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York Challenge Ideas To celebrate the city of York we, the Scouts and Girl Guides Society at the University of York, also known as SAGGY, have created this York Challenge Badge! For many of us, as students, York is our adopted home city. We’ve spent many a social in and around this quaint little city. So, by completing this badge, we’re hoping we can inspire others to visit or just to learn a little bit more about one of the UK’s oldest and loveliest areas. Your group doesn’t need to visit the city to complete the badge; but if you are thinking of visiting, we’ve included some of the tourist activities available cheaply in the city. If you want to find out more about York’s history, this website is a great resource: http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/home Our badge is organised into eight categories: Vikings Romans Ghosts York Buildings Cats of York Ducks & Waterfowl Chocolate Famous People of York Within these categories, we have split the activities into Creative, Energetic and Thoughtful. Since we feel leaders are best at deciding the appropriate level of 1 challenge for their group, we’ve not indicated how many challenges need to be completed neither have we ranked them for difficulty. We hope your group can try something from at least 5 categories, and can try at least one Creative, one Energetic and one Thoughtful activity. But we’re leaving it completely up to you! To claim your badge for your group, please fill out the form below. You can either email us or post it. Badges cost £1 each, plus postage. To fund the production of this badge, the York YuFund alumni grant gave us a kind donation. Any money raised from this badge is going to go back into the SAGGY Society. We will use this money to fund our society activities, as well as the activities we run for our local Yorkshire units. Feel free to send us any feedback to [email protected]. We’d love to see any photos of your groups trying our badge! These activities have come from our own experiences as leaders, (as well as a bit of googling here and there). We are also very grateful for a compendium of games donated to us! We have tried our hardest to attribute copyrights were necessary. 2 Contents Vikings Page York Cat Trail Page Creative 4 Creative 18 Viking Helmets 4 Handprint Cats 18 Make a Viking Longship 5 Stand up Cat/Cat Card 19 Energetic 6 Cat Biscuits 19 Viking Battle 6 Energetic 19 Heave Ho! 7 Cat and Mouse 19 Treasure Hunt 7 Cat’s Trail 20 Thoughtful 7 Poor Pussy 20 Vikings: The Facts and 7 Fiction Viking Trading Game 8 Romans Ducks and Waterfowl Creative 9 Creative 22 Roman Armour 9 Chocolate Egg Nests 22 Pizza Night 9 Energetic 22 Roman Shields 10 Duck, Duck Goose 22 Fortress Building 10 Cross the River Game 22 Energetic 10 Duck and Egg 23 City Walls Tour 10 Ducky Wucky 23 Roman Baths 10 Thoughtful 24 Bird Talk 24 Ghosts Chocolate Creative 11 Creative 25 Origami Ghosts 11 Smarties Pictures 25 Energetic 11 Chocolate Tasting Night 25 Ghost Waiter 11 Energetic 25 Spook Spotter 11 Poisoned Pebbles 25 The Poltergeist 12 The Fruit Pastille Game 26 Steal the Keys 12 Chocolate Knife and Fork Game 26 Thoughtful 26 Where does chocolate come 26 from? York Buildings Famous People from York Creative 13 Creative 28 The Great East Window 13 Roman Coins 28 Betty’s Tea Party 15 Design your own city 29 Clifford’s Tower 15 Guy Fawkes’ Bonfires 29 Minster Building 15 Energetic 31 Energetic 16 Plant the Gunpowder 31 Trains 16 Dick Turpin: the Game 31 The Buildings Game 16 Whose Handwriting? 31 The Gates Game 17 Thoughtful 32 Thoughtful 17 Which Dick is which? 32 Railway Safety 17 3 The Vikings settled in York, which they called Jorvik, in the 9th and 10th Centuries. Vikings are famed for their looting and pillaging, but the Jorvik Vikings seem to have lived peacefully, using the city as a trading centre. They lived in small, thatched houses, with big central hearths. Conditions weren’t brilliant, but they were certainly vibrant. Archaeology work is constantly uncovering new Viking treasures in the city. Creative: Viking Helmets The most durable way to make your own Viking helmet is using papier-mâché! There are three methods for making the papier-mâché: 3/4 white PVA glue to 1/4 water (Half and half for good glue). 