Over the last two weeks we have been working on our Reflect Stage 1 skills builder. We’ve run this activity a few times with the unit, but it was our first time with our 4 year old Rainbows (some of whom aren’t yet at school) and were a little unsure how some of the activities would land. We shouldn’t have worried!! It was great. We had some really interesting conversations and by working in really small groups with a mix of ages we could spend a little longer.
First up we had What Matters Most; and thanks to Sunshine we had a set of bodies and parts with lots of different values written on them, this resource is great. We hid all of the body parts and gave each girl in the group a blank body, they hunted for the different parts and filled their body. Once every girl in the group had a complete body we read what was written on them, with some of the older Rainbows helping the younger Rainbows. We talked about how they are all values and they’re quite important. But which was most important to each of them. Most Rainbows chose something about being kind or helping others, which is great as it’s part of the Rainbow promise… we decided though that although not mentioned explicitly all of them were part of the promise and what we as Rainbows think is important.
Also on this evening we talked about Traditions with Tradition Teamwork – we worked in small teams to see if we could catch a season and then share as many different traditions that happen then. We loved the winter one – we’re good at all things Christmas :D. We also had a fifth ‘season’ but actually it was a trefoil to represent guiding, and had the chance to talk about what we do in guiding; from making our promise, to wearing a uniform, to going on camp. Lots of fun.
This week we completed the final 3 activities. We started with a game of ‘If your eyes are brown, turn around’. The girls loved seeing how sometimes we’re the same as someone else but a lot of the time we’re different.
We moved on to Big Questions, in our small groups we took turns to pass around the imaginary hat. When the hat stopped we answered a question; from what’s the tastiest thing you’ve ever had (most said chocolate or sweets) to what’s the softest thing you’ve ever touched. It was hard but we all had different opinions and actually some of us even changed our minds when we heard what others said.
Lastly we looked at growing together. It worked well being after the activities we’d done this evening as it consolidated everything together. We talked quickly about how we’re all unique from how we look to what we think and things we like. Every girl designed their own flower to represent them; we had butterfly flowers and leopard flowers, and flowers with lots of colours and petals. We finished by putting all of these together to show our garden of Rainbows!! Don’t you think they look beautiful!!
