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!
The pirate phrases were adapted from this Examiner article. I've made the pages available as a PDF download.
A nice relaxing evening for the last Guide meeting of the term. Pyjamas and board games - definitely, my kind of night!
The girls brought along their favourite games and broke into small groups to play. The variety of games was great and there were many that I wasn't familiar with. It was nice to see the Guides teaching their friends games that they play with their families.
There was a snooker type game from India, a giant snakes and ladders board, Payday, Hungry Hungry Hippos, card games (cheat), Guess Who?, Connect Four and so many more.
One group played The Logo Game for the entire night and while I only spent a little time with them, they were clearly enjoying themselves! The photo below shows one of the game cards. Can you name all four chocolate bars pictured? (I could only get the first two correct).
With about 40 minutes left before the end of the meeting, I grabbed Taboo and taught two of my former Brownie Guides how to play. Soon another two girls joined in and we had great fun giggling as we each struggled to have the others guess our tabooed word.
We played a modified version of the game with one person choosing a card and the rest of us trying to guess the word. Whoever had the card was in charge of self monitoring that they didn't use a tabooed word. Whoever guessed correctly kept the card as a point.
One of the more amusing comments of the night occurred after we had correctly guessed the words 'Bloody Mary' from the above card.
Guide 12 years old: I don't understand this card. It was so easy to guess! Shouldn't it say words like 'scary', 'mirror, and 'haunted'? How come it has all these food words on it?
The girls were shocked when I informed them that Bloody Mary wasn't just a spooky story told at sleepovers but it was also an alcoholic drink! Ahhh, the well-rounded education you receive as a Girl Guide.
Sometimes I go months without visiting a Guide meeting so it's always nice to spend time with the older girls. I'm always shocked by how mature my former Brownie Guides have grown and so pleased with how much they still love Guiding! I really hope that they choose to have another game night and that I get invited. There are so many great card games i'd love to introduce to the girls. I can just see them shouting at each other while playing Spoons!
