This week my Brownies will be learning more about Brownies. In my unit, the majority are 2nd year Brownies, so last week they helped me teach the Law and Promise to the tenderfoots we are welcoming into the unit. This week we will talk a little more about how things like promises can help us be better friends, and do one more promise activity. Then it’s onto figuring out what we want to work on this year, and then getting amped up about our Guiding Spirit!

Agenda

All About Brownies II

	Activity Description	Who is leading it?	Program to be covered	Materials Needed	Time needed
Gathering	Scavenger Hunt	RO	Sheet		5 min
Opening	Brownie and Guide opening songs	RO		Song sheets	3 min
READING	Am I a Good Friend?–By Robin Nelson	RO	My Healthy Relationships	EPIC Books	10-20 min
Activity 1	Promise Hand Craft	RO	Our Story	Paper, Pencils, colouring materials, scissors	15min
READING	Great Choice, Camille by Stuart J. Murphy	RO	Life Stuff	EPIC books	5 min
Activity 2	Discover your Program	RO	Our Story	ZOOM Screen Share	15-30 min
Activity 3	We’ve Got Spirit!	RO	Spirit of Guiding	Paper, colouring tools	15-30 min
Closing	What’s up next week? Closing song	RO			3 min

Gathering

I like to do something fun during the first 5 minutes of a ZOOM meeting , while we wait for the other girls. For one thing, you know, its fun, but also, it encourages the girls to be on time! By far the girls’ favourite thing to do is a scavenger hunt. You can do just about anything over ZOOM for a scavenger hunt and they will find it fun. They love to show off their things from home, it’s one of the easiest ways for them to tell everyone a little about themselves, without putting too much on the line.

For this meeting, I chose 3 things from our promise:

Find something that:

• represents you
• represents your beliefs
• represents Canada

Activity 1

Am I a Good Friend?

This includes a reading of Am I a Good Friend? A Book about Trustworthiness by Robin Nelson. Girls this age have a lot of anxieties about their friends and friendship. They are leaving behind the days of “We’re all Friends Here” in Kindergarten and Grade 1 and entering into a more complex world of relationships. It’s easy enough for adults to say, “Be a good friend” or ” Choose your friends wisely” but what does that mean to a 7 or 8 year old? They need guidance and some very frank guidelines. I use this book to start connecting things like promises and trustworthiness to good friendship qualities to have and to look for. This book is fantastic for giving concrete and clear examples of what it means to be a friend, and it is something I can refer back to again and again was we cover all those topics a little more in-depth throughout the year. This book is available on EPIC books, which is a fantastic resource for online meetings.

Promise Hand Craft

We now shift focus back to Guiding, and our Brownie Promise. This is the Promise Hand Craft, taken directly as is from the GF platform. The girls will still be thinking about how promises and trustworthiness contribute to healthy relationships while they do this activity.

The Promise is one of the key things that ties the Guiding sisterhood together. While every Brownie says the same Promise, it can mean something a little different to everyone. In this activity you will make the Guide Sign with a paper hand and use each finger to show what each part of the Promise means to you.

(From the Promise Hand Craft

Making Choices

Great Choice, Camille!

In the book, Great Choice, Camille! by Stuart J. Murphy, Camille is excited to start a new project at school. She’s given two choices: she can build a kite or plant a vegetable. Making a decision is difficult for Camille. With the support of friends and her teacher, Camille soon learns to make thoughtful, timely choices.

Making choices can be difficult, I always seem to have a few kids in my groups who seem to freeze when it comes to making a choice. Sometimes kids have difficulty correctly assessing the importance of decision, and spend too much time and worry on the small things. That is, to a large degree, normal for this age group. This book can help loosen them up a little and get them excited about making a decision! These girls have already learned about voting, and why it is important for women especially to have their voices heard, which is another great way to tackle this issue, so this time, we will go with something a little more direct in practicality for their age to compliment that knowledge.

Discover your Program

This is not the way I usually help the girls figure out what we want to do in a Guiding Year. There is usually an entire meeting where we build a Dream board full of things we love to do, want to do, want to learn, celebrate, etc., etc. In this pandemic year, however, the sky is unfortunately not the limit, and I need to narrow down some choices and manage expectations.

However, we still have fun doing the Discover Your Program activity from the GF Platform.

Girl Guides is a place to be everything you want to be! There are so many fun possibilities to do what you love and try new things. Pick up some colouring supplies and get ready to explore your program and all the things you can do this year using the Discovery Sheets as your guide.

(From Discover your Program)

I put the Discovery Sheets up on screen share and allow the girls to mark their choices (I usually say “pick 3), screen capture it and then create a collage to guide us. If you don’t know how to share screen with annotations on Zoom, check out this link: Using annotation tools on a sharescreen in Zoom.

Don’t forget to brainstorm some specific ideas and examples, and write them down.

We’ve Got Spirit!

Guiding is awesome! Guiding creates a space for kids to be themselves, explore interests, discover new things, and have great adventures! In this activity from the platform, the girls can creatively express their Guiding Spirit!

We all know that Guiding is a magical place! It’s a place to play games, sing songs and have adventures. A place where you can try new things, take the lead, and soar to new heights. It’s where you can build friendships and memories to last a lifetime. Guiding is full of spirit! What does the Spirit of Guiding mean to you? Share your spirit with your sisters in Guiding! Then challenge your sisters in Guiding to show their spirit too.

(From: We’ve got Spirit

I ask 2nd year Brownies to draw all the things they love about Brownies and the 1st years to draw all the things they want to do or be as a Brownie.

And with that, we discuss our plans for next week, sing our closing songs and that’s another meeting in the books!