A Brownie Leader's Life

Another busy, yet less chaotic, night at Brownies.  As the Brownies arrived we got them to fill in the ideas sheet for next term, we had some brilliant ideas, including our favourite one for something to cook: I really recommend doing planning like this, it’s structured, it gives a range of activities and it also provides feedback on the best things they’ve done at Brownies.  We then had a quick talk about rules and came up with our rules for the Brownie group, each girl had their input, and one of the Brownies is going to type this up.  Fishy Owl was in charge for the rest of the night (I can’t remember why she’s called Fishy Owl!) and we talked about St Patrick’s Day. We then decorated plastic bottles before filling them with soil and planting ‘shamrocks’ in them.  Fishy Owl had already cut the holes in the bottles and we talked to the girls about being safe. They all put their own soil in and sprinkled their seeds. I hope they all remember to water them and help t...

Wow, it was a noisy week. Firstly, Monday was really rubbish weather here, which means the Brownies didn't get outside play at school, which then means they have loads of energy to let off when they get to us at 6.30! This week our Young Leader (Baby Owl) ran the evening. She is a keen dancer, so runs a meeting at least once a term where she choreographs and then teaches a routine to the Brownies - something the girls really enjoy. This term it was a fast dance to 'We go together' from Grease the musical. The girls were really noisy, and chatty throughout though so they didn't get to finish the end of the routine, so just performed half to us leaders. The routine was rather quick, so the girls did well to learn and remember as much of it as they did (I wouldn't have been able to keep up!) Baby Owl is coming up to her exams now, and will only be coming every other week (Alternating with Rangers) so it was a good for us to have a bit more time with Baby Owl un...

Last night we had an evening based on being blind. We talked in the first instance about how you read when you’re blind (the girls knew that you read a series of dots, but didn’t know it was called Braille) and then did a few activities. Firstly we wrote our names in Braille using small felt dots and the alphabet. This was really effective as the girls were able to feel their names. At the same time, girls were taken into the kitchen in small groups to ‘feel’ items and try to work out what they are - but without seeing. This bit was left up to Tawny Owl to organise, so I’m not too sure what was in them all... but I know one included custard! From the giggles I heard, I think that was an enjoyable part of the evening! Then, when some girls had finished, we used baking trays and balls to write words in Braille (thank you Pinterest for that stroke of genius!) the girls wrote their names, the name of their sizes, the word Brownies and then wrote out words for others to guess w...

We took the Brownies to Magna, the Science Museum in Rotherham on Sunday 4th. We had booked as part of their uniformed organisations scheme so had 3 workshops booked as well as time to go around the museum.  Only Ginger Owl had been to Magna before- and she had suggested the trip. After a safety briefing from the Magna team, the first session was about Alien Slime. The girls all made their own little pot of slime, in various colours and they were bagged up and given out at the end of the day.  The second session was about volcanoes- they made volcanoes and then after each ‘eruption’ they added another layer of play dough to make the mountain bigger and see how the lava spread. They also had a go at identifying rocks. This was really good and all the girls learnt something in this session!  The final session was about ‘big bubbles’ and they were all able to stand inside a bubble, as well as blowing their own. This was very cool, but unfortunately I can’t share the photos! ...

Promises and Buns (Fairy Cakes) Decorating! Monday was busy! First of all we had 6 girls making their Brownie Promises - they all looked very smart in their new uniforms and had tried really hard to learn their promises. There was at least one parent for each girl who stayed to watch, which was really nice and once that was over, all the parents left! We did bun decorating this week, and instead of just giving the girls buns and icing/sprinkles, we had four tables with different designs. We had Minions (Yellow icing, 2 Marshmallows, Chocolate Chips, Black Writing Icing and strawberry laces) Owls (Chocolate frosting, Oreos, Chocolate Chips and Orange Midget Gems) Butterflies (Jazzies, Chocolate Buttons and Strawberry Laces) and Pigs (Pink icing, Pink Wafers, Chocolate Chips, Marshmallows) It was lots of fun. We decided to use pre-made buns from Sainsburys (Using the Active Kids Voucher) so that we had time instead of waiting for buns to cool down! We had the girls in 4 groups and ...