Be Proud of Who You Are

Here is a run through of the activities from session two. We stayed on task and even had time for singing campfire songs at the end! 


Game: Pelele

I found this activity a bit of a challenge to prepare. I love campfire songs, enjoy singing and can play music instruments. However, creating a tune to go with lyrics is not in my skill set. I scoured the internet trying to find out how to sing/chant this song and the only thing I found was this Youtube video of Girl Scout in Taiwan. Thank you ladies for sharing this video! Fortunately that was my only difficulty and the game was a huge hit.

Pelele, Pelele, we like you, 

We like you the way you are,  

Pelele, Pelele, we like you,

And we like (name) too! 

Everybody starts by standing in a circle holding a blanket with a small toy (pelele) in the middle. While singing the Pelele song, a girl from the group is named in the final line. Once the song ends, this girl names an activity she is good at eg. My name is ____ and i'm good at running. She and all the girl's that also like running, need to run around the blanket and back to their place. The song continues until everybody has been named.

Using a rather small blanket (we don't own a parachute) and a light weight ball, we practiced first to not have the ball fly off the blanket and across the room. Teamwork! Then introduced the song. After a few rounds, I was able to leave the girl's to themselves to run the game. They even wanted to play a second time after everybody had been named.

There are always questions when a new game is introduced and of course, the first one was: What if everybody is good at something? We decided that meant that the blanket was dropped and everybody ran at the same time. This only occurred twice, once for reading and once for bushwalking! (Makes note for future term planning.)

Only looking back through the activity book have I realised that I am mis-pronouncing Pelele. Pelele is supposed to be pronounced 'Pe-lel-ay' and i've been teaching 'Pe-lay-le'. Oops! 


Personal Challenge Sharing: Role Model Wall

Last week every girl took home a role model worksheet to complete. As I mentioned in my session one post, only half the Brownies brought back their sheets. The rest brought theirs along to session three.

Role models chosen included: mothers, fathers, teachers, cousins and even one of the other Brownies!

Some reasons for liking the role models included:

• She is kind
• He teaches me how to cook
• He helps me with my homework
• She plays with me
• She drives me to school
• She is gentle
• She is strong
• She works hard

All awesome reasons!


Once Upon a Time

This activity involved reading a story about two mice, Millie and Gilly. Gilly was so worried about her appearance that she missed out on many fun activities with Millie and her other friends.

The story is a decent length, taking up an entire A4 page in the activity book. Knowing my girl's, I wasn't sure what moods they would be in after school and if they would behave and listen. So I had everybody spread out around the hall and lie down with their eyes closed. I read the intro paragraph and then would tap a girl's shoulder which indicated that it was her turn to read. I had asked ahead of time who wanted to help read the story and everybody was excited to have a turn! Everybody read a few lines until the story was complete. This worked really well and they were able to discuss the story and characters perfectly afterwards! 

The Guides close to do this as drama activity, with each Patrol acting and narrating a portion of the story.

The next step was to break into pairs and draw the characters of Millie and Gilly. Then the pairs came together forming two small groups, each with an adult, to discuss the characters.

Some drawings of Millie the mouse.

A Happy Ending

In groups of about four girls, a picture of Gilly was glued onto a larger piece of paper so that the Brownies could write around the outside. Numbers were added to the picture of Gilly (as seen below).

Label: 
1. Ears 
2. Nose 
3. Tail 
4. Fur
5. Eyes 
6. Hands/Feet (paws)

Taking turns to roll a die, the girl's had to write down something that Gilly is able to do with the corresponding body part. The activity book suggested that if double numbers were rolled, to simply roll again for a new number, with groups competing until all six numbers were rolled. I felt that the competitiveness would take away from the activity, so instead if a double number was rolled, the girl's had to come up with another positive comment to add. Some numbers were rolled many times, so this was quite a challenge. 

We played this until I felt there were enough answers (and before the girl's lost focus) and then we came together as a unit with each group presenting their answers.

See an example below of one of the Gilly's.

Here are some of the messages the Brownie Guides created.

Personal Challenge: I Like Me Fortune Teller

Another take home challenge, this time using a print out of a fortune-teller (also known as a chatterbox or cootie catcher). There was 95% success rate of these being brought back the following week. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos!

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I hope this helps anyone also working through Free Being Me! Please let me know, as I would love to hear about your FBM journey. Also, if anybody has advice for the Pelele song or Ringa Ringa (session 4), please contact me!