Feb 24 Update
We’ve had a busy few months at Girl’s Brigade since our last update in November. We finished off the ‘Our Pets’ badge which saw the girls exploring all that is involved in looking after and having pets. This included having special visitors in the form of two dogs who are part of the Guide Dogs organisation. The girls had lots of questions and loved the opportunity to learn and meet two beautiful dogs which have been instrumental for years in helping this wonderful organisation help so many people who struggle with loss of sight.
We then ran headlong into all of our Christmas festive activities. Which included decorating both of the church Christmas trees, making gingerbread houses, a lovely Christmas party and many many practices of our Christmas Nativity Play. Joint with Junior Church the girls performed ‘A Wriggly Nativity’ which told the story of Jesus’ birth through what were some very catchy songs!
The adults and children alike had them stuck in their heads for weeks.
After Christmas we have spent our time doing all about the five senses through activities which have taught us a lot about our girls, including the fact that strawberry jam and cheese sandwiches are a hit- who knew? We have also spent the time exploring different smells some good and some not so good (everyone was in agreement that chocolate was the best of all). We also made some colourful shakers, spent time looking at braille and how to recognise our own names and explored the difficulties of being blind through wearing blindfolds and using a ball with a bell inside.
To finish off our time before half term we celebrated two events in one on our last Tuesday night meeting together. We made pancakes in preparation for Shrove Tuesday and did Valentine’s Day bags for all of the church congregation. This involved a lot of teamwork and a very successful production line which allowed us to fill them with a number of different sweets, chocolates and a bible passage related to love.
As you can tell we have been hard at work over the last few months but there are many adventures to come. We ask that you pray for us as a company going forward that we can continue to be a support to the girls that we see every week and that we can continue to grow in numbers.
Thank you for reading, we can’t wait to let you know what we get up to next!
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Nov 23 Update
Since we returned to Girls’ Brigade in September the girls have been hard at work doing their first badges.
For our N:Vestigate group (4-8 year olds) we have welcomed some new members and have been learning about what it means to be part of Girls Brigade. The emphasis being with them learning the motto ‘Seek, Serve and Follow Christ’ which through a game had them shouting it very loudly in the middle of church. We also got them to dress up in the old uniforms which used to be worn at Girls Brigade which as you can see from the picture above was enjoyed by all. Then to conclude the badge we put together little boxes for them to take home relating to what we’d learnt about GB. This included personal torches, I love Girls’ Brigade bands and even a little cross each to name just a few items.
They have just started their new badge all about our pets and have already come up with what animal they would have and what would be there name. Sorry in advance to any parents whose child suddenly wants a pet!
The older girls badgework is a lot more discussion based, with the badge they’ve just completed being about ‘My Family’. They have also liked that for various reasons throughout their badge a lot of it involved them getting to eat something. A game they played was the disagreements game, so take cheese for example if one person was allergic or disliked it would they still decide to pick it or would they try to come to an agreement on a food item that would work for them all. This game was used for them to make a pretend menu for a meal altogether. To finish off they got to make rocky road- more food again!
A favourite amongst all the girls has been a new addition to our company, ‘Popcorn the Guinea Pig’- our Girls’ Brigade Mascot. Many of the girls have been counting down the days until they are able to take Popcorn home for the week and tell us all about the adventures, they have got up to with her. So far, she has been snuck into school in a backpack, been a firm favourite for bedtime and has taken up new hobbies like golf and dance.
We finished off our half-term with a movie night, they were sent out there invites, arrived in their pyjamas, grabbed some popcorn and sweets, then moved through into the ‘movie theatre’ where they watched two showings of ‘Wallace and Gromit’. They loved the idea of the moon being made of cheese and there was a lot of giggles when they were chasing down the naughty penguin.