For last Friday’s 集合, the Year 1s and Year 2s did their Badgework, while the Year 3s and 4s participated in the WAGGGS activity. We were all excited and anticipated to take part in this annual activity. The theme for WAGGGS activities every year is based on the World Thinking Day theme for that year. Each year, the theme and activities are different, hence, we were looking forward to finding out what we would be discussing during the activity.
Badgework
Speaker Badge
The new Year 1s earned their first badge by reading aloud a passage to the tester, and discussing a given issue. This helped to train their communication skills.
Reflection from a Year 1:
For the previous CCA session, we did badgework. It was a great experience and a fun way to brush up on some skills such as my conversational skills. For the first part speaker badge, we were given a passage and we had to read it out to our Guider, Ms Chang. For the second part, we were given a question to discuss, where we had to converse with the teacher. The question we were given was about our biggest concern of this year. For me, I said that I was worried about the increase of subjects. Ms Chang then gave me some advice such as making a timetable. Through the speaker badge, I was not only able to brush up on my oral skills, I was also able to gain advice from the teacher on how to cope with my studies, which I felt was quite beneficial. All in all, badgework was very fun to do and I hope that there will be more of such badgework in the future.
Scribe Badge
The Year 1s and 2s had to create a poem/haiku about their patrol, write a letter and summarise a newspaper article. This helped to improve their writing skills and hopefully, their English as well.
Reflection from a Year 1:
On Friday during CCA, we did badgework. One of the badges we did was the Scribe badge. I thought it was going to be very difficult to complete the tasks that we are required to do in order to get the badge, but I had an enjoyable time completing them. I also got to know the other Year 1 in my patrol better. I also learnt many things from her. Even though the part about writing a poem was a bit difficult, I managed to complete it in the end and I was happy with my work. Badgework in Guides is fun, compared to doing it in Scouts in primary school. In conclusion, I really enjoyed myself during badgework and I look forward to future badgework sessions.
Reflection from a Year 2:
We did Scribe Badge activity during badgework yesterday, and I would say it was very meaningful and fun at the same time. During the activity, we could brainstorm different ideas to write for the poem and get creative. We really enjoyed ourselves when writing as we could contribute ideas to each other, and give feedback on each other's poems. For letter writing, I think it was useful as it could train us on writing formal letters to others. Additionally, we had many different scenarios to write about based on Guides which could be helpful if one day we were really going to plan an activity for others or even write an apology letter to the Guiders. The newspaper summary writing was the most interesting one for me. We learnt about real world situations, which increased our knowledge of the outside world. We also learnt how to shorten a text and summarise it into a short paragraph where the word count did not exceed 1/3 of the number of words in the original passage. This allowed us to pick out the main points of the passage and express them in a simpler form.
Artist Badge
Year 1s and 2s had to draw an illustration of Disney characters, and a picture in colour. This helped them to unleash their creativity and artistic talents onto paper, and improve their drawing skills.
Reflection from a Year 1:
The Artist Badge activity was a very memorable experience for me as it was my first time doing badgework. Before this activity, I thought that badgework was only for things such as pioneering and first aid. Hence, I was quite shocked when we were required to draw. The activity was challenging for me because of two reasons. We had to draw a Disney character and another drawing in colour. Firstly, I do not watch Disney movies a lot, hence I have very vague memories of characters. I am also not an artistically inclined person as I prefer music. Even though the end product did not turn out as nicely as expected, I was still happy with it because my drawing of the water bottle actually looked like a water bottle and that was a very big accomplishment for me. For the Disney character, I tried to draw the chicken, Fei Fei, from Mulan. It looked like a disfigured chicken. At the end of the activity, I felt quite proud as I thought that I would be unable to finish the activity but I did it! Even though it was not good, it was still better than what I had expected. Badgework is fun, and I hope we can have our next one soon.
