I told them she was on holiday and one girl's response was just "How rude!". We started the meeting as normal, with the Brownie circle and show and tell for one six. I then explained to the girls that the people who run all of Girlguiding had asked us to test an activity which might become part of the new programme. I explained that we would be following the instructions on my card and then they would get a chance to write down what bits they liked and what bits they didn't.
The instructions first asked us to play our favourite warm up game so I asked the girls if they had any suggestions of something to play that involved running around. One girl asked if we could play her friends game which was a version of Tag. You start with 3 people who are "it" and they have to hold hands. The end ones can tag other girls and once the line has 4 people in it, it can split in half. Those lines then tag people and can split when they get to 4 people. It was quite a good game, until we heard a thump and a girl came running over clutching her head and crying. The other leaders took her aside and sat her down. They put a cold compress on her head while I continued supervising the rest of the game. The next thing I knew, I was told that they had called her Mum to pick her up as her head was swelling up spectacularly... Mum came and the girl then decided she was fine and didn't want to go home because she didn't want to miss the rest of the activity. The other leaders said that we would email out the instructions and she could do them at home and then show us next week, so she could also get the credit for it. That made her much happier and she went off with Mum.
After we had finished the game, I then asked the girls to spread out and find a space. I then had to teach them some ballet moves. The card gave instructions on how to do positions 1-4 for the arms and feet, as well as 4 moves - plié, tendu, elevé, and sauté. I worked through the 4 positions, recapping the previous ones as we went and then did the 4 moves. The card then said to spend some time practicing, by having the leader call out the moves randomly and getting the girls to see if they could remember.
They then had to get into small groups - I decided 4/5 was plenty - and they had 10 minutes to come up with a short dance about their day, using only those 8 moves we had just learnt. I then spent the time looping aroud the groups helping them come up with ideas and resolving minor disputes. A lot of the girls moaned that it was too difficult to come up with anything just using those 8 moves, especially given none of them involved any moving so their dance was just going to be on one spot. I told them that they had to do their best and try and I also pointed out that we are testing the activity so it might not be perfect and they would get a chance to tell Guiding that at the end of the meeting. That placated most of the girls and they came up with something.
Once the 10 minutes was up, I stopped the girls and we watched each dance and guessed what each group had done that day. Some of the dances were actually pretty good for only having 8 stationary moves to choose from - and of course some groups had loosely interpreted the brief and added extra hand movements or moved!
I then had the girls sit in a circle and handed out the questionnaire sheets and pens. Once they had coloured in one face for each question, they could go and write on any of the post it notes which I spread around the hall. I was quite surprised at how many post it notes I ended up getting - we didn't specify they had to do one of each but I think most of them did anyway! I was also very surprised to see that the original reservations I, and other leaders, had about the activity featured heavily in the girls negative feedback - most notably questioning why it was only ballet and not "modern or street". I was left with 3 very colourful pieces of paper to transport home and type up for the feedback form! I was also tickled by some of the spellings of ballet!
We still had a bit of time to spare, so we played another round of the Tag variant we started the meeting with, a game of Trains, and a game of Pirates. It was then time to say goodbye and send the girls home. The meeting seemed to go OK, although I was pretty accurate in my initial assessment of the activity - I didn't think it would go down particularly well with our girls and I was right. They participated but they weren't particularly happy about it!
Once I got home, I decided that our accident was serious enough to warrant filling out the Girlguiding Accident Form and so I sent that off to HQ and to my District Commissioner. I also emailed the Mum the next day to see how her daughter was doing, as well as to send her the activity and a copy of the forms but I am still waiting to hear back from her. As I said to my DC, it had to happen on the one night Brown Owl was away, didn't it!
Brown Owl was on holiday for this meeting, so it fell to me to plan and run the whole meeting. Luckily, I was saved from half of that task by an email saying we had been selected to test a new Unit Meeting Activity card. The card we had been given was called 'On Pointe' from the Express Myself theme and was all about exploring ballet moves. There was no prep for me to do as a leader for the activity itself, however I did need to plan how the girls were going to give their feedback - giving them a double sided piece of A4 paper with lots of questions on didn't feel like the best plan! Instead, I printed the 3 questions which required an answer on a scale out with smiley faces for them to colour in.
