Tips on teaching semaphore?
March 24, 2016 3:19 PM Subscribe
I want to teach my Girl Scout troop about semaphore. I don't know it myself. Any tips?
I have two sets of flags and I understand the system but don't have it memorized. There'll be seven or eight girls, around 10 years old. The goal is to have them understand how semaphore works, but I don't expect them to memorize it or send complicated messages. I've seen this and it looks good. Spelling is going to be an issue for at least one of my Scouts. I want them to try their hands at both sending and receiving.
If you've taught semaphore, or learned it, any advice for making it fun?
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I have two sets of flags and I understand the system but don't have it memorized. There'll be seven or eight girls, around 10 years old. The goal is to have them understand how semaphore works, but I don't expect them to memorize it or send complicated messages. I've seen this and it looks good. Spelling is going to be an issue for at least one of my Scouts. I want them to try their hands at both sending and receiving.
If you've taught semaphore, or learned it, any advice for making it fun?
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How about trying this semaphore converter? Put them into small groups and let them type in whatever phrase they like and then they can help each other spell it out. It even has a little "Play" button for a little animated figure spelling out the phrase.
posted by Beti at 3:53 PM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Beti at 3:53 PM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
Is there a set of messages you can teach them?
Anecdote: My boyfriend and I both had dad's who were hugely into ham radio and morse code. Neither of them ever succeeded in teaching us any of it, with the exception of 2 or 3 catchy phrases we could use in every day conversation as an inside joke.
So my recommendation is to spend a little bit of time on the basic principles and then the main section on something they can use and practice right away and could use at future scout meetings.
posted by A hidden well at 4:05 PM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
Anecdote: My boyfriend and I both had dad's who were hugely into ham radio and morse code. Neither of them ever succeeded in teaching us any of it, with the exception of 2 or 3 catchy phrases we could use in every day conversation as an inside joke.
So my recommendation is to spend a little bit of time on the basic principles and then the main section on something they can use and practice right away and could use at future scout meetings.
posted by A hidden well at 4:05 PM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
Give each team a couple of one-line joke setups and have the other team signal the answer. Team 1 has just the setup, has to decode the answer.
Or make the answers short clues to a puzzle, telling them where they can find a reward at the end.
I agree it will be a tough sell.
posted by Miko at 4:42 PM on March 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
Or make the answers short clues to a puzzle, telling them where they can find a reward at the end.
I agree it will be a tough sell.
posted by Miko at 4:42 PM on March 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
Most of the semaphore alphabet goes around like a clock dial so if you learn a few anchor letters you can easily work out the nearby letters by rotating a couple of steps forward or backward. For this reason a very useful short word to teach your students is the word URN. (Arms in upward V, Arms straight out to both sides, arms downward in an upside down V). Find a suitable looking vase to be the urn and store your semaphore flags in it.
To make semaphore signalling more interesting take your troop out at night and get them to practice while holding a flashlight or a glow stick in each hand.
Another thing you can do if conducting woods adventures is get your group to look for trees with unusual foliage colours. That way they can use two boughs with yellow leaves as semaphore flags when the rest of the woods background is green, or two russet boughs in a yellow forest, or whatever works in your area.
See if you can locate some brightly coloured mittens or gloves. You can sometimes get construction workers gloves at the dollar store in fluorescent orange. If your kids have magenta mini-gloves, or bright orange they can do the signalling without flags. Cheerleaders poms will work too. They could make the poms as a craft activity.
If you add a central stem the semaphore positions can be written down and then they look quite a bit like runes. For additional practice they can create and decipher semaphore rune messages.
Teach them the letters slowly, not all at once and make there be a payoff for deciphering the word you signal. For example you could signal C-A-R-A-M-E-L-S and as soon as one of them figures out the message they each get one.
Run them through pretend emergencies. If one girl gets to be the broken ankle, one girl gets to signal N-E-E-D-End of word-H-E-L-P-End of word, and the whole troop gets to splint the broken ankle and then carry the "injured girl" out of the woods. (The woods in question might be the church parking lot, but you can't help that.)
Bring in a pair of binoculars to receive messages with. They might enjoy taking turns with those if they haven't played with a set of binoculars yet.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:13 PM on March 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
To make semaphore signalling more interesting take your troop out at night and get them to practice while holding a flashlight or a glow stick in each hand.
Another thing you can do if conducting woods adventures is get your group to look for trees with unusual foliage colours. That way they can use two boughs with yellow leaves as semaphore flags when the rest of the woods background is green, or two russet boughs in a yellow forest, or whatever works in your area.
See if you can locate some brightly coloured mittens or gloves. You can sometimes get construction workers gloves at the dollar store in fluorescent orange. If your kids have magenta mini-gloves, or bright orange they can do the signalling without flags. Cheerleaders poms will work too. They could make the poms as a craft activity.
If you add a central stem the semaphore positions can be written down and then they look quite a bit like runes. For additional practice they can create and decipher semaphore rune messages.
Teach them the letters slowly, not all at once and make there be a payoff for deciphering the word you signal. For example you could signal C-A-R-A-M-E-L-S and as soon as one of them figures out the message they each get one.
Run them through pretend emergencies. If one girl gets to be the broken ankle, one girl gets to signal N-E-E-D-End of word-H-E-L-P-End of word, and the whole troop gets to splint the broken ankle and then carry the "injured girl" out of the woods. (The woods in question might be the church parking lot, but you can't help that.)
Bring in a pair of binoculars to receive messages with. They might enjoy taking turns with those if they haven't played with a set of binoculars yet.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:13 PM on March 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
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We worked it out, but it was kind of a whomp-whoooomp.
posted by heathrowga at 3:47 PM on March 24, 2016