So, to start off, i'll begin with last term and the programme we ran. This term included us really getting to grips with being in charge of the Unit, and we had 5 new starters and at the end of December 7 girls moved on to Guides.
We trialled a staggered return to Brownies this year, with our existing Brownies returning the week before the new ones started - this worked so incredibly well in my opinion and it meant all the silliness of not seeing friends for almost 8 weeks had worn off, and it meant the new Brownies weren't intimidated by the amount of noise the existing Brownies made!
Wool Related Crafts:
On tidying the cupboard over the summer we found a lot of wool (And I mean a lot) so we decided that we would do a wool craft related evening. Tawny Owl led the session and after some 'getting to know you' games, we made butterflies and bugs from wool using forks! The girls really enjoyed this, and some made loads!
Flamingo Land Camping Trip:
Tawny Owl and I (Sparkly Owl) took 8 of our oldest Brownies to the Girlguiding North East England Flamingo Fling event. This was a camping trip to stay at Flamingo Land theme park and have two days in the park. This was a brilliant event and so well organised. We had two days to go around the park, on the rides and in the zoo and evening entertainment was also provided by the Flamingo Land team which included a 'Princess vs Superhero' show.
The highlight for all was that we won a Lemur Experience, so we were all taken inside the Lemur enclosure and we were able to feed the Lemurs by hand, and have them run all over us... Even as an adult it was brilliant!
Church Display
Now, this took longer than I wanted it to - it ended up taking three weeks. The Church in which we meet had a 'Months of the Year' display and we were invited to do a display on February, so we chose: Thinking Day, Chinese New Year, Pancake Day and Valentine's Day. We did a range of items for the display including salt dough hearts, paper dolls of Brownies in different uniforms, a Chinese Dragon and more. I had initially only wanted this to take two weeks, but because of the length of time it took for salt dough to dry, it took longer!
Pets at Home Visit
As part of our Friend to Animals Badge, we went to Pets at Home in Wakefield. We had a brilliant member of staff running the session who really connected with the girls (And she told me after that it was her first session!) The girls got to hold Rabbits, Guinea Pugs, Hamsters and Rats and then got to look at Fish too. They learnt about how long the animals live and how you would look after them. For me a great moment was seeing a girl who was very scared hold one of the animals! The girls really enjoyed this session and really enjoyed themselves!
Guide Dogs/Pet Rocks
Elaine from the Guide Dogs visited us the following week as part of our Friend to Animals badge. She spoke about how to approach a dog and also the amazing work that Guide Dogs do including what happens if they don't quite make the grade. All the girls got to approach and stroke the dog too and thoroughly enjoyed themselves! I think in future though we'd encourage the girls to have a proper think during the week prior about questions they might want to ask!
We spent the rest of the evening thinking about what Pets need to be healthy/looked after. Each Brownie was given a rock and they had to decorate it to be a 'pet' and then they had to think about what it would need to eat etc - We had a lot of pet Unicorns that needed to be fed candy floss!
Coffee Evening
We hosted a Coffee Evening to raise money for the Girlguiding Branch Associations fund, helping those affected by Hurricane Irma. The evening run 7.00 - 8.00, so before the 'customers' arrived, 5 girls made their Brownie Promise. I am so proud of how the Brownies took part in this evening, they helped to make tea/coffee, run the tombola, run the raffle and run the cake stall! All in all, we made an amazing £210 for the cause - which I think is a great achievement. (Next time though, i'll make sure I do all the tombola as Tawny Owl got a bit confused with the numbering system!!)
Mexican Day of the Dead
As we meet in a Church, this was our alternative to Halloween - we had fewer girls than normal that week as someone was having a Halloween party! Now, the girls already knew a lot more about this than we thought - a lot of our Brownies are in the same class at school and had learnt about it recently so the research we had done was almost a waste of our time! We talked about DotD however and then made masks which the girls loved to wear!
First Aid Badge (Over 2 Weeks)
We last did the First Aid in 2014, and one of the Brownies who was leaving at Christmas (And started Jan 2015) had always asked to do her First Aid badge. The younger girls just worked on their First Aid, whereas the older girls completed their First Aid Advanced. On reflection I think we needed more leaders with first aid knowledge (Two of us have our first responce) and three were just working with knowledge they knew, I think it would have been helpful either to get a third party in or all sit down beforehand to make sure we all knew the same things! We did the following things during the meetings:
Young Leader Evening
Our Young Leader is a keen dancer/performer and is always willing to do a session for us. She choreographed a 3 minute routine for the girls, taught them it and then they performed it for the rest of the leaders. She really is brilliant and targets the routine at the age and their skill level. I'll always encourage leaders to use their Young Leaders for more than just running the games as they are the future of Guiding and we have to help them reach their potential.