Reflection from a Year 2:
I think that the artist badge was a refresher for me as I have not drawn during my free time in quite a while. Moreover, I think that the artist badge was a great chance for us to express our creativity through the second component where we were tasked to draw still life, scenery etc. This allowed me to express my creativity and also try drawing a small collage of the beautiful scenery I have seen before. I think that it was also a great chance for us to get to know each other’s styles and different interpretations of the same idea. For example, I decided to draw a sunset and I based it off a sun setting down a mountain. However, my junior based her sunset off a beach scene which I think was very interesting to see how the same idea could have such different interpretations. Furthermore, it was also a very nice bonding activity as the first task, which was to draw a disney character. It made everyone really excited and got us singing Disney songs as we discussed our favourite Disney characters and movies. That was also a great refresher on the things we used to do as a child and it led me to discover many common interests with my patrol mates. Overall, I think the artist badge was a really enriching experience and it was really nice that I got to learn more about my patrol mates while doing so.
Entertainer Badge
The Year 1s and 2s from each patrol had to entertain their batchmates for 5 minutes with at least two types of performance, such as dancing, singing, acting, rapping and much more. This helped them to build their confidence in performing for an audience, and allowed them to express themselves freely through performance.
Reflection from a Year 1:
The Entertainer badge was a fun activity and great for bonding with my patrol mates and other patrols. Our goal was to entertain other patrols by choosing 2 out of singing, dancing, rapping, beat boxing, skit and other entertaining performances. Taking inspiration from our very innovative, creative patrol mate, we decided to sing the song “Let It Go” from Disney’s hit movie, Frozen. In the end, my patrol chose to do a magic skit and sing ”Let It Go”. Since we were the first patrol we were nervous about whether the other patrols would be entertained by our performance. However, I was glad that we managed to get the other patrols to laugh and sing along with us and we had a great time.
Reflection from a Year 2:
Last Friday, we performed for the Year 1s and Year 2s of all 6 patrols to get our Entertainment Badge. We were tasked to do two different types of performances, and we were given the options of singing, dancing, doing magic tricks, doing a skit, reading a poem and more. It was an enjoyable experience as we got a chance to bond with our juniors and get to know them better. During our discussion on what to perform, we tried our best to engage them and include their ideas. As we were sharing our opinions, we also got a chance to learn more about one another as we got to know everyone's favourite songs. After a long discussion, we all agreed that we would sing the song "Love Story" by Taylor Swift and dance to the song "Never gonna give you up" by Rick Astley, because we were all quite familiar with the two songs. We had a lot of fun performing in front of the Year 1s and Year 2s, and we hope that they enjoyed our performance as well. Overall, it was definitely a memorable experience for us and we felt that this activity gave us a chance to get closer to our juniors.
WAGGGS:
For WAGGGS activity, the year 3s and 4s sat in a circle with their patrol to explore more on the pressing environmental issues. Through various fun and unique activities, we learnt more about climate change and why it matters as well as underhand how each individual can contribute to bringing a cleaner, better, and safer world for all.
Climate Change Charades:
Charades is a game that calls home as we are all familiar with how this game goes, hence, we were all immersed into the game quickly. For this Charades, the twist was that the words were related to climate change. Besides, in the 3 rounds we played, the level of difficulty of the game gradually increased with each round. We started off with being able to describe the word any way we liked, to the last round where we could only describe through actions. We all had fun trying to guess what the others were trying to act.
Reflection from a Year 3:
The climate change charades was my favourite part of the whole WAGGGS activity. It was extremely fun as we had to be creative and think of ways to express the word we got to the others with restrictions. It was also really funny to see the unique creativity of everyone as we took turns to act out the acharades. Additionally, the words for the charades were not too difficult or too easy, it was well-balanced which made the game very fun. As the words were rather familiar due to what we have learnt in usual theory lessons in class, it helped me to better understand the climate change situation. Furthermore, the climate change charades had taught me many different aspects of climate change, which is a new learning point to me. The game also made me more aware that climate change is an extremely pressing issue and that it is getting more and more important to stop climate change. Besides all these, the game has also allowed me to bond with my patrol mates and forged a memorable memory as it is very different, and covers a different area of learning in our Guides journey as we usually tie gadgeting structures, pioneering structures and revise on the information from Guides notes and also patrol bonding through talking about our experiences. I feel that the bond between my patrol mates have been greatly improved from this activity too. This activity was not only fun and engaging for us, it was also very educational and had strengthened bonds between patrol mates. It also gave me a sense of responsibility to take more action to help mitigate climate change and to advocate to get more people to help with the mitigation of climate change. Hence, I feel that the activity was very great and enriching.
