UM6 Another GFI activities week

End of Term, GFI sessions and big patrols

The guides had another GFI evening tonight, where they had were supposed to have chosen activities to last most of the evening.

It was the last week of term - many of them in new high schools - and we found an interesting mix of over-tired, hyper, exhausted, stroppy and slightly-off-colour girls. So, probably not the easiest of nights, and also perhaps not the best for a GFI night when they are required to listen to each other, follow instructions for activities they have chosen, think for themselves, and work together.  

Note to self: Don't do GFI sessions at the end of a half term!

Our Young Leaders were tired and off-colour this evening too, and not up to their normal level of help, so spent much of their time just chatting. They were both tired and had come straight from school, so we didn't push them too much.  

By and large, the girls seemed to enjoy their activities, but these were some of the things that, as a leader, I thought didn't work quite so well.

• One patrol finished much earlier than any of the others. They then spent time wandering round the room distracting other girls.  They had other activities to do, but raced through them, and needed constant 'entertainment' to stop them  interrupting other patrol's activities.  
• One of the patrol chosen activities was to play Captain's Coming with the whole unit - but that required all the tables to be put away, and the whole unit available to play with them, when others were doing their own activities.  
• Our 'big' patrol of 8 were doing cooking, making cheese puffs. While this worked well as an activity and they were all very pleased with their results, it was hard work with 8 very lively girls in the kitchen.  In future, I'd try and ensure this patrol has at least 2 activities, then split the patrol in half, and swap over activities half way through.
• The 'cooking' group had failed to tell us that they needed flour, rolling pins.  We only got half the information on their planning sheet. They just assumed it would all be there.
• Without an extra parent helper, I struggled to keep track of what activities the girls were doing and whether they'd actually done what they had chosen (or whether they were just sitting nattering).
• We definitely had a problem with girls not listening to simple instructions, walking off/talking when leaders were speaking to them, not paying attention, and leaving other people to do the hard work (our newest guide ended up doing all of the washing up for her big-8 patrol when they did cooking. Despite us asking them, the other girls all just disappeared or messed around.  There was a lot of cleaning and tidying to do by the leaders afterwards.
• One patrol had to make a play up, which apparently consisted of them using the side room to screech at each other and roll around the floor...

That said, the Guides' view afterwards was that they had enjoyed the evening, and I do think they appreciated having a less structured evening where they could just chatter, lark around, and be kids.  It just felt harder work than normal for the leaders.

So, what to do to improve this?  I think there are some fairly simple solutions

1. Our Big-8 patrol - split in two for activities - this would make it easier to focus instructions to the individuals, hopefully reduce them shirking out of tidying up, and reduce the messing around....and give them all more access to the equipment/activities they are using. Win-Win.
2. Kitchen work - no more than 6 in the kitchen at once (see first point!)
3. At GFI Planning session:
1. check the chosen activities should last long enough to fill the time allocated
2. stress that the equipment and resources that they need leaders to provide MUST be written on the form - otherwise it won't be there!

Baden Powell Activities

Also tonight, our BP girls took themselves off to try and plan a collaborative games evening together. We talked briefly about what 'collaborative games' are and they bounced some ideas around.  Not quite sure what they are going to end up with, but i'm not absolutely convinced they really understood 'collaborative games' as i think they had football and netball on the list (30 girls in small church hall....ahem).  We will see!

That said, I am really impressed with their enthusiasm to organise the evening (and for the BP challenge clauses in general), and that they really got on and had a brainstorm about what kind of things they thought the other Guides would enjoy doing.

UM5 Decoupage Notebooks

This week was a crafty week at Guides, with a little bit of admin thrown in.

We made these Decoupage Notebooks, and it worked brilliantly!  The really great thing about decopatch, according to two of our Guides, is that even those with a bit less dexterity, or a bit less creative, or not quite so handy with craft, can come out with something that looks just as brilliant as the arty girls.  And even the ones who don't enjoy craft so much liked these as they had something usable at the end of it.  Several of the girls made them as gifts for friends.

