Page last updated 3rd September 200
Sandra's guide pages for activities for guides.
This is available as a word document. Right click here and select "Save Target As" to download it.
Keep Young and Beautiful
This was a wide game which Sandra got from her friend Twertle. Each patrol had to search the area for lots of letters, in their patrol colour. It was dark, so each letter was by a CD which reflected torchlight. When they'd found all the letters, the patrols had to make them into the names of different cosmetics companies - the hardest was Max Factor, as it seems quite a few of the guides hadn't heard of it!
Friendship Bracelets
A very traditional guide / girl scout activity. THere are lots of websites with instructions, here is one of them: http://www.mediamessage.com/kayton/GirlScouts/bracelet.htm
Diversity bracelets
Provide a large selection of assorted beads, enough thread per girl for a bracelet and some instructions. The instructions are a list of statements such as "take one blue bead for every brother your have", "if you like camping take a piece of thread and tie it on to your bracelet", "if you're wearing your promise badge then take a gold bead", "if you started a new school this year take a star shaped bead" and so on. Once you have finished you will have a bracelet as unique as you are!
Ziploc fudge
For each girl take 2 tablespoons of icing sugar and put it in a strong resealable bag (ziploc or similar). Add 3 teaspoons of butter, 2 teaspoons of cream cheese, a dash of vanilla and 2 teaspoons of cocoa. Press out the air and seal the bag, then squish the bag to mix it all up. Once it all sticks together and is more or less a uniform colour and texture, find a spoon and eat! It tastes better than it looks!!
Salt dough modelling
It took under an hour for most of the guides to make the dough & produce models. The recipe is on guidinguk.com here, and lots of the girls made a woolly sheep, the pattern for which Sandra got from a book called "Fun Dough, over 100 salt dough projects for all the family" by Brenda Porteous. Basically you make an oval for the body, stick on wool made by putting some dough through a garlic press then add a head with ears and eyes, and legs if you want them. We also put in hooks made from half a paperclip.
Really easy animal crafts
Soap and flannel bunny - take a flannel (face cloth) and roll it diagonally. Lay the roll flat and put a bar of soap in the middle, lift the two ends of the roll to the top of the soap & secure with an elastic band - the soap is now the body of the rabbit. Attach the two ends again an inch or two above with another elastic band and fluff out the ends to make ears. Stick joggle eyes between the two elastic bands, and add whiskers by threading black sewing thread through (don't fasten it on) if you like.
Candy Cane Reindeer - take a wrapped candy cane, stick a pair of joggle eyes just below the curve. Take a brown pipecleaner (chenille) and cut in half. Attach one half to the top of the cane by wrapping it round - this starts the antlers. Cut the remaining piece in half again and attach these two bits to the first bit to complete the antlers.
Cheat's sand pictures
Take some salt (about a tablespoonfull is enough to start with) and put it in a small container like a film canister. Stir the salt with a stick of coloured chalk... keep going.... keep going... eventually the salt will go the colour of the chalk. Then draw your picture on paper using glue then pour on the "sand". If you use white liquid glue let it nearly dry first or it goes horrible and lumpy!
Jumping beans
From Sandra's ideas pages, click here to see instructions.
Paper boats
These worked really well, and floated carrying nightlights (until some of the guides swamped them!) They came from the
NetGuides site.
Mini bannoffee puddings
Take a digestive biscuit, put a couple of slices of banana on top, add a splodge of butterscotch angel delight then top with chocolate chips! (For a no-chocolate alternative you could use strawberries & strawberry flavoured angel delight). These were great, although some people just had the biscuits & the chocolate chips! We used 1 pack of angel delight (and half a pint of milk) between about 4 people, 200g of choc chips between all 24 of us, one small banana each and 2 or 3 biscuits each.
Edible campfires
Our patrol leaders made these at a training run by City of Edinburgh Guides, and thought they were fantastic, so we all made them this term.
Take a rich tea or digestive biscuit - this is your campfire circle. Mix some icing to glue everything together with (don't use too much!) Stick some orange, red or yellow sweets to the centre of the biscuit to make flames. Over the flames stick anything edible that looks sort of like wood - we used fizzy cola laces and twiglets. Stick some mini marshmallows round the edge to represent stones. Then eat!
(from the Adventure Out resource pack)
String trails
Get some of the girls or leaders to set up a string trail around furniture or whatever else you've got. At various points on the string attach objects (you could use a spoon, a roll of sellotape, a cassette tape...). Then each girl in turn is blindfolded. She follows the string with her hands, identifying (and remembering!) each object as she goes. Once she's finished she has to remember all the objects... in the order they were in on the string! The trail is fun, but apparently remembering the things is really hard!
Music Night
One evening we had three visitors who generously brought in various musical instruments for us to try. There were bagpipes, bagpipe chanter, cello, violin, swanny whistle, cornet, trumpet, tin whistle, occarinas and percussion.
Postcard Exchange
In 2002 we took part in the Thinking Day postcard exchange, and in 2003 we're doing it again.. The exchange takes place every year and is organised on the internet. For general information click here or to join the group click here. Details are currently (as at September 2003) being collected for the 2004 exchange.