Cake in a Mug
We were donated a lot of blank mugs from a local club and we decided to do 'Cake in a Mug' with the Brownies. We don't have a microwave so our evening was taken up by: Girls weighed out all the dry ingredients and put them into a plastic bag. The Brownies then decorated the mugs with ceramic pens (To be taken home to cook) with the recipe and any other patterns. The girls seemed to really enjoy doing this and we had good reports of results the following week!
Snowglobes
This was a craft I had wanted to run for a few years, but I wish I had practised it first! We asked each girl to bring in a empty Jam Jag (I would recommend ensuring parents are aware they need to be clean and without label otherwise you'll find yourself cleaning jars!!!) Each girl picked a few Christmas cake decorations and decided where they would like to be positioned - Fishy Owl and Baby then glue gunned them in. (What we didn't take into account was the fact that the lids needed to close so the decorations couldn't be too close to the edge of the lid!)
Then the girls decorated the outside of their jars with Christmassy stickers and then put glitter (Not too much otherwise you won't see what's inside - which is what some Brownies did!!!) water and glycerine into the jar.
We then decided to glue gun the lids on, and on reflection this was a bad idea! Instead of holding the lid better, it actually made gaps - so we were crazily pulling dry glue off it in order to make the lids close properly and the water stop running out!
So please practice before doing snowglobes with 22!!!
Christmas Party
Our final evening - an annual Christmas party. There's not a great deal to say about this i'm afraid - we had a snowball fight, played musical statues, the toilet paper snowman game and ate food! We also said goodbye to 7 girls who left for Guides.
I'm sorry this ended up being such a long post, and please award yourself a few Brownies points for actually making it this far! The next ones should be shorter!
Kirsty aka Sparkly Owl.
We trialled a staggered return to Brownies this year, with our existing Brownies returning the week before the new ones started - this worked so incredibly well in my opinion and it meant all the silliness of not seeing friends for almost 8 weeks had worn off, and it meant the new Brownies weren't intimidated by the amount of noise the existing Brownies made!
Wool Related Crafts:
On tidying the cupboard over the summer we found a lot of wool (And I mean a lot) so we decided that we would do a wool craft related evening. Tawny Owl led the session and after some 'getting to know you' games, we made butterflies and bugs from wool using forks! The girls really enjoyed this, and some made loads!
Flamingo Land Camping Trip:
Tawny Owl and I (Sparkly Owl) took 8 of our oldest Brownies to the Girlguiding North East England Flamingo Fling event. This was a camping trip to stay at Flamingo Land theme park and have two days in the park. This was a brilliant event and so well organised. We had two days to go around the park, on the rides and in the zoo and evening entertainment was also provided by the Flamingo Land team which included a 'Princess vs Superhero' show.
The highlight for all was that we won a Lemur Experience, so we were all taken inside the Lemur enclosure and we were able to feed the Lemurs by hand, and have them run all over us... Even as an adult it was brilliant!
Church Display
Now, this took longer than I wanted it to - it ended up taking three weeks. The Church in which we meet had a 'Months of the Year' display and we were invited to do a display on February, so we chose: Thinking Day, Chinese New Year, Pancake Day and Valentine's Day. We did a range of items for the display including salt dough hearts, paper dolls of Brownies in different uniforms, a Chinese Dragon and more. I had initially only wanted this to take two weeks, but because of the length of time it took for salt dough to dry, it took longer!
Pets at Home Visit
As part of our Friend to Animals Badge, we went to Pets at Home in Wakefield. We had a brilliant member of staff running the session who really connected with the girls (And she told me after that it was her first session!) The girls got to hold Rabbits, Guinea Pugs, Hamsters and Rats and then got to look at Fish too. They learnt about how long the animals live and how you would look after them. For me a great moment was seeing a girl who was very scared hold one of the animals! The girls really enjoyed this session and really enjoyed themselves!
Guide Dogs/Pet Rocks
Elaine from the Guide Dogs visited us the following week as part of our Friend to Animals badge. She spoke about how to approach a dog and also the amazing work that Guide Dogs do including what happens if they don't quite make the grade. All the girls got to approach and stroke the dog too and thoroughly enjoyed themselves! I think in future though we'd encourage the girls to have a proper think during the week prior about questions they might want to ask!