I then bought some post it notes from Amazon and made up 3 sheets for them to stick them to - "Something I enjoyed" (green post it), "Something I didn't enjoy" (pink post it), and "Something that would make it better" (orange post it). That covered most of the questions that were sent in the feedback questionnaire and then my plan was to shuffle the girls answers into the other questions if they answered those inadvertently! (I was missing "What would make the instructions easier to follow" and "Do you have any other comments").
On the day of the meeting, I set off to the hall nice and early and got myself ready. The girls all arrived and lots of them asked where Brown Owl was. I told them she was on holiday and one girl's response was just "How rude!". We started the meeting as normal, with the Brownie circle and show and tell for one six. I then explained to the girls that the people who run all of Girlguiding had asked us to test an activity which might become part of the new programme. I explained that we would be following the instructions on my card and then they would get a chance to write down what bits they liked and what bits they didn't.
The instructions first asked us to play our favourite warm up game so I asked the girls if they had any suggestions of something to play that involved running around. One girl asked if we could play her friends game which was a version of Tag. You start with 3 people who are "it" and they have to hold hands. The end ones can tag other girls and once the line has 4 people in it, it can split in half. Those lines then tag people and can split when they get to 4 people. It was quite a good game, until we heard a thump and a girl came running over clutching her head and crying. The other leaders took her aside and sat her down. They put a cold compress on her head while I continued supervising the rest of the game. The next thing I knew, I was told that they had called her Mum to pick her up as her head was swelling up spectacularly... Mum came and the girl then decided she was fine and didn't want to go home because she didn't want to miss the rest of the activity. The other leaders said that we would email out the instructions and she could do them at home and then show us next week, so she could also get the credit for it. That made her much happier and she went off with Mum.
After we had finished the game, I then asked the girls to spread out and find a space. I then had to teach them some ballet moves. The card gave instructions on how to do positions 1-4 for the arms and feet, as well as 4 moves - plié, tendu, elevé, and sauté. I worked through the 4 positions, recapping the previous ones as we went and then did the 4 moves. The card then said to spend some time practicing, by having the leader call out the moves randomly and getting the girls to see if they could remember.
They then had to get into small groups - I decided 4/5 was plenty - and they had 10 minutes to come up with a short dance about their day, using only those 8 moves we had just learnt. I then spent the time looping aroud the groups helping them come up with ideas and resolving minor disputes. A lot of the girls moaned that it was too difficult to come up with anything just using those 8 moves, especially given none of them involved any moving so their dance was just going to be on one spot. I told them that they had to do their best and try and I also pointed out that we are testing the activity so it might not be perfect and they would get a chance to tell Guiding that at the end of the meeting. That placated most of the girls and they came up with something.
Once the 10 minutes was up, I stopped the girls and we watched each dance and guessed what each group had done that day. Some of the dances were actually pretty good for only having 8 stationary moves to choose from - and of course some groups had loosely interpreted the brief and added extra hand movements or moved!
I then had the girls sit in a circle and handed out the questionnaire sheets and pens. Once they had coloured in one face for each question, they could go and write on any of the post it notes which I spread around the hall. I was quite surprised at how many post it notes I ended up getting - we didn't specify they had to do one of each but I think most of them did anyway! I was also very surprised to see that the original reservations I, and other leaders, had about the activity featured heavily in the girls negative feedback - most notably questioning why it was only ballet and not "modern or street". I was left with 3 very colourful pieces of paper to transport home and type up for the feedback form! I was also tickled by some of the spellings of ballet!
We still had a bit of time to spare, so we played another round of the Tag variant we started the meeting with, a game of Trains, and a game of Pirates. It was then time to say goodbye and send the girls home. The meeting seemed to go OK, although I was pretty accurate in my initial assessment of the activity - I didn't think it would go down particularly well with our girls and I was right. They participated but they weren't particularly happy about it!
