Challenges and activities
Check out our challenges and extra activities to explore at home
Here you’ll find our challenges for kids to try themselves, and some amazing activities to download and try any time.
These challenges are for girls to explore however they want. You don't have to do them in your unit meetings, but you might want to talk about how you are all getting on.
These challenges are not part of the Girlguiding programme, but they are inspired by our interest badges and we hope they inspire girls to try new things.
Fresh air fun
What’s one of the best things about this time of year? The sun’s shining (hopefully) and it’s easier to spend more time outside. But how do you get outside? Outside can be anything, it can be your local park, your garden, a balcony or even a massive window that lets you look outside.
Close your eyes and think about what your favourite things to do outside are. Maybe you like to play with friends, splash in water, read a book or even do a bit of gardening.
We want to challenge you to try something new outside. Think about what you like to do outside, now think about something that’s the opposite. Your challenge is to do that instead. So, if you enjoy being active and running around, why not try a relaxing outdoor activity? Or if you like chilling in your outside space, how about going on an adventure instead?
At Girlguiding we love the outdoors and we’ve put together some ideas of things you could do in your outdoor space. Check them out and pick one (or more) to try!
- Where do you normally eat your breakfast? We bet it’s inside! Why not take it outdoors and have a breakfast picnic with all your family?
- Did you know you could do all your Rainbow interest badges outdoors if you wanted? The Agility and Nature badge work really well outdoors but you could challenge yourself to do your Drawing or Construction badge outdoors.
- Want to be creative outdoors? Try out our Shapes into nature activity sheet to create some amazing outdoor art. If you can’t print it off, grab a blank piece of paper, draw your own animal and cut it out. Don’t forget to ask an adult to share your masterpiece using #AdventuresAtHome.
- Don’t have much outdoor space? That’s fine, think about how you could bring the outdoors indoors instead. Plant some seeds and watch them grow, or cover your room in pictures of flowers.
- Want to try some outside games or activities with your Rainbow friends? Ask your leader to check out the Get outside unit meeting activities found in unit meeting pack 9.
- Girlguiding is taking part in Generation Green to help young people connect with nature. Take a look to see how you can take part.
- Can’t get outdoors? Ask an adult to help you find a virtual nature walk or use a maps app to visit famous outdoor places like the Grand Canyon. Where will the outdoors take you?
- Think you could be the next tennis superstar? We’ve just launched Grand slam unit meeting activities in partnership with our friends at Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) - a brand-new activity to teach you some tennis skills. Ask your leader to include it in your term plan.
- Does your unit love adventure? Why not check out our new Adventure for girls pages. This will help you and your leader see everything that's on offer to you - from axe throwing to zorbing!
Ready for a summer adventure with your family? Want to get away for a fun filled break? Join us for a great escape at our Girlguiding Activity Centres - Blackland Farm (Sussex), Foxlease (New Forest,) Waddow Hall (Lancashire) - and experience a great selection of adventurous activities while you’re there. Check out what’s on offer.
Past challenges
What makes you happy? Is it spending time with your family or reading your favourite book? What about eating your favourite snack or playing fun games in your room? You’ve told us how hard this year has been. We want to make sure you’re looking after yourself, especially when things get a little tough.
Your challenge is to create a happiness map – this will be something you can use to think about what you enjoy doing and reflect on the things you could do to check in with yourself.
Download Doodle activity sheet
So, let’s get started! Grab your favourite notepad or something to write or draw things on. Write the word happy in the middle. Think about the questions below and draw or write your answers around the page – you can have more than one answer to each question.
- What makes me happy is….
- Something someone else does that makes me happy is…
- I really enjoy doing….
- I think [name] would cheer me up the best.
Now this is the most important thing to think about.
- If I want to make myself feel better I can…
There are lots of different things you could do to feel happy. Remember, what makes you happy might be different to someone else – we’re all unique! If you need some help with thinking of things you could do, look at our list below of things to try.
