Holiday Brownies at Christmas
My home county Shropshire runs a programme called Holiday Brownies for girls throughout the county who are on waiting lists for Brownie units. They learn and make their promise, earn badges and have lots of fun just like any other Brownies and they get to do it in a beautiful national trust building!
The programme runs normally in easter and summer and I first got involved this summer. I think it is a brilliant idea as not only do the girls have so much fun but it gets more girls involved in guiding! This year we decided to add a extra day at Christmas to have a catch up with the girls and help bridge the gap between easter and summer.
I picked the Toymaker badge as I thought it would allow us to do some festive activities with the girls and alongside the badge we added in a visit to the the mansion and a walk to see the deers being fed and some christmas card making. Although we only had a day with the girls we fitted lots in and they all really enjoyed it!
The first thing we did was make christmas cards for the elves around Attingham Park. Like us leaders, the elves are also volunteers so we thought it would be nice to spread some christmas cheer and do a bit of community action. The girls worked really hard on their cards and they looked great by the end.
Next we did the first activity for the badge which was making puppets and each girls made their own cat puppet before working together and putting on a short play for the leaders. It was full of lots of giggling and jumping up and down but they seemed to have fun and knew what was going on!
After a quick juice and biscuit stop we heading into the mansion. We hadn't planned to do this but the girls had really enjoyed it in the summer and there was a reindeer treasure hunt going on which they loved! Every room had a christmas tree decorated according to the rooms purpose, e.g the library had decorations made from old books and they were all so amazing- Attingham park has some very talented volunteers!
The girls then made christmas jigsaws which was a really simple but effective activity. They coloured in a christmas picture, we laminated it and then they cut it into pieces. The first girls to finish made their pieces really small and hard so the girls last to finish learnt from them leading to a range of difficulties in the jigsaws but we managed to complete them all.
After lunch the final activity for the badge was complete and we made frog catcher games. This was basically a fortune teller made to look like a frog with a toy fly attached to a piece of string in the frogs mouth and you have to catch the fly in the frogs mouth. These were super cute and we spent ages trying to catch the fly's as it was actually quite tricky.
After we walked up to the deer park to watch the elves feed the deer. Attingham has about 200 wild deer and seeing them all come together is very impressive! The girls then had the opportunity to ask the elves questions about the deer and then hand out their christmas cards which the elves were very excited about.
To finish off the day we played a few games and sang some christmas songs and then it was time for home! I've really enjoyed helping at Holiday Brownies this year and am looking forward to more holiday brownie fun next year! And next time I'll make it my mission to take more photos!
M x
I picked the Toymaker badge as I thought it would allow us to do some festive activities with the girls and alongside the badge we added in a visit to the the mansion and a walk to see the deers being fed and some christmas card making. Although we only had a day with the girls we fitted lots in and they all really enjoyed it!The first thing we did was make christmas cards for the elves around Attingham Park. Like us leaders, the elves are also volunteers so we thought it would be nice to spread some christmas cheer and do a bit of community action. The girls worked really hard on their cards and they looked great by the end.
Next we did the first activity for the badge which was making puppets and each girls made their own cat puppet before working together and putting on a short play for the leaders. It was full of lots of giggling and jumping up and down but they seemed to have fun and knew what was going on!After a quick juice and biscuit stop we heading into the mansion. We hadn't planned to do this but the girls had really enjoyed it in the summer and there was a reindeer treasure hunt going on which they loved! Every room had a christmas tree decorated according to the rooms purpose, e.g the library had decorations made from old books and they were all so amazing- Attingham park has some very talented volunteers!
The girls then made christmas jigsaws which was a really simple but effective activity. They coloured in a christmas picture, we laminated it and then they cut it into pieces. The first girls to finish made their pieces really small and hard so the girls last to finish learnt from them leading to a range of difficulties in the jigsaws but we managed to complete them all.
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After we walked up to the deer park to watch the elves feed the deer. Attingham has about 200 wild deer and seeing them all come together is very impressive! The girls then had the opportunity to ask the elves questions about the deer and then hand out their christmas cards which the elves were very excited about.
To finish off the day we played a few games and sang some christmas songs and then it was time for home! I've really enjoyed helping at Holiday Brownies this year and am looking forward to more holiday brownie fun next year! And next time I'll make it my mission to take more photos!
M x
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