These come in useful for all different sorts of things but mostly I just like making them. But I always forget how, so more for me than you is the making fork flowers photo parade:
Start with your flower stalk, half a pipe cleaner length is fine for this.
now weave in and out your petals.
fold over the stalk and twist back on itself (If you are using wool you tie it off)
Slide it all off the fork
Fiddle into the petal shapes
Experiment with how tight you pull the weave for bigger petals.
These paper folding frog fly catchers are easy to make for a 'keep in the bag' unit night
You need:
Sheet of green paper
Red felts (the thicker nibbed the better - board markers are great)
Glue Stick
Button
Tissue paper
Thread (preferably clear)
Dark felt pen
Hole strengtheners (optional)
Sticky tape
Start with your sheet of A4 green paper
Square it off (folding a corner up to find your square and cutting off the end is an easy way to do this)
Fold the square corner to corner both ways (the picture only shows one fold you need one across the other way too)
Open the paper out and lay it with the folds like it will bend upwards to you.
Now fold each corner to the centre
(remember with all paper folding accuracy and pressing on the edges really helps a lot.)
So your paper now looks like this
TURN IT OVER
Fold each corner to the centre again
Colour in two opposite sides red
Take a length of thread (about 30cms), a button and a small twist of tissue paper
Tie the tissue paper to the button.
I push the thread up a hole and down another to create a loop, push the tissue par in and tied a thumb knot in the thread to pull the loop tight. It can be fiddly and having someone to hold it will help, (Brownies would struggle with this bit.)
Use sticky tape to stick the free end of the thread to the lower green side.
Then cover both green sides in glue.
Put your fingers in the gaps in the under folds and manipulate it up, push the green sections together and just hold a minute whilst they stick.
Draw some eyes on and stick the hole strengtheners on.
Round off the corners of the head with scissors
Using the hand that is holding the frog only, swing the fly and flick it up to catch it in the frog's mouth.
Leading up to Remembrance I wanted the Brownies to think a bit about Girlguiding's involvement in the war effort. I told them about how Guides were used to carry messages for MI5 during the war years. The story goes that Boy Scouts were MI5's first choice for this work, but they turned out to be too naughty and too talkative! Britain's secret agents turned to the Girl Guides for help instead.
And with that I introduced them to pigpen code.
Intially they looked confused but once they got going they got it very quickly.
I gave each six 3 sheets of paper, each had a number written on it in pigpen.
Once they had worked out those 3 numbers they put it in the lock that was attached to an envelope. If the lock opened they could open the envelope.
Inside each envelope was another message to be decoded.
I explained that getting it right was most important not doing it fast.
When they brought me the message I gave them a bag of sweets.
They thought that was fabulous.
Next they made their own codes up and passed them onto a different six to be decoded.
The first time they made quite easy ones but after that they really started to come up with some complicated sentences.
Although sometimes the best messages are the short and snappy ones!!
This was a really good evening, the girls were engaged and really enjoyed it.
I was worried that it would be too hard for them but having seen them do this so well I think that I could have actually made it a bit more complicated, perhaps adding another level of the puzzle before they got the sweets. Maybe when they brought the code up from inside the envelope I could have given them another code to decrypt first, maybe with a different simple cypher like a number grid.
So I don't quite know how it happened but I agreed to take Brownies on a 4 day camp, quite a distance from home to help a fellow Guider/friend out. I'm sure she used the words "you only have to turn up" at the point where I said yes!
But we all know life is never that easy! So camp prep began with decorations.
And piles of kit mounting.
And last minute pom-poms made
And we were there. Brownies are not Rangers (clearly) so they were never going to put up their own tents but we got them involved as best we could and did the usual shouts of "don't stand on the tent...push the poles, don't pull them" - it's a camp call that echoes across all Guiding fields!
It was not helping that we suspected these tents had not been out since my rangers last had them so the unpicking of knots was tiresome and my Rangers were suitably admonished online!
But quicker than expected we were all up and my favourite sleeping arrangement was in place.
Our sub-camp was organised by a very small team and they did very well given their numbers.
We had almost constant hot water, cold drinks, snacks etc and our day tent was only this far from the urns. Lots of hot tea always makes me happy.
All catering and activities were provided and it was all pitched perfectly. The activities were organised fantastically, they were varied and well controlled but the brownies had lots of freedom to choose and come and go as they pleased. I was really impressed.
The catering was good. The food was good. The queuing system and time settings were sometimes not as fast as I would have liked but the brownies didn't seem to mind and we were all fed in time for activities and events, and the one night when dinner settings ran over they moved the start times of the activities to accommodate that.
There were day time craft activities, technical things like film animation. Active things like wall climbing, zip wire, greasy pole, go-karts, low ropes, pond dipping, geo-caching. 'Guide like' things like fire starting, smore making, hammocks. The evening activities included beetle, bingo, a film (with popcorn), night hikes, opening and closing ceremonies, disco, campfire.
I'm sure I will have missed so many good things that they did off the list, mostly because I didn't see them do it. Partly because I was mixing with other guiders doing important guider things like eating cake and drinking tea but mostly because I volunteered as often as possible to help with activities.
I spent a morning and afternoon helping an instructor at a climbing wall.
I put the girls in and out of harnesses (he obviously checked them and fixed them properly but me doing the in and first tighten and the out saved a lot of time.)