- Doodling, colouring and drawing can let your mind wander free. Check out our doodling sheet to have a go yourself! You could print it off, ask an adult to copy the squiggles onto a page or use a drawing app on your computer or tablet to complete the doodling challenges.
- Watch our How To Video: A big blue whale. It’s a really great story to listen along to and do the actions, to help you feel calmer.
- Hold a one-person dance party. Play your favourite song and dance like no one’s watching.
- Ask someone else what makes them happy and try it out. You might find something new that makes you happy too.
- Hold a laughter challenge. Did you know that if you pretend to laugh you’ll probably end up really laughing? Try it out, perhaps on your own or with a friend. Will you get the giggles?
Challenge other Rainbows to complete their happiness map too. You could then share them and find a way to spread happiness to everyone at once.
Remember if you feel sad, that’s okay, its an emotion we all feel sometimes. You can talk to a trusted adult like your family, leader or teacher about it. They can help you! Make sure to speak to a trusted adult if you think something that’s making you sad isn’t right.
Note to leader
This last year has been challenging for everyone. Girls have told us that they are feeling more lonely, more worried and more fed up. But they also told us they are 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 the A Safe Space guidance. If there's an immediate risk of harm, call the police and out-of-hours Safeguarding team on 07508 032997.
Stargazing story time
Look up to the sky! What do you see? Have you ever noticed that you see different things in the sky at different times of the day?
We challenge you to discover what you can see at night time from your home. Whether that’s from your bedroom window or just outside your front door - it’s time to look up and appreciate our night sky. Have you ever heard of the word stargazing? This is to look up to the sky and see the stars.
Each day, jot down or draw what you can see in the night sky. How many stars can you count? Are they in the same place as they were yesterday? You might see different things in the sky depending on where you live, and what the weather is that day.
At the end of the month, print out our fun activity sheet to bring the stars into your home. Ask an adult to help you cut out the holes and shine a light (you could use a torch) at the paper to see a constellation of stars appear on your wall. A constellation is a group of stars that appears to form a pattern or picture. You could even try making your own constellation activity sheet!
Hold your own evening of stargazing story fun for your household. Choose a story to read that’s all about the night sky, or why not make up your own together about 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.
We’re joining with our friends at Children in Need to support the amazing work they do, and we’re excited to have you all come along on the journey with us.
It’s Pudsey’s 40th birthday – wow! 40 years of helping improve the lives of children. This year, he’s asking us to join him in acting our age. It’s really easy to get involved, simply choose an age and do something good with it.
You might decide to use your age, Pudsey’s age, the total ages of everyone in your home, unit or even choose the age of something that’s really important you – like Girlguiding, we’re 110 years old this year!
Your age could be the distance you cover, the time you do something for, the number of things you do or your sponsorship target. We’re sure you will have lots of amazing ideas of things you could do. But to help and get you started, we’ve come up with some ideas below. Your challenge can be as big or small as you want, as long as it’s a challenge to you. Whatever it is, you’ll be helping to change the lives of young people across the UK.
Challenge ideas:
- Active challenge: Swim 40 length’s for Pudsey’s 40th birthday? Or make up an exercise routine. For example, if you’re five, why not try for five days – five star jumps, five rolly pollys, five seconds running on the spot, touch your toes five times and five disco fever dance moves. Want to make it harder? You could do that five times each day!
- Smile challenge: Smiling can make a big difference to people if they’re having a tough day. Can you make your number of people smile each day for the month?
- Baking challenge: Bake 110 cakes and cookies to celebrate Girlguiding’s big birthday?
- Movement challenge: Can you go the distance? Challenge yourself to travel a distance that links to your age target. You could walk, scoot, cycle or hop your way to your target!
- Book challenge: Can you read that many books this month? Why not challenge others or read your books backwards!
Planned your idea? Got yourself ready? It’s time to spread the message far and wide.
We’ve made a fundraising totaliser to help you keep count of all the money you raise throughout your challenge. You can fill it in anyway that you like.
