Our Experience With Girl Guides

WOW! What a great close to a week!

Miss Sally has been a busy bee, contacting lots of leaders for the Wombourne District for Girl Guiding! She has been very successful in creating workshop appointments for Miss Sophie to attend.

This week has been the start of many!

Thursday, Miss Sophie had a manic day of classes! To begin with, she opened the studio at 4pm to her Atom-ic Dancers (Age 3-6) , then onto the Atom Street Dancers (Age 7-10) at 4.45pm and finally her Atom Elite Dancers at 5.30pm. Following this, there was a 2 hour gap, in which Miss Sophie went home for a cup of tea and then headed back out to her first Workshop with the Girl Guiding District.

Wombourne has a lot of activities for the children to take part in such as the Girl Guiding Association where by children from an early age can learn the skills and assets such as;

Rainbows learn by doing – they get their hands dirty, do sports, arts and crafts and play games.

As the children get older, they complete more tasks to earn certain badges, this could include; Brownies;

Expand her circle of friends in a troop

Have fun learning all kinds of new skills as she earns badges

Do a project that makes a difference in her community (and beyond) as part of a Girl Scout Leadership Journey.

Bond with her friends as she sells cookies

Girl Guides; They go to their first ever sleepover, canoe on rivers, learn about body confidence, and lead their own camp.

As a child, Miss Sophie did not have the time to take part in such activities with the Girl Guiding Community but would have done so had she had the time. Instead, Miss Sophie took part in other activities such as Dance, Gymnastics, Swimming, Choir, Orchestra Practice and Competitions during the weekend.

This week, we have been able to see the effort that the leaders put into groups and what skills they learn.

The first session, the Girl Guides, are aged 10 and above. There were roughly around 15 in the Thursday Wombourne Group.

Upon entering the class, the girls had so much character, were loud and have such lively personalities, which is great for Us. Miss Sophie began by having a chat to the girls about the Dance Academy, people they may know that attend the classes, what styles they think she taught, just by first impressions. Majority of the girls thought that Miss Sophie taught Ballet and Tap, which was not a surprise. This was the first lesson of the session, "Do not judge a book by its cover". After the girls were asked this question, Miss Sophie went on to ask them how they felt before the session started, thinking that they would be learning Ballet. Again, majority of the girls were honest in saying they were not looking forward to it or disappointed it was Ballet, but their perception changed when knew it was Street Dance. That was a great response for Miss Sophie as they seemed excited to know what they would be doing for the session.

The session began with the warm up, an easy way to see how the group would take to the lesson. The next part of the lesson was seeing how confident the girls were executing a solo jump. Finally moving on to learning the Street Dance. Moving through the sections of the class, the girls became more confident in their approach to the dance moves once Miss Sophie had a chat with them about their

"State of Mind".

Having the courage to believe that you can achieve the goals without the fear of failing or the fear of the teacher making a comment in front of your piers. The idea that someone will perform the correct action or example solo in front of the class and then fear the teacher feedback. This will prohibit the execution of your full potential.

Some girls, for example, felt they had to hide their ability behind comedy and not execute the jumps accordingly, however standing at the side lines, where they thought Miss Sophie was not watching, they performed the perfect example of the jump. Miss Sophie noticed this and had a second mini chat with the group about

"Self Confidence and Personal Judgement".

Why do we feel the need to make comedy out of an action or task, for the fear of being judged by your fellow mates. Do you feel your friends would make fun of you for doing the task well and being praised for it? Why would they do it? Jealousy for the fact they can't? That should not stop you from completing tasks at your full potential. If anything, it should make the ones who make fun at others, work harder to achieve their challenges and therefore would not feel the need to make fun of others.

The class was a hit with the girls and a lot of them were very shocked with their ability to pick up choreography quickly and perform floor work sequences with knee spins. After having little motivational talks with them, they seemed to connect with Miss Sophie during the session and became unafraid to ask for help.

Overall, a very successful session, considering Miss Sophie walked into the session unaware of the ability of the girls dancing backgrounds. There was anxiety walking into the session, worrying whether the class would be enjoyable and also whether it was a suitable speed or complexity to suit everyone. The routine taught was one that Atom Elite are learning at the moment and within the hour, the girls had mastered the opened sequence to The Elite routine and should they be interested in joining the teams, they would know exactly what the lessons consist on and how much work goes into the hour.

Rainbows; Friday Workshop

Miss Sophie knew which routine and exercises she was going to do with them before entering the session. The age of the group is age 6, so the session idea was to give them an experience of what the Atom-ic Session is like that Miss Sophie runs.

Starting with the warm up, Miss Sophie talks to the children as she is moving through the exercises in the workshop, making comedic remarks so that the children remember little funny things throughout the lesson. This enables them to remember movements easier if it made them laugh in the lesson.

Next, Miss Sophie asked the children to line up at the back and worked through the animal kingdom exercises. This really does help the bodies warm up quickly and also allows the children to express their favourite animals and can explore the movement in their bodies.

After Animal Kingdom, the children practised their jumps from the corner and they had great fun running and jumping one at a time and testing their limits.

Moving through into kicks and spins, this helps the children learn and understand how to be safe in their spacing and to understand how important their posture is.

Finally, Miss Sophie taught them a sequence to a song that everyone has been crazy about for a while, KIKI. The children knowing the lyrics to this song, aided them to connect the movements to the lyrics.

The end song, something for them all to remember and have fun doing, the Baby Shark song. A great way to end the session and say goodbye to the children, everyone know the dance and could all have fun performing it for the last couple of minutes.

Overall, a great introductory session to The Academy Classes and hopefully will encourage children of all ages to engage in physical activity.