We spent the rest of the evening thinking about what Pets need to be healthy/looked after. Each Brownie was given a rock and they had to decorate it to be a 'pet' and then they had to think about what it would need to eat etc - We had a lot of pet Unicorns that needed to be fed candy floss!
Coffee Evening
We hosted a Coffee Evening to raise money for the Girlguiding Branch Associations fund, helping those affected by Hurricane Irma. The evening run 7.00 - 8.00, so before the 'customers' arrived, 5 girls made their Brownie Promise. I am so proud of how the Brownies took part in this evening, they helped to make tea/coffee, run the tombola, run the raffle and run the cake stall! All in all, we made an amazing £210 for the cause - which I think is a great achievement. (Next time though, i'll make sure I do all the tombola as Tawny Owl got a bit confused with the numbering system!!)
Mexican Day of the Dead
As we meet in a Church, this was our alternative to Halloween - we had fewer girls than normal that week as someone was having a Halloween party! Now, the girls already knew a lot more about this than we thought - a lot of our Brownies are in the same class at school and had learnt about it recently so the research we had done was almost a waste of our time! We talked about DotD however and then made masks which the girls loved to wear!
First Aid Badge (Over 2 Weeks)
We last did the First Aid in 2014, and one of the Brownies who was leaving at Christmas (And started Jan 2015) had always asked to do her First Aid badge. The younger girls just worked on their First Aid, whereas the older girls completed their First Aid Advanced. On reflection I think we needed more leaders with first aid knowledge (Two of us have our first responce) and three were just working with knowledge they knew, I think it would have been helpful either to get a third party in or all sit down beforehand to make sure we all knew the same things! We did the following things during the meetings:
- How to call 999 - we made practise calls to each other
- How to deal with burns
- Looking for dangers around the home and how you would avoid getting hurt yourself!
- The recovery position - on girls who were a similar size, bigger, smaller and an adult!
- How to check for breathing
- What you would do if you cut yourself
- How to bandage things
- Broken bones
- CPR (Oldest Girls only)
The girls engaged with these sessions really well, and proved their knowledge and said they would definitely feel comfortable helping a friend, and felt they would be able to tell others how to put someone in the recovery position.
Two girls missed the second session, so did the parts on bandaging and broken bones at home in order to get their badge!
Young Leader Evening
Our Young Leader is a keen dancer/performer and is always willing to do a session for us. She choreographed a 3 minute routine for the girls, taught them it and then they performed it for the rest of the leaders. She really is brilliant and targets the routine at the age and their skill level. I'll always encourage leaders to use their Young Leaders for more than just running the games as they are the future of Guiding and we have to help them reach their potential.
Cake in a Mug
We were donated a lot of blank mugs from a local club and we decided to do 'Cake in a Mug' with the Brownies. We don't have a microwave so our evening was taken up by: Girls weighed out all the dry ingredients and put them into a plastic bag. The Brownies then decorated the mugs with ceramic pens (To be taken home to cook) with the recipe and any other patterns. The girls seemed to really enjoy doing this and we had good reports of results the following week!
Snowglobes
This was a craft I had wanted to run for a few years, but I wish I had practised it first! We asked each girl to bring in a empty Jam Jag (I would recommend ensuring parents are aware they need to be clean and without label otherwise you'll find yourself cleaning jars!!!) Each girl picked a few Christmas cake decorations and decided where they would like to be positioned - Fishy Owl and Baby then glue gunned them in. (What we didn't take into account was the fact that the lids needed to close so the decorations couldn't be too close to the edge of the lid!)
Then the girls decorated the outside of their jars with Christmassy stickers and then put glitter (Not too much otherwise you won't see what's inside - which is what some Brownies did!!!) water and glycerine into the jar.
We then decided to glue gun the lids on, and on reflection this was a bad idea! Instead of holding the lid better, it actually made gaps - so we were crazily pulling dry glue off it in order to make the lids close properly and the water stop running out!
So please practice before doing snowglobes with 22!!!
Christmas Party
Our final evening - an annual Christmas party. There's not a great deal to say about this i'm afraid - we had a snowball fight, played musical statues, the toilet paper snowman game and ate food! We also said goodbye to 7 girls who left for Guides.
I'm sorry this ended up being such a long post, and please award yourself a few Brownies points for actually making it this far! The next ones should be shorter!
Kirsty aka Sparkly Owl.
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