Activities for ages 14-18

Stay inspired and try new things with these activities, created during the Covid-19 pandemic for girls your age.  

Although we (fortunately!) don’t have much need for virtual or at-home activities for our units anymore, we’ve kept these available online for you to explore however you want. You might want to get stuck in during the holidays while your unit takes a break from guiding. Or you might enjoy them with a friend who isn’t part of guiding.  

They aren’t part of the Girlguiding programme, but they’re inspired by our interest badges. Perhaps they’ll inspire you to try something new! 

Activities for connecting with the outdoors

Brand new outdoors 

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. 

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. Using your favourite thing to do outside, think about what the opposite of it is. 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? 

Download the nature patterns activity sheet 

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 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 Ranger interest badge outdoors. It might be easy to do your bushcraft badge outdoors. So why not pick one you’d normally do indoors, like animation or self-care? 
• Want to be creative outdoors? Try out our nature patterns 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. 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’s Award could be for you. Talk to your leader and check out more here. 
• The Queen’s Guide award is the highest award you can achieve in Girlguiding. Develop your skills whilst helping guiding in your local community. You can start at the age of 16. 
• 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! 
• Love getting away with your friends? Learn lots of new skills and gain your lead away permit. Lead a residential trip with up to 7 other Rangers or young leaders. Talk to your leader before you start.

Get out and explore 

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 you let an adult know. 
• 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 a local area into your own festival! Make a plan of what you want to do - 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 sing songs. 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 this summer? Why not check out the bushcraft or festival goer interest badge? 

Share your skies 

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? Can you spot any constellations that you know of? 

Try to take a photo every day from that spot. Use our activity sheet, to find out all the best top tips for improving your astrophotography skills. 

Try out different techniques to see what improves your photos. Perhaps you’ll find your own amazing top tip which you could share with your fellow Rangers. 

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 stargazing journal 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. What changes have you noticed in your astrophotography skills or what you’ve seen in the night sky? Share your photos and top tips with your Ranger unit. Keep practising your astrophotography skills. You could have a night sky photo competition at your next Ranger camp or festival. 

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. 

Activities for wellbeing 

My happiness is unique 

We want to make sure that 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 before can really help as something to reflect on when you need it. 

Download the 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 or use a drawing app on your computer or tablet to complete the doodling challenges. 
• Watch our how to video: I’m worth it. Guided journaling can help us make sense of your thoughts. Research other questions you could answer to help you think through what you’re dealing with. 
• Create a playlist of all your favourite get-up-and-dance songs, give it a title that makes you smile! Put it on and get lost in the music. You could even do a playlist swap with a friend. 
• Share something that makes you happy with someone else and ask them what makes them happy. Try it out and see what you think. 
• Smile at yourself every time you see your reflection. It’s simple but it can bring happiness to your day. If you’re smiling, it might make other people smile too! 
• Think about your hobbies and plan something around them. For example, if you’re a cooking champ, why not plan a dinner party for your house? You don’t have to actually do it, but it can be fun to plan a dream event. 
• Act like a child. Put on a childhood classic TV show or eat your favourite childhood meal. Get lost in nostalgia. 
• A tidy space can really help you feel happier. Tidy everything away and find homes for out of place items. If you’re allowed, rearrange your space to work better for you. Maybe you’ve never quite liked where your bookcase is. Ask an adult for help with moving and furniture. 
• 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. It’s 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 they’re feeling more stressed and worried. 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 challenge 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 Ranger promise 

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 Ranger 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 Rangers 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. And 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 and create your own designs 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 this month to live your promise.   

For example, with 'serve the King and my community, or help other people' - what could you do this month 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. 

Become an ally 

Take the time to explore what’s important to you and the people around you. There might be something that you experience personally, or a difficulty 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. 

Being an ally is a lifelong journey. It means understanding your own privileges and how you can use these to support and stand up for groups who have less privilege or are marginalised. There’ll be times when you’ll need other people to be an ally to you, and times when you can be an ally to others. 

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 equality v equity activity, which explores the difference between equality and equity. 

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