Once I got home, I decided that our accident was serious enough to warrant filling out the Girlguiding Accident Form and so I sent that off to HQ and to my District Commissioner. I also emailed the Mum the next day to see how her daughter was doing, as well as to send her the activity and a copy of the forms but I am still waiting to hear back from her. As I said to my DC, it had to happen on the one night Brown Owl was away, didn't it!
Monday, 8 October 2018
First Skills Builder
04/10/18
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,
We read out each of the 4 sections and got the girls to think about what it might mean and then explained it to them. We got lots of giggles when we explained the third line - it used to be thought that you should poo once a day to be healthy (clean inside)! When we said the last line, the girls all shouted "Excercise!", jumped up and started running manically around the hall in circles! Brown Owl looked at me and raised her eyebrows and then said she had an idea. She yelled "Pirates are Coming!!" and all the girls scattered and hid under the chairs around the room. A couple then came out and looked a bit confused and said "wait, we weren't playing Pirates...". Brown Owl laughed and said "I know, I just wanted you to stop running and listen! We then let the girls actually play Pirates to burn off the excess energy they had in their system!
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)...
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)...
Monday, 17 September 2018
Story Making and Pack Holiday Posters
13/09/18
This evening we started with a vote. Every year we do a sale (see here for a previous year's) to raise money for a charity. The last sale they did (while I was at university), we raised money for WWF so we could sponsor an animal. We have sponsored several animals in the past and always get a cuddly toy to go with it which then goes home with a different girl each week. We currently have a dolphin, a gorilla, and an elephant but the dolphin is getting a bit old and so we wanted to retire him to join the dog (they now sit under the toadstool) and get a new animal. I had looked online at the choices and chosen 5 to vote on: lion, panda, penguin, polar bear, and rhino. We printed out the picture of the toy onto paper which we spread round the room. Each girl was given 3 token, a red, a yellow and a blue. They then had to put the red token on their favourite, the yellow on their second choice and the blue on their third. I then counted up the votes - red getting 3 points, yellow getting 2 and blue getting 1. While I was counting, the girls sang 'Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar'. I then announced that the winner, who got 56 points, was the polar bear. We now just need to send off the money to the WWF and wait for the toy to arrive.
We then decided we would do another of the new programme UMAs - we chose 'Catch a Story' from the Express Myself theme. We had a small soft ball which we passed across the circle and each girl had to add a word to the story (we specified no rude words first!). Brown Owl started by saying 'Once' so that the next 3 would have to say 'upon a time' so that the girls got the idea and then we let it continue, with occasional prompting from leaders about the best word. If we did it again, we would definitely write the story down as we went along as by the end we couldn't remember the whole thing. We might also consider adding a time limit to the length of time a girl had to think of a word as we frequently got stuck waiting. We did eventually get a sort of story about a dog called Max who didn't like puppies because they were weird! I was quite impressed with some girls choice of words, we had a few say 'because' and 'however', although I would say it is an activity more suited to older girls as the younger ones were having trouble keeping up with what had laready been said and making sensible suggestions of words (we went round in circles at one point saying things the dog hated).
Once we had done that for around 15 minutes we stopped and got out some tables. We handed out various A5 pictures relating to the Olympics, there were some simple ones such as the rings, and some more complex ones like a man with an Olympic torch. These will form the decorations on pack holiday, and are also a great way to keep the noise down a little bit while we hold the parents meeting for girls who haven't been on pack holiday before. I sat on a table with some of the newer girls and coloured in my own picture, and got to know them a bit more.
This was quite a nice relaxed evening and went very smoothly. I always enjoy meetings where I can just sit and talk to girls and get to know them a bit more, especially with so many girls who've joined since I went away for university. And we always end up having some entertaining conversations, such as tonight when I was asked how old I was so I said "22" and one girl said "I think you look more like you're 23"!
