Bugs and Sunflowers

20/03/14

This week we did yet more of the Big Brownie Birthday badge - I know; it seems like that's all we do these days but it is a pretty significant milestone in Guiding! This week's evening was focused around the outdoors.

We started off by playing a quick game. Brown Owl had bought some sticky flowers in 5 different colours and 2 different shapes and stuck them to small pieces of card. The girls were in their sixes and had to collect 6 flowers (which was one each in 3 of the 4 sixes). Brown Owl then told them which flowers the bees liked that day (and therefore had no nectar left in) and the girls added up all the flowers they had collected which still had nectar in. Once we got past the initial hurdle of the girls not understanding the 'you need 6 flowers in your six corner' part of the instructions, we ended up playing several rounds before finding out which six was the winner! The girls didn't seem to enjoy it as much as other games we've played but that was probably because there was no skill or running around involved - it was mostly a game of luck.

Then the girls got the tables out ready to do a variety of activities. Some of the girls were making bug houses from plastic water bottles, some were planting sunflower seeds and others were colouring in butterflies for a game. They all did all three activities by the end of the evening. For the bug houses, we gave each of them a plastic bottle with the bottom cut off. They rolled up a section of corrugated cardboard and put it inside. I was then in charge of stapling it in so it didn't fall out (harder than it sounds when they'd stuffed as much in as possible and I only had regular staples that couldn't go through more than one layer of cardboard!). They then cut a drinking straw into thirds and pushed that in between the cardboard. The idea is that they take it home and hang it upside down under a bush somewhere quiet and then go back every few days and see if any bugs are living in it. We made sure to tell them to not touch it if there are, although if they wish to bring in pictures they are more than welcome. The second activity was planting sunflower seeds - we've had competitions in the past and thought we would do another one. The girls each planted 2 seeds into a pot which they have to take home and look after. They then measure it and Brown Owl keeps a note of how tall each girl's is. Once it gets above 5/6 feet and there are only a few left living, we get the girls to bring in a photo of them stood by it and the tallest one gets a prize. The final activity was a kind of filler for girls who had finished both other activities or were waiting for space to do one of them. We printed off the outline of a butterfly (6 to an A4 page) which they had to colour in symmetrically and give to Brown Owl. She is keeping them for a game we were going to play tonight but ran out of time.

The girls seemed to enjoy themselves for the most part this evening, although we did have a few who didn't see the point of making the bug houses or planting sunflower seeds. When we asked them to clear up though, we had a minor issue! Some of our older girls are starting to get a little old for Brownies, I think, and sometimes cause us problems when they get bored. We have big octagonal tables for crafts which split in two and get stacked on a trolley when we're done. Usually we ask the older girls (particularly sixers and seconders) to put the tables on the stack and for the younger and smaller girls to tidy things off the tables. However, tonight, these few older girls obviously got fed up waiting for someone to clear the table so, instead if clearing it themselves, one of the swept everything off the table onto the floor in one fell swoop and then proceeded to put the table on the stack with her friend and move on, leaving a pile of paper, pens and offcuts of bottles all over the floor. I always struggle with getting them to listen to me - I don't know if I just don't have the right amount of authority when I say things or whether it's because I'm closer to their age - but they refused to pick it all up. Some of the younger girls ended up doing it instead and I made sure I praised them for helping even though they didn't make a mess. It does irk me sometimes that they refuse to listen to me but I always make a mental note of it so I can try something different next time.

Anyways, the majority of the evening went really well and the girls seemed to enjoy it. Next week will be slightly different as I'm not actually able to attend the meeting, although I will probably still put up a brief post about the planned activity for the night even if I don't have any anecdotes to share!