Activities for ages 10-14

Stay inspired and try new things with our challenges.

Our challenges are for girls to explore and investigate however they want. 

We produced these activities to keep girls of Guide age (10-14 years old) entertained and challenged during the Covid-19 pandemic. But they’re still available for girls to explore however they want.  

They aren’t part of the Girlguiding programme, but they’re inspired by our interest badges. We hope they inspire girls to try new things! 

Activities for connecting with the outdoors

Branch out 

What is your outdoors? Outdoors can be anything. It can be your local park, your garden, a balcony or even a massive window that lets you look outside. Everyone’s outdoor space is different. 

Download our fabric of nature activity sheet 

Think about what your favourite things to do outside are. Maybe it’s lying and listening to your favourite music, spending time with friends or playing a sport. 

We want to challenge you to try something new outside. Whatever your favourite outdoor activity is, think about what the opposite of it might be. If you enjoy doing something active, why not try a relaxing outdoor activity? Or if you like chilling in your space, how about going on an adventure? 

At Girlguiding we love the outdoors, and we’ve put together some ideas of things you could do in your outdoor space. Check it out and pick 1 (or more) to try! 

• Normally eat your breakfast inside? Why not have a breakfast picnic with your family? Plan out what you want to serve. Will it be your breakfast classics like cereal and toast, or will you try something new? What other meals could you turn into a picnic instead? 
• Challenge yourself to do a Guide interest badge outdoors. It might be easy to do your backwoods cooking badge outdoors. So why not pick one you would normally do indoors, like your mixology badge? Turn your mocktail review party into an outdoor bash. 
• Want to be creative outdoors? Try out our the fabric of nature activity sheet to create some amazing outdoor photography art. If you can’t print it off, grab a blank piece of paper, draw anything you want to use and cut it out.  
• Don’t have much outdoor space? That’s fine, think about how you could bring the outdoors indoors instead. Could you create an indoor garden – real or fake? You could plant some seeds and watch them grow or create a paper flower garden in your room. 
• Ready to take on a new adventure? Want to get outside, challenge yourself and improve your future? Then the Duke of Edinburgh award could be for you! You can start the Bronze award once you’re in the school year you turn 14. Talk to your leader to find out more.
• Can’t get outdoors? Find a virtual nature walk or use a maps app to visit famous outdoor places like the Grand Canyon or Big Ben. Where will the outdoors take you? Create an outdoor sightseeing tour for your family. 
• Does your unit love adventure? Why not check out our adventure for girls pages. This will help you and your leader see everything that’s on offer for you. It’s got everything from axe throwing to zorbing! 
• Are you a Guide camping legend? Ready to take the responsibility and plan your own camping trip for your fellow Guides? Learn lots of new skills and gain your Guide camp permit. This will let you lead a camping trip with up to 7 other Guides. Talk to your leader to take on this challenge. 

Bright sky at night

Are you a day dreamer who likes to find the animal shapes in the clouds during the day, or a stargazer, who switches off from everything by looking at the stars in the night sky? 

Have you ever looked up into the night sky and saw something amazing, but when you’ve tried to take a photo of it, it doesn’t look the same? 

We challenge you to improve your astrophotography skills and discover all the incredible things that are happening in our night sky. Astrophotography is the practice of taking photos of astronomical objects like planets or star clusters, celestial events like solar eclipses or meteor showers, and areas of the night sky. 

Choose a viewing spot for the month. Try to pick somewhere you could go to safely every day like your bedroom window, or just outside your front door. Then, when you’re ready, just look up. What do you see? How many stars can you see? A constellation is a group of stars that makes a recognisable pattern. Can you spot any constellations that you know of? 

Try to take a photo every day from that spot. Use our activity sheet, or check out our video for top tips on improving your astrophotography skills. 

Spend the month trying out different techniques to see what improves your photos. Perhaps you’ll find your own amazing top tip which you could share with your Guide friends! 

Try it this way 

If you don’t have a camera, that’s no problem – jot down or draw what you see to create your own star diary and notice how they change day by day. Why do you think this is? 

At the end of the month, look at all your photos or drawings. It’s up to you how you want to showcase your month of stars. You could print and stick them into a scrapbook, create a digital display or create a star diary of the month, detailing a journey through the stars. 

Inspired to find out more about the night sky and space? We created this fun challenge with our friends at the Royal Astronomical Society. You can find lots of great things about stargazing with our extra information sheet, or about space and the night sky on their website. 

Out and about

Try out some of these fun outdoor (or indoor!) activities and have some amazing adventures: 

Get out and about 

• Set off on an adventure in your local area. Look at a map before heading out and make a route, or put on your shoes and just see where they take you! Make sure to take an adult with you. We’ve created an activity sheet to help you make your local adventure map. Download the adventure map activity (PDF) 

Try it this way: unable to go outside? Why not have an adventure in your home, garden or even virtually! Choose a place you’d love to visit, and ask an adult to show you using online maps. 

Get into the festival spirit 

• Transform your home or local area into your own festival! Perhaps you’ll stream some live performances of your favourite bands, make tie dye t-shirts or eat some tasty festival foods.  
• Set up camp in your garden and you could safely make a campfire, toast some marshmallows, tell campfire stories and singsongs. Check out our Girlguiding campfire songs to keep the festival going into the evening.

Get creative 

• Be inspired by all the amazing artistic things you could create in, with or for nature!  

Get interested 

• Inspired by all the fun things you’ve been doing outside? Why not check out the backwoods cooking or geocaching interest badge? 