1 part flour to 5 parts water, then boil for about 3 minutes and let it cool 1 part flour to 1 part water. Stir together. Blow up a balloon to about the size of the person’s head. With ripped up bits of newspaper, dip them into the glue, wiping off any excess. Then layer the newspaper over the top, rounded part of the balloon. 4 layers should be enough. Let it dry completely. If the helmet is looking a bit flimsy, add another 4 layers of 4 paper strips. Once it’s dry, the decorating can begin. The stereotypical Viking helmet is painted brown, gold and silver but it’s up to your unit if they want to put a modern twist on it! You can also add horns by placing them either side of the helmet. Surround the base of the horn with papier-mâché. Once dry, they should stay in place. Make a Viking Longship Equipment: Cereal boxes Brown Paper/Brown Paint Wooden Skewers Straws String Sellotape Brown Paper Bag Hole Punch To make the hull of the ship, cut out the bottom 5cm (approximately) of a cereal box. Cover it in brown paper or paint it brown. For the oars, push wooden skewers through both of the long sides of the box. Add small oar shaped bits of paper to the end of the skewers. Secure two straws together with tape. These will make the central mast. Secure the straws to the bottom of middle of the Longship. Attach pieces of string to the top of the straws, ending at the four corners of the hull. For the sail you need a square made from a brown paper bag. Place a piece of sellotape along the edges, using only half of the width of tape. 5 Gently fold the other half over the back side. Punch holes across the top of the sail and carefully tie it to a skewer, also doing the same at the bottom Install your sail by taping or tying it onto the mast. For finishing touches, you can add colourful shields, a rudder and a dragon’s head/tail. Energetic: Viking Battle Vikings famously raided other countries to become wealthy and establish new lands. They are infamous for their effective nature in battle—who wouldn’t be scared by a heavily bearded mob of men hurling axes running straight towards you?! This game will allow your unit to recreate these battles between the native villagers of York and the invading Vikings. In order to set up the game, mark the meeting place using the black lines below as guidelines—the best method is probably using chalk. Split the unit into two: One group will be the natives to York and the others will be the Vikings. Get two/three members of each team to stand in the V/Y part of the grid. The aim of the game is for teams to throw or bounce the ball past the opposing team to reach the 2/3 players on the other side. In order to score, the participants in 6 the V or Y zone must catch it without it bouncing in their zone, or them dropping it. The team with the highest score wins! Heave Ho! All the Players sit in a circle, with a Viking chief nominated. They must row the Viking longship whilst making "heave ho!" noises. The Player on either side of the chieftain should then row with the arm nearest to the chieftain making the same noise. When the chieftain wishes to pass on the duties he should stand up and make a horn blowing noise and shoot an imaginary arrow at his choice for the new chieftain. The new chieftain takes up rowing duties and the Players to his immediate left and right begin with single handed strokes. Anyone who doesn't take up the challenge is out along with those using the wrong arm or who are too slow. The game continues until there are 3 Players left, these are the winners. Treasure Hunt The Coppergate Viking Site in York is constantly revealing new treasures and delights from the Viking era. So, to replicate this, organise a Treasure Hunt in your room, or local area. You could hide chocolate coins, for example. Thoughtful: Vikings: The Facts and Fiction There are many stereotypical elements of the Viking age that are taken to be fact. This quiz will help the unit understand which is fact and which is fiction. After the quiz, have a discussion about how truthful stereotypes are and how reliable history is. You could relate this to modern day and show how some stereotypes are detrimental and are quite hurtful. Did the Vikings wear horns on their helmets in battle? Helmets with horns did exist but only for religious ceremonies and not for warfare as sometimes portrayed. Warrior helmets were made of leather or metal, some Viking helmets were round, some slightly pointed and some helmets had eye guards and nose pieces. Sometimes, they even went into battle not wearing a helmet.
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