The money Girlguiding members fundraise will make a huge difference. Together, we can raise money to make amazing things happen.
If you want more information about raising money in your local area, ask and adult to check out our Fundraising policy.
Lots of things might be different this year, but one thing’s always the same – many of us will be returning back with our guiding families to celebrate a new term of guiding fun!
It doesn’t matter if you’re back with your Rainbow friends in person, seeing their faces virtually or sending them love from afar; you’re all a part of a big guiding family and we want everyone to celebrate our amazing community together this month.
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. Your guiding family is all around the world and members of a global group called the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS).
Explore
Let’s explore what our promise means to us this month. You can then either choose to make your promise for the first time or remake it in a new, challenging way!
Our Rainbow promise is: I promise that I will do my best to think about my beliefs and to be kind and helpful.
Use our activity sheet to help learn your promise. Colour in the words as you remember them, and use the back page to plan your dream promise party!
Make
What does the Promise 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, for 'be kind and helpful' - what could you do this month to be kind and helpful to your friends or family? Our friends at Amey do lots to help people, like building roads and making sure we have electricity in our homes. Check out what they’ve been doing during the Covid-19 lockdown period to help and support people.
Celebrate
Think about how you could make or remake your promise. It could be together as a unit virtually, sharing the experience with your family and friends at home or making plans for when you’re back meeting face to face.
Already taken 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.
Ask an adult to share with us what you’ve been up to this month using #AdventuresAtHome to show the world how big and amazing our community is!
Summer is a time for lots of outside fun at camps, festivals or parties. But we’re all having to do things a little differently this year, but that doesn’t mean we can’t keep the adventurous spirit alive at home!
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 – make sure you take an adult with you. Look at a map before heading out and make a route with an adult, or put on your shoes and see where they take you! We’ve created an activity sheet to help you make your own local adventure map. Download the adventure map activity (PDF)
- Why not use your adventure map to enter our competition with GO Outdoors this August?
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 hidden
- Find out about animals who hide to protect themselves. You could make some camouflage or create the best den to hide in your home or garden to hide like the animals you’ve discovered this month.
- Play a fun game of hide and seek with your friends and family too!
Get creepy crawly
- Go on a bug scavenger hunt. What creepy crawlies can you find outside? Can you find a different bug for each letter of the alphabet? If you’re missing any letters by the end, make up your own bug names and draw pictures of what you think they’d look like!
Get interested
- Inspired by all the fun things you’ve been doing outside this summer? Why not check out the Nature interest badge and complete it this August!
Some people get treated unfairly based on who they are or what they look like. You might have heard recently about Black Lives Matter - this is a campaign for Black people to be treated fairly. You might be affected by this or something similar yourself, or want to help other people.
A way to help people be treated fairly is to be an ally. An ally is a kind and supportive friend who sticks up for somebody who’s being treated unfairly. They listen really well and find out about how others feel.
At Girlguiding we want to include everyone and want all communities to know we stand together. If you’re affected by any issues, you could share this with family and friends so they know how to support you better.
There are lots of things you could do to listen, learn, question and discover how you could be an ally to someone.
Here are some ideas:
- Send notes of positivity to your friends and family to show that you care.
- Fundraise to support charities and organisations that are supporting the cause you want to help.
- Use your voice to tell others about the things you care about. Why not write to your local MP to make sure your voice is heard! MPs are people in power who can help make change. We’ve made some top tips to help you.
- Have a go at our Uncrumpled friend activity, which looks how we can be kind to everyone.
- Ask an adult to help find child-friendly resources about the things you and your friends care about. For example, we have lots of activities here about Black Lives Matter for you to explore.
We’d love to hear what you’ve been up to this month, you can ask an adult to share on their social media using #AdventuresAtHome.
Why not try?
Our monthly activities are available to download and try at home, or use online. They're designed to support the monthly challenge, and like the challenges, a new activity will be added each month.
This month we explore making your voice heard by writing to your MP.