Supplies for 30 (ish) girls

• 30 x A5 notebooks from Home Bargains @ £0.89 each
• 2 pots of 186ml Decopatch Glue @ £5.99 per pot from Baker Ross - but about 1/3 of each pot left over
• 10 x Decopatch Paper packs (3 sheets per pack) @ £1.99 per pack from Baker Ross (a few sheets left over, but not many)
• 5 x Gold Alphabet Letter packs from Home Bargains @ £0.70 per pack (loads left over)

From the cupboard

• Glue spreaders or paintbrushes
• assorted bits of glitter, stickers, ribbon, other left-over craft/collage type items that the girls just used for decoration

Instructions

1. Decopatch - We allowed 40-ish minutes for this.
1. Open the book out flat (covers upwards) on the table.
2. Tear up the decopatch paper into squares around 1" x 1" (any smaller and it'll take too long!)
3. apply a very thin layer of glue to a small area of the book cover, and stick on the paper square. Repeat, overlapping the squares slightly so there is no gap.  
4. As you go along, paint a very thin layer of decopatch glue over the top of the papers you ahve stuck on, to make it shiny and 'seal' the layer.  
5. It is REALLY IMPORTANT that you ONLY USE A TINY AMOUNT OF GLUE otherwise it won't dry in the time of the meeting
2. Drying Time - 10-15 minutes - clear up all the decopatch paper & glue, tidy up, go and play some silly games, or have drinks, or whatever, for 15 minutes. We did a Fire Drill!
3. Decorations - 15-20 minutes
1. decorate the notebooks with lettering stickers, ribbons or pipecleaners tied around the ringlets, stickers, ribbons, or whatever else the girls want to personalise their books.
2. You could also stick an envelope inside the front and/or rear cover.

The notebooks were all touch-dry by the time we added the decorations, and properly dry by the time they took them home (after taps/announcements for 5 minutes at the end of the meeting). The girls seemed really proud of their creations.  

The whole craft cost less than £2.50 per girl.

Games Ideas - Patrols

Can you do this?

1. Split into patrols (at least 4 girls per group).
2. Let them know what equipment/timescale/space, etc is available and ask them to each write a challenge on a slip of paper. Point out that they may end up doing some of their own challenges.
3. Example Challenges - walk with a cup on your head, scream for 10 seconds, skip 50 times, juggle 3 beanbags, scare someone, do the chicken dance, act like a clown - so much noise and laughter and we've still got at least half the challenges left for another night...
4. All the challenges are folded up and go in a box. (Probably best if leaders check and veto anything unsuitable or not practical, but it doesn't matter if a challenge appears twice).
5. The girls number themselves within their group, e.g 1-6 (if there are unequal groups then the smaller groups need someone to have two numbers or they may take it in turns to be the extra number).
6. Number slips of paper, enough for the number of challenges, and put in in another box (so if there are 24 challenges and four groups of six girls, you need 4 slips with number 1, 4 with number 2 and so on - i.e. 24 slips in total).
7. To play, simply pull out a number and a challenge - everyone with that number (i..e on per patrol) attempts the challenge. You can have a scoring system of best/fastest/etc, but ours were having so much fun and asking if they could try the challenges when it wasn't their turn that we didn't bother!

Five Minute Fillers

The following games were downloaded from the Girlguidng Website, in their Five-Minute-fillers PDF

	Origami races – who’s the quickest?
Duration: five minutes Sections: Brownies, Guides, The Senior Section What you need: squares of paper of any colour, a few per person – can be cut out of an A4 sheet

1. Print out or watch these origami tutorials - everything from flowers to sea creatures.
   
2. Make sure everyone has practised making the shape decided on, then start racing! You could throw paper aeroplanes/birds and see whose can fly the longest distance or you could make paper boats and float them in a paddling pool/pond.
   
3. Once everyone is practised at making the shape, you can run these races with very little preparation whenever there are five minutes to fill. Why not start a leader board with the quickest times?
   

Encourage the girls to think of ways to use the origami once they've made it, perhaps as decorations. Always recycle the paper you've used when you've finished it. 