Reflection from a Year 4:
For the activity of Climate Change Charades, I felt that it was a very fun and meaningful activity for both the Year 4s and Year 3s. From Climate Change Charades, I had the opportunity to learn much more about Climate Change and the terms associated with this global issue. This activity allowed me to become much more familiar with the causes and consequences of climate change, and also to think more deeply about them instead of just knowing about them at the surface level. I feel that this was achieved through thinking about different ways to express the causes and effects of climate change using actions only and without any words. Thus, allowing me to be able to think out of the box and hence understand climate change more deeply. Additionally, I think that this activity was also very informative for the juniors as not all of them take Geography as a subject. Therefore, they were able to expand their knowledge and learn more about the causes and effects of climate change, which they may not have learned about in class. Hence, they can be more aware of the severe impacts of climate change around the world and the fact that we need to take action to save the environment. This activity also allowed us to bond with other patrol members more as not only did we have fun learning about climate change together, but also have the opportunity to communicate and get to know each other. Overall, I feel that this activity was very fun and meaningful in the sense that the activity allowed us to learn much more about climate change, exercise our minds, raise awareness about climate change and allow the Year 3s and Year 4s to bond together more as a patrol.
The Hive Works:
This game was a very unique experience as it involved a team effort to form shapes with a string, while being blindfolded. We have never played such a game before. However, the rules were easy to understand and the game turned out to be very meaningful. We learnt that every effort counts, and we should all play our part as an individual. For the first round, everyone was able to contribute in leading the team to form a square shape. However, in the second round, one player which is the “pesticide” can choose 3 players to be mute. The game became more challenging as we have fewer people who can communicate and lead the team into forming the shapes. As expected, for many groups, the shape did not really look like a rectangle in the end. Through the two rounds, we were able to relate to how all living things have a role to play in the ecosystem. Due to some human-inflicted causes, like the usage of pesticides, it would put the ecosystem at risk. Hence, this game was a very innovative way to learn more about how our actions will impact our environment.
Reflection from a Year 3:
On Friday, the 集合’s activity was the WAGGGS activity. This year, the World Thinking Day theme is Our World, Our Equal Future, which would be to call upon us to act on gender equality and climate change. For this 集合, it was mainly focused on the theme too, about climate change and how climate change had affected others around the world. I found the 集合 to be very interesting. The activity that I found most interesting would be The Hive Works activity. We all had to be blindfolded for the first round, and just by holding a string, the entire group had to form a square. The second round was that we still had to form the square, however one person would act as the pesticide, and could tap up to 3 people. The people tapped could not talk, which would affect the entire group’s performance. I felt that it really managed to bring out how little actions could impact something in a big way. In the case of the game, it would make communication and completing the challenge harder. However, in terms of the environment, it would have great repercussions. The activity was a great representation of climate change that is happening, and I could feel the change in difficulty from without the pesticide to with the pesticide. The WAGGGS activity also let us bond within our patrol whilst still learning valuable knowledge. Through this activity, I have gained more insights about climate change and more about how it has affected the world unequally. In addition, I also learnt about some of the gender stereotypes that others had of females. I had always thought the typical stereotypes would be on technology and what toys and hobbies a certain gender should pursue, but I did not know that perceiving females to be “emotional” was actually one too. All in all, this 集合 session was very interesting and I learned a lot of useful knowledge.
