Clipart

I love cute cartoons and graphics and wish there were more available for Girl Guides or alternatively, that I was blessed with the ability to draw! Unfortunately this is not the case, so I often use clipart from Girl Guides Canada as their uniform is similar to the Australian Guide uniform. Their pictures also show Guides and leaders participating in a wide range of activities such as camping, canoeing, craft, and first aid. 

Look at this adorable Girl Guide! 

Girl Guides NSW has a few new characters available on their online Leader's Support website, although you have to search through the pages to find them.

Here are some links for other clipart websites from other Guiding countries:

• BOGUK's clipart - Girl Guides UK
• Cherokee Scouting - Girl Scouts USA

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What websites do you use for graphics?

Scribble Party

A scribble party is something that I have wanted to use as a meeting for a long time, but there has never been any time in our term program.

However, this year we chose to give our usual Halloween party a miss, which gave me the perfect opportunity to give it a try. It also doubled as a farewell party for one of the Brownies that was bridging to the Guide unit. A scribble tshirt doubled wonderfully as a memory tshirt and at the end of the night the girls covered her tshirt in lovely farewell messages.

Photo credit: http://drjeanandfriends.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/time-capsules-and-memory-shirts.html

The Brownies each invited a friend and every girl was told to wear a plain white tshirt that was allowed to be decorated. Most parents just purchased new white shirts, with Kmart having the best deal for just $2 a shirt!


Equipment needed:

• White tshirt per person
• Fabric markers - make sure to buy these ahead of time so that you can shop around for the best price! I purchased a 10 pack of crayola fabric markers for $8.50, but in most shops they cost well over $10. The price adds up quickly depending how many packets you need to buy.
• Instructions on how to set the fabric markers so that they don't run - one per girl. For Crayola the instructions were located on the back of the box and involved ironing the shirt while it was inside out.

Activities:

• Whistle Game - we play this often as an ice-breaker, and it is simple to add the drawing element. Give each girl a fabric marker. The Guides move around the room at random as instructed (e.g. skipping, hopping) until the whistle is blown signaling they need to form a group. The number of whistles dictates the number of girls in each group. 3 whistles = a group of 3 girls. Once in a group, sign the shirt of everybody in the group. Play continues with the stipulation to find new people for your group each round.

• Whispered drawings - much like Chinese whispers. Everybody sits in a circle and the first girl passes on a simple message of something that can be drawn eg. A cat wearing a hat. The message is passed around the circle, to the last girl who then draws the picture on the back of the first girl. The answer and drawing is then revealed and laughter ensues. Play continues starting with the next player. The girls loved this so much that it ran for much longer than anticipated!

• Drawing relay races

• Free Draw!

These are some of the designs that ended up on my shirt. I also have many signatures and some lovely messages!

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Would you consider having a scribble party at your meeting?

Secret Orders

Have you stopped by Gaye Wilson's Guiding Works website? It's full of amazing resources; camping tips, program ideas, wide games and more.

One of the games I love from her website is called Secret Orders, which she has adapted from the book of games, Clouds on the Clothesline. We have that book in our unit and i'm ashamed to say that I haven't opened it in many years. Thank goodness for Gaye or i'd be missing out on a great activity!

The basic premise of the games is that Patrols need to complete a set of orders in silence. A member of each Patrol chooses a card and has her Patrol complete the order before the next player can choose a card. Play continues until all the challenges have been completed.

We have four sets of laminated cards in different colors, one for each Patrol. All the challenges are the same for each Patrol and can be completed in any order.

I played this game with the Guides (10-14 years), as a test run to see if it would be suitable for the Brownies. It worked really well but was quite a challenge for them, so I would definitely need to adapt some of the challenges to suit the younger girls. It was really interesting to watch how the Patrol's interpreted the challenges and worked (or didn't work) as a team. 

At the moment we use 12 challenges in total, listed below. The majority are straight from Gaye's list.

Be sure to check out the Guiding Works website for the complete instructions to this wonderful game of teamwork.

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What secret orders can you come up with?

Gem stones

The Discover-a-Challenge badges were introduced with the new Australian Guide handbooks and very similar in content to the old Rainbow Skills badges.

Credit: Girl Guides Australia

The badge has different levels, which are named after Australian gemstones.

• Turquoise - 5 years and older 
• Topaz - 6 years and older
• Amethyst - 7 years and older
• Garnet - 8 years and older
• Agate - 9 years and older
• Zircon - 10 years and older
• Jade - 11 years and older
• Sapphire - 12 years and older
• Diamond - 13 years and older
• Black Opal - 14 years and older

Excerpt from Handbook #2 for girls aged 7-9 years.

With so many different badges available and with the way my Brownies prefer to work on twenty badges at once rather than focusing on one at a time, means constant diligence in trying to keep up with their progression. So here's the plan to try and get girls enthusiastic about a new set of challenges and also to assist with keeping up with their progress.

Each girl has a been given gem stone with her name on it.

Every time a Brownie completes a challenge (there are 10 challenges per gemstone) she colors in a section using the correct colour for her gem (agate - pink, garnet - red etc). In some cases (ie. 7, 8 and 9 on the diagram) two sections are coloured in together because they are so small. I've numbered the picture below as an example of the ten distinct sections. This Guide would have completed 5 challenges towards her amethyst badge.

Once the badge is completed the girls get to paint over the whole thing with glitter so that it sparkles. None of the girls have completed any of the levels so far, so i'll just have to wait to see if having the physical gem hanging on the wall inspires them or not. Will keep you updated!

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Has your unit started working on the discover-a-challenge badges yet?