Lights,
Camera, Action!
These ideas are from Diane S., the Woodlands, Texas.
Our theme was "Lights Camera Action!"
during which Brownies earned Let's
Pretend and Juniors earned
Theatre. Cadettes and Seniors were Program Aides for
half the day, and could attend any session they chose
for the other half. 225 girls and 80 adults
registered for the event. Sadly, none of our Daisy troops registered.
We decorated our camp lodge in Hollywood style, with
a red paper carpet, a big "Hollywood" sign, and the
"Wall of Fame" for hand outlines and signatures.
Each camp unit was assigned a movie theme (Star Wars,
A Bug's Life, Lion King, Wizard of Oz, Knight's
Tale, Grease, etc) and decorated their unit in that style.
Friday night was "Friday Night at the
Movies", and we showed "The Princess Diaries" in the lodge,
serving
popcorn.
Saturday morning at 8am the cold front blew in, but
fortunately - no rain! We had the day divided into 5
sessions. The
Brownies had Silent Movies, Talkies, Backlot Tour, Creature Features, and
Westerns. Silent
Movies was pantomime skills and Talkies was voice
skills. I found a terrific book called Theatre Games for
Young Performers by Maria C. Novelly that provided all
the information and exercises for these activities - I
highly recommend this book. Backlot Tour took the
Brownies on a hike through the camp visiting each
decorated unit, where they received a shrinky dink
ticket on a safety pin to wear. When they came back to
the lodge, they received a bag of popcorn. In Creature Features, they made bird
masks, which were quite
colorful. For Westerns, they got to love, hug and
groom horses and learn the parts of a horse.
Juniors also did Silent Movies and Talkies with the
Brownies, but made different masks in Creature Features.
These were made from egg cartons (believe it or not,
there is an eggcartons.com) which were separated and
restapled. Styrofoam balls made the eyes, and they
were also decorated with various items - they turned out
looking like mutant Muppets. Juniors also did
Animation (making flipbooks) and Robin Hood (archery).
Of course, we had to have skit presentations, and
there was quite a variety in content and quality. Each troop
received an "Oscar" - an old bowling pin painted
gold with googly eyes. During lunch, troops swapped, which
was highly popular. The Brownie leaders had never
really done swapping before, and were amazed how
successful it was (in the confirmation letter I
included the golden rule of swapping - never turn down a swap!).
Because of the hard freeze Saturday night, all but 4
troops left Saturday night (including mine) - we're in the Houston area and
most troops are not prepared to camp in freezing temperatures. It was chilly,
but a lot of fun.
Two girls in my troop used this for their Silver
Award project. The younger girls got to see Cadettes and Seniors
in action, and my service unit has a really outstanding
group of teen scouts. My adult committee was great -
each one did a perfect job with their assignment. I
had to laugh whenever my husband would ask what was in a package that had
arrived and I said with a straight face, "Feathers and safety pins".
And when a large box of
large and small styrofoam balls came packed in
styrofoam peanuts.