Reflection from a Year 4:
For this activity, we were tasked to form a perfect square using a piece of rope blindfolded, with our group members. The first round was relatively easy, and through effective communication, we were able to accomplish this very quickly. However, a “pesticide” was then introduced in the second round. Whenever the “pesticide” taps on a player, the player will no longer be able to talk. We soon realised that this hindered our progress greatly as we were not able to communicate as efficiently. Thus, we took a significantly longer amount of time to form the square, and the square formed was not as perfect as the one formed before. Through this activity, I learnt that small changes, such as incorporating a “pesticide”, can lead to significant impacts. Similarly, in our ecosystem, human activities that we may deem to be harmless can actually negatively affect the balance of the ecosystem. For instance, the use of pesticides in crop fields causes insects like bees to die, leading to a steep decrease in their population. This will disturb the wildlife in the ecosystem and lead to negative impacts. This activity was an eye-opening experience as I learnt the importance of biodiversity preservation and wildlife conservation. It also made me realise that more often than not, we tend to overlook such issues, thinking that our actions are too small to lead to a significant consequence. However, this is often not the case. Just like how everyone had to communicate and work together in order to complete “The Hive Works” activity, everyone has to work together and play their part in conserving our ecosystem. Thus, we should learn to think through our actions carefully and opt for more eco-friendly solutions in our daily lives whenever possible. Cultivating eco-friendly habits will enable us to contribute to society and allow us to play our part in maintaining the balance of the ecosystem.
What Makes a Leader:
For this activity, we managed to learn how our language used could end up creating bias against a change-maker. We divided our patrol into 2 groups, where one Group will look at the negative quotes or words used to describe Rachel Carson and play them out. For the other Group, they will have to try guessing what the actions were trying to mimic, and use positive words to describe the quote or words. This activity allowed us to reflect on how we should always think before making a comment as it would severely impact how others would feel about their decisions. We were also inspired to speak out and take action on the environment and support others in their communities to do so. All in all, “What Makes a Leader” was a very inspirational game which sparked a thought on how we can step up and protect our environment in our daily lives. Even if we do not take the lead, we have also learnt the importance of moral support and how it can boost one's self confidence in leading a change.
Reflection from a Year 3:
On Friday, we completed the WAGGGS activity pack with our Year 4 seniors. One of the activities was called “What Makes a Leader”; we had to divide our patrol into two groups, Group A had to act out negative words/quotes while Group B tried to guess those words but describe them positively. In the first round of the game, our Patrol Leader was allowed to verbally describe to us the words or quotes. We were able to guess the words and say them in a positive way without much trouble. However, in the second round of the game, our Patrol Leader was only able to describe to us the words or quotes through her actions. This was especially hard as some of the quotes were long, and it required many actions. The actions were also difficult to guess since they could have many different interpretations, and we had to guess only the specific word. Hence, we found this round to be quite tough. Nevertheless, we found this activity to still be fun and engaging. This activity not only allowed us to learn more about the negative words or quotes that have been said about women and girls worldwide, but it also gave us a chance to bond with the Year 4s in our patrol better. All in all, we enjoyed the “What Makes A Leader” activity in the WAGGGS activity pack, and we hope to participate in such fun activities again in the near future.
Reflection from a Year 4:
The activity "What Makes a Leader" was very interesting to me. Our patrol had to be split into two groups, one of them had to act out negative quotes or words about Rachel Carson and the other had to interpret these quotes positively based on what they had seen. One thing I learnt from this activity is how to see negative things in a different perspective, to bring more positivity in our lives. We view things the way we choose to view them, and if we choose to view them positively instead of always focusing on the negative aspects, we will have an overall more positive mindset. My junior acted out the quote "As for insects, isn't it just like a woman to be scared of a few bugs!" and someone else said that they were concerned about the bug's well-being instead of being scared. I found that new perspective of the situation very intriguing. This taught me that different people see the same thing in different ways, but different views do not diminish the fact that it is still the same thing that we are considering. I feel that through this activity our patrol became more bonded as we gathered to discuss how we could rephrase the negative statements to a more positive interpretation. This activity also allowed us to broaden our perspective on issues and reflect on how we could avoid making too negative comments, and instead phrase our feedback more courteously. After all, we are all human beings, so we will all have different views on the same situations and that could lead to disagreements. Instead of making rude comments about others, like what others said about Rachel Carson, we should consider a different viewpoint of the situation and understand others' perspectives better. I believe that we should all take action and identify what we could do to make our society a better place for all.All in all, i feel that this activity has allowed me to grow as a thinker and reflect on how we can support one another in our community.