This evening we started with a vote. Every year we do a sale (see here for a previous year's) to raise money for a charity. The last sale they did (while I was at university), we raised money for WWF so we could sponsor an animal. We have sponsored several animals in the past and always get a cuddly toy to go with it which then goes home with a different girl each week. We currently have a dolphin, a gorilla, and an elephant but the dolphin is getting a bit old and so we wanted to retire him to join the dog (they now sit under the toadstool) and get a new animal. I had looked online at the choices and chosen 5 to vote on: lion, panda, penguin, polar bear, and rhino. We printed out the picture of the toy onto paper which we spread round the room. Each girl was given 3 token, a red, a yellow and a blue. They then had to put the red token on their favourite, the yellow on their second choice and the blue on their third. I then counted up the votes - red getting 3 points, yellow getting 2 and blue getting 1. While I was counting, the girls sang 'Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar'. I then announced that the winner, who got 56 points, was the polar bear. We now just need to send off the money to the WWF and wait for the toy to arrive.
We then decided we would do another of the new programme UMAs - we chose 'Catch a Story' from the Express Myself theme. We had a small soft ball which we passed across the circle and each girl had to add a word to the story (we specified no rude words first!). Brown Owl started by saying 'Once' so that the next 3 would have to say 'upon a time' so that the girls got the idea and then we let it continue, with occasional prompting from leaders about the best word. If we did it again, we would definitely write the story down as we went along as by the end we couldn't remember the whole thing. We might also consider adding a time limit to the length of time a girl had to think of a word as we frequently got stuck waiting. We did eventually get a sort of story about a dog called Max who didn't like puppies because they were weird! I was quite impressed with some girls choice of words, we had a few say 'because' and 'however', although I would say it is an activity more suited to older girls as the younger ones were having trouble keeping up with what had laready been said and making sensible suggestions of words (we went round in circles at one point saying things the dog hated).
Once we had done that for around 15 minutes we stopped and got out some tables. We handed out various A5 pictures relating to the Olympics, there were some simple ones such as the rings, and some more complex ones like a man with an Olympic torch. These will form the decorations on pack holiday, and are also a great way to keep the noise down a little bit while we hold the parents meeting for girls who haven't been on pack holiday before. I sat on a table with some of the newer girls and coloured in my own picture, and got to know them a bit more.
This was quite a nice relaxed evening and went very smoothly. I always enjoy meetings where I can just sit and talk to girls and get to know them a bit more, especially with so many girls who've joined since I went away for university. And we always end up having some entertaining conversations, such as tonight when I was asked how old I was so I said "22" and one girl said "I think you look more like you're 23"!
Monday, 10 September 2018
First Meeting Back - Introducing the New Programme
06/09/18
This was our first meeting back after the summer and we thought we would take the time to introduce the girls to the new programme. We are going to be running a bit of a mixture while we, as leaders, get our heads round how it all works but we wanted to get the girls enthused from the beginning and help them understand the different themes a bit more. We also had a Scouting imposter this week - my other half (who's a Beaver Leader) came to the meeting as he is coming on pack holiday with us and we thought it best he meet the girls properly before then!
We started off by explaining to the girls in the pow wow that Guiding had changed the programme, which we told them meant that all the books and badges had changed, but that we would still do the same sorts of things in meetings. We then split them into their sixes and gave each six a pack containing all of the badges (just printed onto paper and cut out) and a badge book. We got them to group them into interest badges, skills builders, and theme awards. We then asked them to pick an interest badge which sounded interesting and find it in the book to decide if they would actually do it after reading the clauses. We had a few problems with them finding the badges in the books but once we pointed out there was a contents page at the front, they were fine! Quite a few, however, didn't understand what part they had to read to see what they had to do and a lot of them said "doI really have to read all of this?!". This was something us as leaders had picked up on when we first opened the books - it is very wordy for some of the younger girls and is not as clear as the old badges what the actual clause is.
