A "Peachy" toy

I've had the opportunity to play with my new toy today - a "Peach Star binder 21" comb binding machine, check it out on www.3ppp3.com. I bought it in Lidl a couple of months ago for 20 euros and as soon as I saw it I thought it would be a brilliant way to preserve some of my children's' art works, be good for scrap booking, and oh yes might come in handy for guiding! When I opened the box it also comes complete with a starter pack of back covers, plastic front covers and comb bindings of different sizes. So I set to work and unfortunately choose the largest resource to begin with, there is a definite knack in putting the pages onto the open comb, but by the 3rd time I had it! It's easier on resources with smaller numbers of pages.
It is helpful that when Guiding Regions sell section resources they are without a binding, I suspect principally to allow for photocopying for use in the unit. However I discovered a while ago when I'm using resources in trainings it's much better to have them in a folder or even bound. Otherwise they end up all over the floor, occasionally I return with missing pages, & it looks more professional.

Trainers' Annual Record Form for 2010

Well, I finally got round to doing my annual training record for last year; to be honest there wasn't a great deal to put on it. I think partly due to the centennial events in 2010 that guiders have been so busy they couldn't find the time to spare for training; and partly because I spent nearly 6 months of the year on crutches!

I did include the giant mind map that I did for a talk to my son's grade 3 class on "The British Monarchy". I love mind mapping, many of my first draft's of training plans are done as mind maps as a reflector I feel I can go back and add new ideas and organise them at the same time. The technique lended itself so beautifully to the audience of 9 year olds combining the medium of pictures with text. I really enjoyed putting it together and the children including my own son were very receptive, I should have taken the photo before taking it to school.

Games with balloons, string, & chalk ....

I'm working on a games booklet as a resource for the training weekend in March, well it was a bribe really to get the numbers for the weekend up, but I don't know how well it worked. The idea is to compile a games activity pack around items found in a guiders bag, in this instance balloons, string and chalk. The aim is that just by using 3 common items, a great number of fun games can be organised as ice breakers or time fillers at short notice. So far I've got pages of balloon games but am short on the string ones and still need to make a start on chalk ones. Whilst searching on the internet it never ceases to amaze me how irresponsible some sites are with their games for example asking children to stand on chairs to bat balloons around! Maybe it's my risk assessment head kicking in.
Now all I need to do is work out how to photocopy it cost effectively and get the copies up to Lubbecke.

New resources for a Brownie Programme Training

I've had another day trapped at home, this time waiting for the heating engineer to arrive. I'm training the Brownie guiders at the British Guides in Germany (BGIG) weekend, March 2011, in lovely Lubbecke. I took the opportunity this weekend to get the 3 sessions planned bearing in mind that I know there will be some new guiders working on their Adult Leadership Qualification, as well as experienced Brownie Guiders. So today I have had a resources day and made a bunch of "5 Essentials" book marks complete with little Miss Curious. I find that even experienced guiders don't always remember the "5 E's", so it's good to have an aide memoir to hand-out.

I found a lovely site www.dltk-cards.com/bookmarks/bfinish.asp for producing customised book marks, it's just a shame you can't insert your own image as well as text - but Miss Curious is rather apt in this instance!

I usually use a set of 5 cards that I produce as the guiders call the out the "5 E's", today I have re-made them as black on white with pictures, how did we manage before google images? I remembered the last time I used my current set it was difficult for guiders to read them, I made a classic mistake of black lettering on guide blue card; and this time I'm training Brownie Guiders instead of Guide guiders. Did you spot how cleverly the "5 E's" make the word GUIDE?

Training 2nd graders on life in Medieval England

I was fortunate enough last month to be invited into my son's class to talk about life in medieval England. I really enjoyed taking the class of 8 year olds back in time, on a journey down a medieval street with the aid of a PowerPoint picture show, which included a picture of my other son in the stocks outside the gaol in Hexham in Northumberland! The children naturally wanted to focus on toilet and bathroom arrangements! However I was invited back to talk to the other grade 2 classes on the same subject and I did really enjoy it.
It gave me a good excuse to try out PowerPoint 2007 on my brand new laptop too, I love the way I can toggle between PowerPoint and google images - I couldn't do that before.

Why this blog?

Yes, as the title suggests I do train on behalf of Girl Guiding UK - just to clarify that's adults aka "Guiders" and not children although I do work as a Girl guide leader as well. I also have an interest in training,coaching & mentoring generally. My reason for starting this blog is to help me keep a record of my experiences and developement, to help me do things better the second time round and to aid reflection as I go along my own learning journey.