Brownie Buccaneers

For our final night this term, the Brownie Guides celebrated International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Everybody dressed in their best pirate gear - handmade hooks, cockatoos on the shoulder (because we're Aussie pirates), eye patches and cutlasses found in the dress-up box.

My original plan for the night involved compass skills, tracking and treasure maps but leading up to the night I realised that I was exhausted after a jam-packed term and the girls were as well. So instead, we had fun playing games with some great leadership opportunities.

The night ended with two Promise ceremonies (the first i've ever down while dressed as a pirate Captain) and a Bronze Endeavour award presentation.

Program:
Arrive
Create pirate name tags and practice pirate lingo
Game: Captain's Coming
Song: Pirate Ship 
Song: Princess Pat 
Game: Pirate/ship/treasure (variation of Army/Navy/Air force)
Game: Scallywag/Shiver Me Timbers (variation of Heads & Tails)
Fire safety and candle lighting
Promise Ceremony and badge presentation


The pirate names were created using this great resource from FunnyJunk. I didn't need to create a pirate name as the girls dubbed me 'Captain' for the night!

Image credit: FunnyJunk

The pirate phrases were adapted from this Examiner article. I've made the pages available as a PDF download.

Old Fashioned Party Games

Sometimes the best nights can be as simple as going back your childhood. And by that I mean MY childhood.

We decided to have a slumber party at the Guide hall with the simple agenda of party games and a movie. And it couldn't have been a more successful night. Don't you just love when things go according to plan?

Pass-the-parcel was a game I never really enjoyed. Sure, you were given lollies and prizes just for unwrapping a layer of paper but it never really interested me. And worse, when my mother planned the game for my birthday parties she would often skip lollies and put in cards that said "Do 5 star jumps". For someone that disliked being but in the spotlight it was not a game I enjoyed.

The girls were adamant about playing pass-the-parcel at the sleepover so I knew I had to think of something to make it more interesting. Inspired by my Mum's version of the game, I hunted for a long, long time for ideas. It's hard to find an answer when you don't really know what question you are asking!

I finally found my answer from the lovely ladies at www.guiders.co.uk

Pass-the-parcel forfeits.

None of the Guides had never played "forfeits" either (maybe it's not played in Australia...?) but they loved it! They worked together. Supported each other. Every person had a try. And most importantly, everybody had fun! 

The rules are simple.

Pass-the-Parcel: Forfeits

1. Everybody sits in a circle and when the music commences, passes around a package wrapped up with many layers of newspaper.
2. When the music stops, that person opens one layer of newspaper and reads the challenge inside.
3. The player can choose to either complete the challenge or forfeit it to another player. Whoever completes the challenge earns a treat, in our case, one m&m (which the girls were thrilled with!)
4. Play continues until all layers have been unwrapped.
5. Often the last layer has a larger prize, but we didn't feel that was necessary.

Here were the challenges we used:

This game was so successful, that it was the only other game they ended up playing was the chocolate game!

I haven't tried this out with the Brownies yet, but i'm sure that they'll love it as much as the Guides did!

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How do you adapt traditional party games to fit a Guiding meeting?