Looks aren't the only thing that matters

This is the session where everything went a little off the rails. Not that it was bad or unsuccessful by any means, just that everything took so much time to get through and we only completed half of the activities in the session. 

It's one of those situations that you look at afterwards and realise all the things you could have done differently. Ahhh, hindsight.

Personal Challenge Sharing: Fortune Teller

The girl's took their fortune tellers home at the end of session two, to write in the blank spaces, eight things they liked about themselves. 

Credit: Free Being Me, 7-10 year activity pack, page 47

Most of my girl's have been with the unit for well over a year and so i'm not exaggerating when I say that whenever we do a craft, I know that there will be very little time for anything else during the meeting. For some reason when planning my FBM sessions, I did not classify the fortune teller activity as a craft. And that was a mistake.

If I had, I would have requested that the girl's colour, cut AND fold their fortune tellers at home. Obviously this did not happen and so time was spent colouring in the picture (we had used black and white printing for the template), cutting it out and folding it (and let's not mention that I demonstrated folding it inside out, and then had to start again!). Then there was the girl that left hers at home and had to start from scratch, the girl that was making her first visit to the unit and the multiple fortune tellers I had to refold as they wouldn't work properly. (And again I ask myself, how did I not predict this happening?!)

Please understand that I am not saying anything against this activity (just my own preparation!). It did exactly what it was supposed to and once we finally got through the 'craft' aspect, the girl's had fun sharing positive things about themselves to as many other Brownie Guides as possible. My favourite positive message was "I like my awesome dance moves".

Note: As you can see in the image above, the star designs in the corners are all identical - whether you print the template in colour or in black and white. This means that when you are ready to play there is absolutely no way to differentiate between the first four squares on the fortune teller. Remember to colour each star in a different colour or add another distinctive feature in each box! Yes, this was something else that slowed us down. Learn from my mistakes!


Airbrushing: Spot the Difference

This activity was supposed to run for 10 minutes, however I knew that airbrushing would be a topic that my girl's would find interesting, so I decided to expand it. (Yes, even though we were already running 20 minutes behind schedule).

We began with a discussion about airbrushing and digitally altering images. All the girls were familiar with the concept, although they referred to it as photoshopping. So that required a slight side discussion about the program Adobe Photoshop and that it was one of many programs that could be used to digitally alter images.

Then we watched the Dove Evolution Youtube video by Tim Piper. I had planned on having a second viewing in slow motion, but scrapped that due to our time limits. After watching the video, we discussed the digital alterations we had observed, which gave the girls some things to look out for in the following activity.

This is the transformation that occurs in the video:

Credit: Dove Evolution

In Patrols, each group was then given an airbrushing sheet with a different set of images. I used the photos provided in the FBM 7-10 years activity pack and also photographs I found online, which depicted more extreme examples of airbrushing. 

Given 5 minutes, each Patrol made a list of differences they could spot in the before and after airbrushing examples. Then we came together as a unit and each Patrol presented their images and the differences they had spotted. All of them were really shocked about the huge list of things that had been altered, and it led to come great comments and discussion.

Can you figure out which list matches each image?

I know that other Leader's have used photos of celebrities during this activity. I tried to do this, but found it really difficult to find authentic before and after photos. Most of them seemed to have also been manipulated! Now having completed this activity, I am glad that I was not able to locate the celebrity photographs. I feel that these images would be distracting and that it is more meaningful using every day girls.

Girl Guides Australia has provided additional airbrushing images so make sure you download them for your meeting. Unfortunately, I didn't realise these existed until after our meeting or I would have used these instead.

Time-wise, this activity took about 40 minutes. I know that I added in the video and extra images, but the girl's had a LOT to talk about when we got to the discussion questions and wanted to share their own experiences. 

Change the Media

This activity is all about taking on the media and sending out a positive message to help others to be body confident. By the time we had completed our other activities (only two!), we only had 10 minutes remaining before going home. So the girl's spent those 10 minutes getting their instructions and then writing up drafts of their media piece to continue with the following week.

So that was session three.... part one. Since week three needed to be continued in another meeting, I will post those activities separately.

--------------------------------------

Time is definitely my biggest challenge during meetings. What is yours?