13 activities to help learn the promise

The promise is what brings everyone in guiding together.

Making your Promise is such a special moment - it's what connects you to other Girlguiding members and 10 million people involved in guiding across the world. How amazing is that?

Whether you’re a brand-new Rainbow or a volunteer, saying those words is a really important milestone. It’s all about helping people understand the commitment they’re making in a way that feels right for them. And of course, once they've said it, there’s a shiny new badge to wear with pride!

Ready to get stuck in? Whether you’re looking to get everyone moving or want to try something a bit more hands-on, we’ve put together 13 active and creative ways to learn the Promise. 

1. Promise pasta: give each team a bowl with dried pasta letters. In teams, race to find the right letters to spell out the words of the promise. The fastest team to put their sentence in the correct order wins!
2. Promise washing line races: write the words of the promise on separate cards and set up one washing line per team. Give each team a set of cards and some pegs. The teams must race to peg the words in the right order.
3. Promise circle game: sit in a circle and say the promise one word at a time, going around the group. If someone says the wrong word, they’re out. Keep going, getting faster and faster, until there’s only one person left – they’re the winner. Want a challenge? Use a ball and throw it across the circle to keep everyone on their toes!
4. Promise scavenger hunt: hide the words of the promise around your meeting place. Have one set per team. You can write them on paper, jigsaw pieces or even building bricks, like LEGO. Each team should race to collect a set of words and be the first to put them in the correct order.
5. Promise corners: label 4 parts of the space with different parts of the promise, such as ‘do my best’. Put on some music and everyone can dance or move around. When the music stops, players must pick a corner. A caller (looking away from the game) shouts out one of the corners. Anyone stood in that corner is out. Keep going until there's a winner. It’s a simple, high-energy way to get learning the different parts.
6. Promise beetle game: each number on the dice represents a line of the promise. Players roll the dice to collect items, pictures, or even sweets that represent each line. To make it a challenge, they must collect them in the correct order, so rolling a 1 before they can move on to 2. For a tasty treat, you can use the sweets to decorate a cupcake!
7. Promise keyrings: make a keyring using beads. Each bead on the keyring can represent a different part of the promise. You could also use letter beads to spell out ‘do my best’.
8. Matching pairs: print the words of the promise onto cards and flip them face down. Have everyone try to find the matching pairs, then once finished put the full sentence together.
9. Promise bookmarks: everyone can design their own bookmark featuring the words of the promise. You can use them for to help keep track of your badge book!
10. Promises from around the world: write out the promises from other countries, then stick them onto a world map and see how they are similar to ours. You could make some peg dolls in Girlguiding uniforms from different countries too.
11. Promise fruit salad: set up a circle of chairs with one less chair than there are players. Give every player 1 of 3 phrases from the promise, such as ‘keep the Guide law’, ‘serve my community’ or ‘do my best.’ Put 1 person in the middle as the ‘caller.’ When the caller shouts a phrase, everyone with those words must swap seats. The caller tries to sit down too. If the caller shouts ‘PROMISE!’, everyone has to scramble for a new spot at once. The person left standing becomes the new caller for the next round. To make it more challenging, the person left standing in the middle at the end of the round is out and a chair is taken away.
12. Promise telephone: get each team to stand in a line. The first person should whisper the promise to the next, who whispers it to their neighbor, and so on, until the last person says the message aloud. See which team can get closest to the actual promise. You can also play this by passing a sequence of actions instead of the promise to make it harder.
13. Promise popcorn: everyone sits in a circle. You go around the circle, and everyone says just one word of the promise. If someone gets stuck, the whole group (or just the next person) 'pops' up like popcorn and shouts the word together to help them out. No one is 'out' and it's a team effort to get to the end! But to make it harder, you could time the group and see how fast they can do it, or you can have 2 teams racing.