Community Storytelling:
This activity was very thought provoking, and helped us to consider others in indigenious communities that are adversely affected by climate change. We were tasked to create a profile of a girl who lived in an indigenous community and think of the possible natural disasters that are caused by climate change that could take place where she lives and the impacts of those natural disasters. After that, we had to present a 5 minute play about the girl's life story to everyone.It helped us to realise that climate change is affecting every single person on Earth, no matter where they live. As we live in Singapore which is highly urbanised and sheltered from natural disasters, this activity provided us a new perspective and allowed us to consider the impacts of climate change on communities that are different from us. Climate change is happening right now and it is very important for us to take action to prevent the situation from worsening and affecting everyone, especially our indigenous communities.
Reflection from a Year 3:
For 集合 on 25 February 2022, we were split from the Year 1s and 2s to do our WAGGGS Activities. This year’s theme for Girl Guides and Girl Scouts around the world is “Our World, Our Equal Future”, placing emphasis on the importance of gender equality in today’s society, and what actions we can take to help improve the lives of people and girls around the world. For the activity on Community Storytelling, we had to act out a 5 minute skit about the life story of a girl from an Indigenous community, and we had to include 3 natural disasters in the skit. During our patrol discussion and brainstorming session for ideas, we decided for our main character to be a girl, Maya, from the Maya Indigenous community in Mexico. Her dreams and ambitions were to leave her tribe and see the world outside, but shortly after she left her family, floods, droughts, and wildfires overwhelmed the community, and completely destroyed their home. Coming back to a dilapidated home, she was devastated and realised the importance of her family and the environment she lived in. Maya thus decided to stay with her tribe to help everyone overcome the natural disasters together. She also went back to the city, and advocated for environmental protection. From this experience, we learnt more about Indigenous communities and the hardships that they face because of the human activities in urban development around the world. All our activities lead to climate change, and cause all kinds of natural disasters to fall upon us. The consequences of such disasters are felt even greater by marginalised communities such as Indigenous communities, as they are not as developed and do not have facilities that are needed to prevent and manage natural disasters. Additionally, it was a meaningful time of bonding with our patrol and spending time with each other. Overall, this WAGGGS Activity was thoroughly engaging and fun, while also allowing us to learn about a minority community and experience their difficulties.
Reflection from a Year 4:
The story telling activity was meaningful because through the activity, we are able to better understand people living in the rural areas and the struggles as well as difficulties they face on a daily basis. This has helped me to better put myself in their shoes to empathise with them. Through the activity, we managed to learn some of the difficulties they face such as the region being prone to natural disasters such as floods that could destroy their crops, which is one of their main sources of income. Additionally, this was an extremely fun and enjoyable activity because we were also able to bond together as a patrol as we came up with the storytelling lines and skit together as a patrol. We were tasked to create a profile of a girl from an indigenous community. Then, we had to incorporate three natural events into the skit and present the girl’s life story. I think that activity is very meaningful as it not only taps on our creativity, but also allows us to put ourselves in perspectives of the situation. During the planning before each patrols took turns to present, I felt very heartened to see our patrol actively discussing the plot they wanted to present as a skit. I volunteered to be the story teller for my patrol, where the juniors acted out the scenes. It was great seeing that our patrol had much chemistry to present the skit smoothly, despite a short duration of practice time. As I watched the other patrols perform, I also felt that they had executed their plot perfectly and their skit was also very engaging. All in all, this is an activity which we have never done before, and I am very grateful to be able to take part in this year's WAGGGS activity! It was definitely an enjoyable and refreshing experience!
