I have
to admit, that while I was excited to begin the Free Being
Me program with the girl's, I was also a little nervous. I had
never run a meeting that was completely structured by somebody else, so it was a learning experience for me!
We are
now mid-way through the program having completed three sessions with the Junior
Guides and one with the Guides. I thought this was a good time to share some of my experiences so far.
At a FBM
Leader's training I attended, we were told the activity pack was so great that
you could just pick it up and run with it. I think there was a little bit
of false advertising there! Even when reading the content in the Leader's
pack, it mentions preparation time and practicing activities with fellow
Leader's. Personally, I have spent time reading the sessions,
highlighting important section and making notes, printing pages, looking up the
songs on Youtube, organising equipment (even though it is fairly basic) and
even then, I still spend most of the meeting with the book in my hand as a
reference.
I am really pleased with the range of activities (even the
ones I was initially skeptical of) and how the girl's are responding
and learning. Favourites have been: Somewhere in the World (session one), A Happy Ending (session two) and Airbrushing (session 3).
Despite the range of activities, there can be a lot of sit down time for writing and discussions (small group and unit). For this reason I make time for a movement activity (a game or campfire song) to break things up a little at the beginning and middle of the meeting. This has really helped with concentration and participation. If
Overall, the biggest
challenges have been: time and the personal challenges.
TIME
Each session recommends 60 minutes to complete the activities. My meetings run for an hour and a half and taking out time for: waiting for everybody to arrive, playing a game to get rid of excess energy, skipping into Brownie ring and cleaning up after drawing activities, there is half an hour of the meeting gone!
A few of
the activities require drawing or writing in small groups and then coming back for
group discussion. Anytime you put a texta in one of my girl’s hands, I know it
is going to take longer than planned. I don't mind this extra time of working with peers, especially as they have been staying on task and coming up with great ideas!
However, if this sounds like your unit, I would
recommend having a spare FBM night in your program to use as a catch-up night. I
only allowed one meeting for each session, which means if we had other plans for the remainder of the term, there is a strict
timetable to keep to so as to not get behind. Luckily I do have extra time in our term program to play catch up – which means I can also add in other ideas I have found which compliment
the program. However, if you had only allowed 5 weeks and have a unit that may need extra time to - play an active game, sketch a drawing in pencil before adding colour and write painstakingly slow in cursive - that extra meeting may be just what you need! And if you don't end up needing additional time to get through the session, it can always become a 'best-of FBM night'!
PERSONAL
CHALLENGES
Each week
there is a personal challenge to take home and complete for the following week.
You really need to get your parents on board for this. The challenges are not difficult or time consuming, but fitting them in around school work and other commitments may be an issue. And that's not even mentioning actually remembering to bring the challenge to the next week's meeting! Despite verbal and written
reminders, not everybody brings back her challenges. I'd say there is a 75% success rate, which means allowing time
the following week to play catch-up. Yes, using up even more of that precious time.
Learn more about Free Being Me on the official website!
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