Activity ideas for doing the innovate skills builder
Ideas inspired by other volunteers
From 10 February to 16 February 2025, it's National Apprenticeships Week.
What better way to celebrate than diving into a new skills builder? They help girls build experience and confidence in important life skills like communication or innovation. It could even be the first step to finding an apprenticeship or early career route using the same skills they learned in Girlguiding.
We spoke to Amelia who's a former young member and now works at Rolls-Royce as a business management apprentice. She's also a leader in her spare time! She shares how doing activities with Girlguiding has helped her build important skills she uses at work.
In Girlguiding I’ve had the chance to speak with different organisations and learn about the jobs they offer. I’ve built my confidence by pushing myself out of my comfort zone in activities, which has helped me with new opportunities within Rolls-Royce like presenting to groups of employees.
Girlguiding teaches everyone to be kind, inclusive, honest, passionate, and a willing to try new things - these are all skills that are used in every job role and companies look for this within all their employees.’ - Amelia, a Rolls-Royce business management apprentice, former young member and now leader.
A bit about our innovate skills builder
Did you know innovate is the third most popular skills builder? It’s a firm favourite for girls across all 4 of our sections – Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers. And it’s no surprise! With tons of activities to get girls thinking creatively, problem-solving as a team, crafting and constructing – we can see exactly why it’s so well loved.
Like all our skills builders, innovate has 6 stages. Our friends at Rolls-Royce sponsor stages 2, 4 and 6. They’re passionate about getting more girls interested in science, technology, engineering, and maths (also known as STEM).
Nearly half of girls aged 11-21 think problem solving and critical thinking skills are critical attributes for a successful job. STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects help girls to develop those skills – no matter what career path they choose later in life.
That’s the beauty of our innovate skills builder! It’s jam-packed with teaching girls new skills and ways of thinking. But it’s delivered in a fun and friendly way by you – the amazing volunteers who run day-to-day guiding in your local area.
Hear from Louise who's a former young member and engineering degree apprentice about the skills Girlguiding has given her over the years.
Girlguiding provides opportunities to develop a myriad of skills that are transferable to a future career. Activity planning and execution creates a strong foundation for teamwork and leadership skills to flourish – all essential when completing projects within the workplace.
Girlguiding also encourages empathy which is really important when working with a wide range of people who have different backgrounds, experience and workloads.’ - Louise, a Rolls-Royce engineering degree apprentice and former young member.
3 activity ideas to do the innovate skills builder
Keep reading for a snapshot of some activities and how you can flex them to make them work for your unit.
1. Host a food tower competition
Inspired by the edible architecture activity in innovate stage 2, you could split girls into small groups and challenge them to build a food tower! This activity suggests using fruit and vegetables but remember, all of our programme activities are designed to be flexible so you can do them however you want to.
You might choose to follow this activity exactly or use different ingredients like cake or sandwiches to build your structure. Go the extra mile and make it a friendly competition. You could invite girls to vote for their favourite.
A fun activity making a food tower is so much more than you might think. Not only is it delicious, but it’s teaching girls how to think on their feet, work creatively and understand how decisions impact an outcome. All while constructing, measuring, assessing weight and mass and more!
Will your food tower topple or will it stand tall?
Remember to consider people with dietary requirements and read our food safety guidance when working with food.
2. Write secret messages in binary code
Innovate stage 4 for Guides has lots of activities to get them learning new things and having fun along the way. Our binary beads activity is perfect if your Guides love solving problems, writing in code or playing detective-style games.
Once you’ve completed the activity, why not find a creative way for girls to show off their skills? Check out Guides in Tay and Ochils who followed the activity to make their own friendship bracelets using their initials in binary code!
EXPRESS MYSELF THEME #2
— Girlguiding Tay & Ochils (@gg_tay_ochils) September 22, 2023
3rd Blairgowrie Guides loved the Binary Beads activity, which is part of the Innovate Stage 4 pack. The Guides learned about Binary code and then made their own bracelet using their initials, in Binary code form! @GirlguidingScot @Girlguiding pic.twitter.com/KcoOHfo2u3
Friendship bracelets not your thing? Feel free to adapt this card! Our programme was designed to be flexible so you can do whatever works best for your unit.
You could:
- Write cards or letters.
- Adapt a game of Pictionary so girls have to guess the secret messages you’re writing.
- Make beaded phone straps.
- Create your own wordsearches using binary codes and girls can swap to complete them.
- Get girls to host a quiz.
3. Design your own escape room
As 14-18 year olds, Rangers are girls who are starting to think about future jobs, careers and maybe even education routes like apprenticeships or university degrees. But who says it has to feel like school?
Innovate stage 6 gets Rangers making use of the skills they’ve learned across the whole skills builder. One of our favourites? Escape room!
You could adapt this activity to make the escape room themed or organise a time for friends outside of Girlguiding to come along and give it a go.
Your units putting innovate into action
Check out leader Hannah who did our activity called a work of art from innovate stage 2. What amazing creations! If you wanted to, you could go the extra mile and create your own art gallery in your unit meeting place for parents and carers to visit.
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We love this idea from 4th Rossendale Brownies of getting elves down safely from their handmade zipwire!
#ElfOnTheShelf? Not at #Brownies. We had Elf on a zip wire as part of our innovate #SkillsBuilder this week. We had a 50% success rate of getting Elves safely down the zip wire to the end. 1 got stuck, 1 fell out 🙈. No Elves we’re harmed. @Girlguiding_NWE @RossendaleDivi1 pic.twitter.com/VcJfVflKPK
— Girlguiding 4th Rossendale Brownies (@4thRossendale) December 1, 2022
It’s not just elves who have taken up adrenalin sports – teddies too! Watch this video to see how they’re flying down zipe lines.
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A STEM-tastic evening for Brownies in Chandler’s Ford.
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