Change the Rules:
For this activity, we had to draw paper from a few boxes. 1 box contained ideas, such as a silly idea and an old-fashioned idea. The next box contained impacts, such as motivating big companies to take climate action and making the way we eat more environmentally friendly. Lastly, the most interesting box that considered "what ifs" to reduce the restrictions on our ideas, such as if you had 100 people with you and if you had all the time in the world. We had to link the ideas, impacts and the "what ifs" together and generate as many ideas as possible. This helped us to consider new perspectives about a pressing issue, climate change. After we discussed as a patrol, we had to share it with the others. Hearing the ideas from other patrols were quite interesting, as different people could generate different ideas, even though the situation was the same. It helped motivate us to think creatively with no boundaries, and also emphasised the importance of taking action against climate change.
Reflection from a Year 3:
During Friday’s WAGGGS Activity, one of the activities we did was Change the Rules. This activity allowed us to find creative ways to take action on climate change. Firstly, we had to pick a piece of paper from the “ideas” box and another from the “impact” box. Then, we picked a piece of paper from the “what if” box. I feel that this activity was very unique as it allowed us to think out of the box and explore the connection between the ideas and impacts when coming up with as many innovative ideas as possible to reach our impact. With the “what if” statements, it allows us to come up with even more wild, funny and fresh ideas without having any barriers. Lastly, we ended off the activity by sharing our ideas with the other patrols. It was a very fun activity as we got to hear about how other patrols tapped on their thinking hats to generate new ideas, where some of them were out of the world, while some were actually quite practical. Next, I also felt that the activity was very interesting and engaging. It helped us to consider different scenarios in which we had to generate ideas, for example, to make big companies take climate action. We could think of different ideas such as a silly idea and a good idea, which helped us to exercise our creativity and come up with different ideas. In conclusion, from hearing the sharings of ideas from other patrols, I gained new insights and looked at the different perspectives of a situation. This activity also allowed us to bond with our patrolmates and the Year 4s through discussion of our ideas, and the discussion helped me to learn more about climate change and what needs to be done to solve it. All in all,I was very glad to be able to have a casual discussion with my patrol mates, as we seldom discuss real world issues in a normal CCA session. Hence, it was very meaningful to get to hear each other’s views on the same issue, as it helps to broaden our perspectives.
Reflection from a Year 4:
The Change The Rules activity allowed us to better understand how we can fight against climate change and do our part as individuals. It also educates us on climate change and is a fun activity for patrols to bond. As a patrol, we are able to come up with fun answers and laugh together which lightens the atmosphere during CCA. After this activity, I feel that I am able to better distinguish between meaningful actions and actions that are silly and will not contribute much to climate change. I feel more empowered to take action and impact the world in the aspect of environment. I also better understand the impact of my actions on climate change and the environment. Through this activity, I also learnt to think out of the box and come up with more innovative and novel solutions to climate change that are equally impactful apart from the usual 3Rs, reduce, reuse and recycle. This activity was fun and enriching , and I also managed to widen my horizon and gain new insights in the aspect of climate change from the discussions and sharing of other patrols. This activity also allowed us to get creative and come up with ideas limitlessly, giving us a chance to put our creativity to good use, to impact the world and the environment. The Year 3s were also quite open and participative in their sharing which allowed me to look at the situation from various perspectives. We could also discuss the suggestions and consider the pros and cons to come up with the best possible solution that is beneficial to more people and stakeholders. Discussing also allowed us to account for any individual blindspots in our thinking and brainstorming. I learnt a lot from this educational activity and feel that our patrol has become closer after this activity.
We hope that everyone had fun and bonded with their patrol mates through completing Badgework and taking part in the exciting WAGGGS activities together!
Published by:
Pok Jing
53 届 Secretary