Activities for wellbeing 

Happiness and me

We want to make sure you feel supported to look after yourself, even when times are hard. Happiness is unique to everyone, there isn’t 1 single thing that makes everyone happy. It’s time to discover what your happiness looks like. 

What could you and others do to look after yourself when times get tough? It can be really hard to think about these things when you’re feeling down, so creating a happiness plan can really help as something to reflect on when you need it. 

Download doodle activity sheet. 

Try out some of our ideas below to see if any of them are right for you: 

• Doodling, colouring and drawing can let your mind focus on your wonderful creations. Check out our doodling sheet to have a go yourself! You could print it off, copy the doodles onto a piece of paper or use a drawing app on your computer or tablet. 
• Watch our How To Video: Checking in. Meditation can help you feel grounded and relaxed. 
• Create a playlist of all your favourite get-up-and-dance songs or ask someone else for theirs! Put it on and get lost in the music. 
• Ask someone what makes them happy and try it out yourself. 
• Spend your day trying to make yourself or someone else laugh. It’s contagious! 
• Discover a new healthy treat. It could be something to eat or drink – see if others like it too! 
• Have a blind date with a book or movie. Randomly pick one out and see where the adventure takes you. 

Now grab a notepad or something to write or doodle on. Jot down or draw everything that brings you joy, no matter how small. It could be something you tried out from our list above, or something as simple as seeing the sun shining outside. You could do this as a mind map, putting the word happiness in the middle and drawing arms off it with each idea. 

Once you have your happiness mind map, look at the questions below. These will help you make your happiness plan. Take your time and think about each answer. You might want to put it down and come back to it at a later date. 

• What makes me happy is… 
• I really enjoy doing… 
• I can tell I’m not feeling great because/when I… 
• I think [name] would cheer me up the best. 
• If I want to make myself feel better I can… 

Now you’ve got your happiness plan, think about if you’d like to keep this secret to you or share it with others. You could share it with friends, family or your leader to let them know how they can support you when you might need it. 

It’s okay to feel sad or down, its an emotion we all feel sometimes. But if you’re worried or something doesn’t seem right, speak to a trusted adult like your family, leader or teacher for support. 

Note to leader 

Girls tell us that they’re feeling worried and stressed. But they’re also doing the things that they can do take care of themselves and keep well. For example, keeping in touch with friends and family, playing games and enjoying the outdoors. This exercise is designed to help them understand what they can do to look after their wellbeing. 

If you receive any disclosures or have a concern for welfare, follow our safeguarding policy. If there’s an immediate risk of harm, call the police and out-of-hours safeguarding team on 07508 032997. 

The Guide promise

You’re all a part of a big guiding family and we want everyone to celebrate our amazing community together. 

Our promise is something that connects every member of Girlguiding across the world, no matter their language, culture or beliefs. It brings us all together, and is what makes guiding so special. 

Explore 

Let’s explore what our promise means to us. You can then either choose to make your promise for the first time or remake it in a new, challenging way! 

Our Guide promise is: I promise that I will do my best, to be true to myself and develop my beliefs, to serve the King and my community, to help other people and to keep the Guide law. 

As a member of Girlguiding, you are also a member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS). This is a world organisation, where there are Guides like you all over the world, in around 150 countries with over 10 million members worldwide. 

All countries accept the basic principles and values of guiding as expressed in the promise and law, which vary from country to country. All members of the global guiding community can wear the World badge - that means you too! 

Use our activity sheet to help remember your promise. Colour in the words as you explore them. Use the second page to break down what the promise means to you, and actions you could take to live the Girlguiding values. 

Make 

What does this mean to you? Think about what you say in the promise and how you could do things to live your promise.   

For example, with 'serve the King and my community, or help other people' - what could you do to be kind and helpful to your friends, family or people in your community?  

Celebrate 

Already made your promise? Why not challenge yourself to make your promise in a different way – perhaps using Makaton, in a different language or whilst doing something that pushes you out of your comfort zone. 

Ally adventures 

Take the time to explore what’s important to you and the people around you. This might be something that you experience personally, or a difficulty or inequality your friends or family experience that you’d like to support. 

There are lots of local and global movements that you could support. You might have heard of the Black Lives Matter movement, which is campaigning for Black people to be treated fairly. At Girlguiding we want to include everyone and want all communities to know we stand together. Use this challenge to raise your own voice, or look to a community that could use your support.  

Being an ally means supporting and standing up for people who are treated unfairly to help create a more equal society for all. It might be about their race, sexuality, religion or disability. The important thing about being a good ally is knowing that the story you want to share is not yours, and it’s not about you. It’s about how you use your voice to help raise the voices of people experiencing inequality. 

Challenge yourself to listen, learn, reflect and question things that are affecting people in the world. 

Here are some ideas:

• Check in on your friends and family (including your guiding family) to make sure everyone knows that you’re there for them. 
• Explore issues that are affecting you or the people you care about. For example, we have lots of activities here about Black Lives Matter for you to explore. 
• Fundraise to support charities and organisations that are supporting the movement. 
• Write to your local MP about why an issue or movement is important to you and what they could do to show their support. We’ve made some top tips to help you write to your MP. 
• Have a go at our reflect skills builder activity pick a card which explores how to understand things from someone else’s point of view. 

Why not try?  

These activities, available to download and try at home, or use online, were designed to support the monthly challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic. Here we explored making your voice heard by writing to your MP. Why not give it a go? Download the activity.