We then collected in all the theme awards and put them to one side. The leaders all handed out skills builders and interest badges randomly, one to each girl. They then had to find a partner who had the other part of the theme award (we told them about the 4 hours of activities but didn't include it in the game). Once they were in a pair, one girl with an interest badge, and one with a skills builder, they could go and claim the theme award. We encountered a lot of confusion over which theme the badges were, as there are pale pink, dark pink, and purple ones, and the badges in each theme are not a uniform colour. I had already flagged this as a potential issue, and my suspicions were confirmed in this game! If they could not find a partner, they could go and swap their badge for a different one with a leader. We ended up strategically giving out badges to the last few girls to make sure they found a partner! Once they were in pairs, with a theme award between them, we then told them the requirements for the Brownie Gold badge. We then got them to get into a group of girls who could get the award, i.e. one of each theme award. There was mass confusion for a bit, especially in needing all 6 colours, not just 6 badges, and then we discovered that no one had gained the Express Myself theme award and so no one could get the Gold!
We then told the girls we were going to play a game which was part of the new programme. We chose 'Fox, Frog, Flea', from the Have Adventures UMAs. We gave up trying to explain food webs - the girls had heard of food chains but couldn't grasp the concept that it could be a web instead. We explained the rules - essentially you have 2 teams, they choose to be one of the three animals, each team lines up facing each other down the middle of the room and does the action associated with their animal, and then one chases the other according to the rules on the card with any girls that get caught swapping teams. The game itself went pretty well, although we started off with quite a few rounds which were draws which the girls thought was hilarious. The girls really seemed to enjoy it, but we did have to put a time limit on it instead of playing until all girls were on one team.
We then needed to sort out sixes for pack holiday which is coming up pretty soon. We have 3 sixes which are different to our regular meeting sixes so we named the three sixers and then asked the rest of the girls to split themselves evenly between them. Some years we specific that each six must have a certain number of girls who have been on a pack holiday before in them but this year we only have 5 of the 18 who have been before (of which, 3 are the sixers) so we let them just choose whoever they wanted to be with. They then had to choose a name for their six which fits in with our Olympics theme. We decided to go with Olympic sports instead of countries as last year we did Around the World. Luckily they chose pretty quickly, and we now have Swimming, Gymnastics, and Horse Riding. We made a note of who was in each six and then moved onto another part of the new programme.
We chose the 'Magic Moving Postcards' from the Express Myself UMAs. We got the girls into their actual sixes and gave them 15 minutes to come up with whatever they wanted. As leaders, we moved round the room settling small disagreements and giving suggestions. We then got each six to perform their mime and all the other girls had to guess where they had been and what they had done. There were a few slightly tenuous links but we guessed all of them eventually.
We had a few minutes to spare so we decided to play a game to end the meeting. We chose Pirates but decided not to get girls out and treat it as a practice game for the new girls to learn how to play as we didn't have enough time to get all the girls out.
This was a great first meeting back, it is nice to see all the girls again, especially as I have been away at university and haven't seen them as regularly, although there are a lot of new faces and names to learn! Our first foray into the new programme wasn't too bad, but it will take time to get used to having prescribed activities to do rather than free reign to do whatever we want all the time. The girls seemed to enjoy the activities we did, although they did also seem a bit confused to start, but that will work itself out, especially once we have made our sticker chart for the new programme (we have ones for the Adventure badges and they work really well as a visual aid to the girls).
This was our first meeting back after the summer and we thought we would take the time to introduce the girls to the new programme. We are going to be running a bit of a mixture while we, as leaders, get our heads round how it all works but we wanted to get the girls enthused from the beginning and help them understand the different themes a bit more. We also had a Scouting imposter this week - my other half (who's a Beaver Leader) came to the meeting as he is coming on pack holiday with us and we thought it best he meet the girls properly before then!