My Facebook status for the day was: "I have learnt so much today about leadership and motivating young kids to push their boundaries. All from a 19 year old Scout. I am totally humbled by him. Incredible, he did it for 5 hours without faltering giving each kid the same experience and never letting the safety procedure drop once."
He was so good at talking the frightened girls up a notch more (and most to the top) and calming the excited ones to be controlled. He was studying something like Maths or Nuclear Physics I think I recall - wasted talent - he should be a top paid climbing wall instructor - the confidence of the youth today needs him more than any university!
He also said that I was much better as a helper than the usual Brownie leaders he'd had help him in the past *proud face*
The campfire was run by the Guider that does the best campfires in the country (in my opinion) so that was faultless.
I learnt some new knots in my limited spare time and managed to hoist the tiniest flag up the largest pole - seriously, zoom in, there is one up there (and I had to have my knife out to sort the old rope out, oooh get me!)
I went on the night-hike both nights it was run to be an extra adult - you know me and walking!!
It wasn't very quiet!!! It was the nights of the meteor showers, it was clear so lots of brownies were pointing at planes in the sky shouting "is that one, can I make a wish now?" !!
After the girls were in their tents we sat out in our camp chairs watching the shooting stars. It was a lovely time.
One morning I volunteered to help with the fire steels (I'm rather good at that now!) so I went down to the area.
And got put on basket weaving *sigh* It's a guider's lot!!
But at least the whole area smelt of lovely wood smoke.
That afternoon we had our star challenge where the girls went round stalls earning stars by playing games or filling in booklets and then spending those stars on things like rodeo unicorns, bouncy slides, ice-creams and candyfloss.
Or on street games Guiders had taken. Mine was a drop a sweet down the tube and catch it with tongs to keep it. (I forgot to take a photo of it in action)
The pac-man game was a very popular one, it was great fun as I was sat right near it watching the girls play.
We'd taken pegs with us and introduced our Brownies to the challenge. One of our girls managed to peg the Region commissioner without her knowing. This seems childish but it is great camp fun, I also think it was a huge challenge for the girls as they had to do it and leave quietly. They desperately wanted to stand and point, or laugh and be caught so they could show how clever they were doing it. But to peg and leave without a leader helping, without giving each other away and without being caught shows maturity and stealth. They impressed me that they could do it.
The last night of any large scale camp (this was large scale for Brownies) is a special time, there is something about the atmosphere.
The girls were not quiet in the tents when they went to bed! But they settled quickly after "lights out" and ours were especially good in that none got up in the night once the whole camp.
The last morning started fine, which is great news for tent drying.
I showed the others my guy rope tying skills.
And I learnt how to make a cob house.
We took the girls for the hike they did at night during the day so they could see what they couldn't see before! And we had a picnic before the final push to get all the tents down and home.
Camp is special in so many ways. And large scale camps even more so as you have your chants and sense of belonging.
There were about 300 at this camp (I believe), big enough to feel large scale, small enough to be controlled and safe for brownies.
I recommend this camp to any brownie leader and if you haven't gone under canvas before it's a great one to start with as it is fully catered, all activities provided (seriously we didn't take a thing in terms of time fillers) and fully staffed, you only have to think about the camping part.
As many tails as you have brownies (I cut material into 5cm by 25cm (ish) strips)
Lots of counters (at least 4 per girl)
one box for all the containers at the start
four empty containers (if you have four teams)
Line up in teams, ours go in sixes if the numbers are even.
Each girl tucks a tail into their trousers making sure quite a bit is showing.
Put a chair beside each team with an empty containers on it.
a Guider or Young Leader takes the full box of counters to the other end of the hall and holds onto it.
Girls race in relay fashion run up to leader with the box of containers and take a counter, run back to their team and place it in the container on their team’s chair. When the counter is in the box the next girl goes.
But whilst they are running up and down collecting counters they also have to try snatch other girl’s tails. They can only grab another tail whilst they and the tail owner are 'runners' - they can't just steal one whilst in the queue waiting. If they get a tail then they put that in the container on their chair at the same time as they put their counter in.
Continue until the girls are exhausted or you run out of counters.
Once the game has ended you can get them to add up the scores, in their own container:
1 point for each counter
2 points for each tail snatched
But they also get:
5 extra points for each girl that kept her own tail.
Once they have played it once and seen the scoring work they really start to 'get it' so second time around they get a lot more competitive about their tails!
Draw some eyes on and stick the hole strengtheners on.
Using the hand that is holding the frog only, swing the fly and flick it up to catch it in the frog's mouth.
And with that I introduced them to pigpen code.
Although sometimes the best messages are the short and snappy ones!!
But we all know life is never that easy! So camp prep began with decorations.
We had almost constant hot water, cold drinks, snacks etc and our day tent was only this far from the urns. Lots of hot tea always makes me happy.
He was so good at talking the frightened girls up a notch more (and most to the top) and calming the excited ones to be controlled. He was studying something like Maths or Nuclear Physics I think I recall - wasted talent - he should be a top paid climbing wall instructor - the confidence of the youth today needs him more than any university!
The last morning started fine, which is great news for tent drying.
But whilst they are running up and down collecting counters they also have to try snatch other girl’s tails. They can only grab another tail whilst they and the tail owner are 'runners' - they can't just steal one whilst in the queue waiting. If they get a tail then they put that in the container on their chair at the same time as they put their counter in. 
1 point for each counter
