Drawing dragons

Approximately half of the Brownie Guides are currently working on their Junior B.P. award, the peak achievement award for girls aged 7 years and older.

The award requires 12 challenges to be completed, two from each of the seven Fundamentals of the Australian Guide Program:

• Promise and Law
• Guiding Traditions
• Service
• Outdoors
• World Guiding
• Patrol System
• Leadership Development

One of the Promise and Law challenges is to "think about something you are good at and share your talent with your Patrol. It may be music, cooking, writing or something else."

Not every girl selects this particular challenge, however those who have completed it over the past few years have chosen a great range of talents to share, including telling jokes, craft, baking and playing hockey. 

The latest talent that was shared was extremely unique and you may have guessed by the title of this post that it was... drawing dragons!

Miss 10 years (with a little Leader prompting), led her Patrol through a dragon conversation, discussing appearances of dragons in books and movies and the various types and their features, strengths and weaknesses. She then went on to teach the Patrol how she draws dragons and then assisted them to create their own. It was definitely an original topic and her Patrol had a great time working together for 40 minutes, before I finally had to stop them to do other activities. I was really impressed with how they worked together - it was the most cohesive i've even seen them!

There were over 20 dragons drawn, here are the few I managed to capture in a photo.

What's gonna work? Teamwork!

These activities have all been used as Patrol activities during Brownie Guide meetings. For more information about our Patrol activity tubs and other Patrol activities visit this post.

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Activity: Build a clove hitch ladder

Guiding Fundamental: Outdoors

Activity Challenge Card:

Equipment Provided: Knotting cord, sticks

Further Information Provided:

How the Brownie Guides reacted:
I had chosen activities for the other Patrols which would allow me to spend a lot of time with this Patrol, since I knew they would need some guidance with their knotting. At first I taught the girls the second method of tying a clove hitch as this method can be used in any situation whereas method one can only be used on a open-ended pole or stick. 

The Guides had mixed success with this, getting it right about 60% of the time. I could tell they were getting frustrated and so decided to show them method one, which admittedly is the way I was taught to tie a clove hitch. I teach this knot as 'little e's' rather than 'Mickey Mouse ears', as the 'e' method gives more direction in how to make the loop formation correctly. Just "draw" two little e's using the cord, which makes sure that the correct side of the cord appears on top. Then put loop one on top of loop two. 

Very quickly the girls success rate jumped up to 100% and they were over the moon. (Insert guilty Leader for not teaching them this method to begin with). The Patrol ended up building a ladder than was 2.5m long with about 30 rungs. A pretty impressive effort. The Patrol Leader tied her knots using method two, and the other Guides using method ones.

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Activity: Can you find the alphabet?

Guiding Fundamental: Patrol System

Activity Challenge Card:

How the Brownie Guides reacted:
I was surprised when the girls worked their way through the alphabet sequentially (although that it what the instructions imply) whereas I would have written down the letters A through Z and then filled in the blanks when inspiration hit. Two Patrols have completed this activity and both showed great teamwork, roaming the hall finding answers and discussing possibilities. Afterwards they loved presenting their favourite answers to the unit. Success!

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Activity: Guide Biscuit Shop

Guiding Fundamental: Patrol System, Promise and Law

Activity Challenge Card:

Equipment Provided: Lots of cash in different denominations, signage, packets of Guide biscuits, paper shopping bag

How the Brownie Guides reacted:
I threw this activity together quickly as this year's batch of Guide biscuits arrived just in time for our meeting. The girls love to sell things but really struggle with looking at the money handed to them by the customer and then giving correct change.

For this activity the girls had fun setting up a little table with their biscuits and displaying posters on the wall. They took turns being the salesperson, in charge of the money and the customers. They really like using real money and practicing their customer service skills. I think that they would have happily played shop all night long! 

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Activity: Patrol interviews

Guiding Fundamental: Patrol System

Activity Challenge Card:

Equipment Provided: iPad

How the Brownie Guides reacted:
Every Patrol is desperate for their turn at this activity because they just love to be in front of the camera. The girls haven't gone beyond the suggested questions provided but have given some great responses! I think their videos have an equal amount of both interviewing and dancing. It will make for a great end of year movie.

Patrol Activity Tubs

We commenced Term 2 with what the Brownies have dubbed 'Patrol Activity Tubs', because "We can't call them Patrol Boxes, that's what we keep our pencils and textas in!" 

Patrol Activity Tubs or whatever you want to call them, are the wonderful idea of a Leader in our area. The Patrol System in her unit works magnificently, due to fantastic leadership and her Patrol time activities. Her Guides have fun working and learning as a team, which is just an amazing thing! I've been wanting to strengthen the relationships between the Brownies in their Patrols for a while, so of course I had to adopt her AMAZING idea with my girls.

Each activity is based around one or more of the seven fundamentals of Guiding which are: Guiding Traditions, Leadership Development, Outdoors, Patrol System, Promise and Law, Service and World Guiding. Some of the activities teach skills and information and some are simply about having the girls work together, which is a challenge in itself!

Source: GGA Victoria

We have so many containers at the Guide hall that I am able to change the size of the tubs each week depending on the activity and the equipment needed. I just tape a picture of the Patrol emblems to the tub so that the Brownies can identify which is theirs each week. The tub includes a challenge card and any other resources necessary for their activity. I don't give the girls basic equipment such as stationary as they have Patrol boxes for those things, but if for example, they were doing knotting, I would include knotting cord in their tub.

Here is how I use the Patrol Activity Tubs with my unit.

The girls have about 5 minutes to chat and run around after they arrive at the Guide hall. Once about 10 girls have arrived (enough to start an activity) they break into Patrols and grab their tubs. Girls that arrive late go straight to their Patrol to join in the activity. As a Patrol the Brownies read through their challenge and decide if they will need to collect supplies and where they want to set up. Sometimes they get a table and chairs, at other times they sit on the floor and occasionally the activity dictates where they need to be.

The activities generally run for about 20 minutes but can be longer or shorter. There's no reason why it couldn't last an entire meeting if you wanted! Just make sure that each Patrol has a similar length activity so that they finish at the same time - some weeks one or more Patrols may even have the same activity simultaneously! After pack-up, my girls love to get into Brownie ring and report to the unit about their activity eg. showing a excerpt from the movie they created, performing a skit etc. It wasn't something I intended on happening, but they love it so it looks like it's part of our routine now!

Activities can be absolutely ANYTHING you like. Craft, a game, a discussion, cooking, Guiding skills or traditions. The Leader that created this idea has all her activities prepared and colour-coded aligning with each fundamental so the Patrols actually choose their activities ahead of time. I am not nearly at that stage of preparation so our activities so far are based around upcoming meetings or events in which I would like them to have basic foundations on a topic or simply a void I see in programing. However, having the girls work cohesively as a Patrol is my number one goal with these tubs. Everything else is just bonus!

Below I'm going to include a master list with links to all of the activities we have used in our Patrol Activity Tubs. Please let me know if you have any suggestions!

Patrol Activity Tubs - Master List (updated September 2, 2014)

Click the links below!

Guiding Traditions:

Leadership Development:

Outdoors:

• Build a clove hitch ladder

Patrol System:

• Can you find the alphabet?
• Close-up photo challenge
• Crazy critters drawing activity
• Guide biscuit shop
• Patrol interviews
• Would You Rather?

Promise and Law:

Service:

• Australian Guide Promise in AUSLAN

World Guiding:

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Do you have any suggestions for Patrol activities?