We started off by explaining to the girls in the pow wow that Guiding had changed the programme, which we told them meant that all the books and badges had changed, but that we would still do the same sorts of things in meetings. We then split them into their sixes and gave each six a pack containing all of the badges (just printed onto paper and cut out) and a badge book. We got them to group them into interest badges, skills builders, and theme awards. We then asked them to pick an interest badge which sounded interesting and find it in the book to decide if they would actually do it after reading the clauses. We had a few problems with them finding the badges in the books but once we pointed out there was a contents page at the front, they were fine! Quite a few, however, didn't understand what part they had to read to see what they had to do and a lot of them said "doI really have to read all of this?!". This was something us as leaders had picked up on when we first opened the books - it is very wordy for some of the younger girls and is not as clear as the old badges what the actual clause is.
We then collected in all the theme awards and put them to one side. The leaders all handed out skills builders and interest badges randomly, one to each girl. They then had to find a partner who had the other part of the theme award (we told them about the 4 hours of activities but didn't include it in the game). Once they were in a pair, one girl with an interest badge, and one with a skills builder, they could go and claim the theme award. We encountered a lot of confusion over which theme the badges were, as there are pale pink, dark pink, and purple ones, and the badges in each theme are not a uniform colour. I had already flagged this as a potential issue, and my suspicions were confirmed in this game! If they could not find a partner, they could go and swap their badge for a different one with a leader. We ended up strategically giving out badges to the last few girls to make sure they found a partner! Once they were in pairs, with a theme award between them, we then told them the requirements for the Brownie Gold badge. We then got them to get into a group of girls who could get the award, i.e. one of each theme award. There was mass confusion for a bit, especially in needing all 6 colours, not just 6 badges, and then we discovered that no one had gained the Express Myself theme award and so no one could get the Gold!
We then told the girls we were going to play a game which was part of the new programme. We chose 'Fox, Frog, Flea', from the Have Adventures UMAs. We gave up trying to explain food webs - the girls had heard of food chains but couldn't grasp the concept that it could be a web instead. We explained the rules - essentially you have 2 teams, they choose to be one of the three animals, each team lines up facing each other down the middle of the room and does the action associated with their animal, and then one chases the other according to the rules on the card with any girls that get caught swapping teams. The game itself went pretty well, although we started off with quite a few rounds which were draws which the girls thought was hilarious. The girls really seemed to enjoy it, but we did have to put a time limit on it instead of playing until all girls were on one team.
We then needed to sort out sixes for pack holiday which is coming up pretty soon. We have 3 sixes which are different to our regular meeting sixes so we named the three sixers and then asked the rest of the girls to split themselves evenly between them. Some years we specific that each six must have a certain number of girls who have been on a pack holiday before in them but this year we only have 5 of the 18 who have been before (of which, 3 are the sixers) so we let them just choose whoever they wanted to be with. They then had to choose a name for their six which fits in with our Olympics theme. We decided to go with Olympic sports instead of countries as last year we did Around the World. Luckily they chose pretty quickly, and we now have Swimming, Gymnastics, and Horse Riding. We made a note of who was in each six and then moved onto another part of the new programme.
We chose the 'Magic Moving Postcards' from the Express Myself UMAs. We got the girls into their actual sixes and gave them 15 minutes to come up with whatever they wanted. As leaders, we moved round the room settling small disagreements and giving suggestions. We then got each six to perform their mime and all the other girls had to guess where they had been and what they had done. There were a few slightly tenuous links but we guessed all of them eventually.
We had a few minutes to spare so we decided to play a game to end the meeting. We chose Pirates but decided not to get girls out and treat it as a practice game for the new girls to learn how to play as we didn't have enough time to get all the girls out.
This was a great first meeting back, it is nice to see all the girls again, especially as I have been away at university and haven't seen them as regularly, although there are a lot of new faces and names to learn! Our first foray into the new programme wasn't too bad, but it will take time to get used to having prescribed activities to do rather than free reign to do whatever we want all the time. The girls seemed to enjoy the activities we did, although they did also seem a bit confused to start, but that will work itself out, especially once we have made our sticker chart for the new programme (we have ones for the Adventure badges and they work really well as a visual aid to the girls).
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