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Game Ideas - Patrol Challenges

A4 paper challenge

You have been given 20 sheets of A4 paper, 2 pairs of scissors and a roll of sellotape. There is nothing else. 

Your challenge is to create the following. You are free to choose how to use your time and your paper. Remember this is about TEAMWORK.

Every team must complete tasks 1-4

1. Create the longest paper chain

2. Stretch 1 whole sheet of paper as far as you can - you may need to tear or cut the paper but it must stay in 1 piece. No joins, no glue, no sellotape.

3. Fly the furthest paper aeroplane

4. Make the tallest structure that can stand on its own and will hold an egg

For each challenge

- 1st place - 100 points

- 2nd place - 50 points

- 3rd place - 20 points

- 4th place - 10 points

Bonus challenges (if you choose to do them) 20 points each

- Make a paper hat and wear it

- Make a fortune teller

- Make a Chinese paper lantern

- Make a patterned snowflake

Anyone caught cheating will have 20 points deducted!

Repeat offenders may have an unlimited number of points deducted!

20 Tasks in 20 minutes

Each patrol is given 20 tasks to do.  At least 3 members must complete every activity (you can change this bit). They have to complete as many of the 20 tasks as possible in the time.  Leader selects the tasks from this list:

	Task	Resources
	Draw the Guide badge
	make structures / models / sculptures from cocktail sticks and grapes	Grapes, cocktail sticks
	transport marbles from one end of the hall to the other using just toilet roll
	Throw and catch a bean bag 10 times at least 4m apart	Beanbags
	Make a cup of tea for a leader or young leader	Tea-making stuff
	Make a table decoration	Napkins
	Set a formal dinner table for 2	Table settings
	Draw a portrait of one of the leaders
	Get half your patrol upside down
	Find out the sum of the current ages of everyone in the patrol
	Make a pyramid at least 1 1/2 times the height of a piece of spaghetti	Spaghetti & Sticky tape
	Get a Young Leader a glass of water
	Write out the Guide promise	Paper, Pens
	Get out a table & chairs for your patrol
	Do 10 star jumps
	Plait the hair of someone in your patrol	Hair bobble
	Make up a limerick	Paper, pens
	Think of an animal for each letter of the alphabet	Paper, pens
	Give someone a hug
	Pay 3 people from a different patrol a compliment
	Draw a map of the building	Paper, pens
	Tie 3 bows	Ribbons
	Find out who can do the best evil witch laugh in your patrol, then go and demonstrate to a leader
	Make an origami animal	Origami paper
	2 people Hulahoop for 1 minute
	Walk round the room twice with a plastic cup on your head
	Group skip with 2 holding rope and 2 skipping at the same time  -  do at least 10 jumps with 2
	Group skip – how many people can you get jumping together?

20 Tasks in 20 minutes

Each patrol is given 20 tasks to do.  At least 3 members must complete every activity (you 

Harvest Service, new neckers and smart uniforms

This week we were invited to attend the Harvest Family Service of the church where we meet each week.  We are not a sponsored/affiliated unit, and of course, Girlguiding is not a church-related organisation, but we very much appreciate the fact that our church very generously lets us use the church hall every week of the year for a nominal fee, and supports us in whatever we are doing.  So, once in a while, when we are invited to join in church community events, we try to do so.

We were invited to attend both the service and the harvest lunch afterwards.  Five of our guides came along, and we were welcomed very warmly by everyone there - they made a big fuss of the girls, and ensured we were all involved in the service.  It was a lovely celebratory service.

Many of the Church members were very interested in the Guides' uniforms and our unit's new chosen neckers.  Everyone commented how smart and distinctive the new uniforms looked, and how our little row of Guides brightened up the front of the church.  The girls were able to explain how they had chosen the colours for the neckers themselves, and how the necker trims matched the zips and detailing on the new Guide uniform jackets.

As well as being a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours for all of us, it also felt worthwhile as an opportunity for the girls to 'show off' and share a little about their guiding experiences and their uniforms with a very appreciative audience.

Happy Guiding, happy guides, happy leader.