All About Canada Badge

Tonight the girls completed the All About Canada badge.  We decided during planning that we'd like to complete one badge from every key that we're getting this year, and All About Canada seemed like a good fit.

We started with circle and singing O Canada as well as God Save the Queen.  Then we talked a little about how cool and wonderful it is to live in a country like Canada.

Then we split into circles, and rotated centers.

Tawny Owl and I ran the center where the kids got to draw Canadian symbols on fabric.  We asked them at the same time what other symbols they think represent Canada to the wider world.  We also taught them the chorus to the Canada in my Pocket song.

The Canada In My Pocket song my Michael Mitchell.  The lyrics are easily google-able.  This is a way more fun way to talk about the coins and symbols they represent than just talking about them.

Sparkle Owl printed out lots of copies of Alberta's provincial mineral (petrified wood), flower (wild rose), bird (great horned owl), animal (big horned sheep) and tree (lodgepole pine).  The girls got to colour them in, cut them out and glue them together.

Brown Owl's station ran something a little bit different.  We're doing a STEM night next week and since you can't predict the weather, she talked about stars, constellations, the stories we tell about them and had them make their star sign out of marshmallows and toothpicks (she drew the star signs on paper and each girl got to make their own star sign).

Finally we got back together in circle and the girls sang the chorus of Canada in my Pocket and I sang the verses while showing pictures of the coins.  I just found pictures of the penny, nickel, dime, quarter, loonie and toonie online and printed them out so they were on 8x11 paper (big enough for the girls to see).

The song only goes to the quarter, so we passed around the loonie and toonie coins, as well as paper money.  We had a five, ten, twenty, fifty and a hundred.  We told the girls what the bills used to look like as well (five dollar used to have hockey players on it, now has the Canadarm) and why we pick different things as the years go by.

Closing and good night!

Winter Outside Badge

This week all the girls completed the Winter Outside badge.

We started around a table, where I showed the girls a variety of fabrics - tshirts, sports fabrics, jeans, long underwear, wool socks and cotton socks - and I poured water over them.  They had a chance to feel the fabrics, and saw how the water on the wool basically beaded up and ran off.  I told them we'd have a look at the end of the night as well.

Then we had a relay race.  We put all the girls' snowpants, boots and coats in the middle pile, then had the girls race to dress themselves.  The prize for the winners was going outside first.

Outside the girls pulled each other around on sleds and had races with different types of pull sleds and tobogganing.  

Inside we did first aid for frostbite, hypothermia and what to do if you see someone (or are on the ice yourself) and it starts to crack under your feet.  We also talked about what to do if you get stuck to metal in the winter.

I couldn't find a huge number of resources that worked with teaching the Brownies about cold-weather hypothermia, but I did find some -

Pages 16 - 20 in this website.

Paper dolls, learning how to dress in layers.  This resource is from the NWTs - and I love that it includes traditional clothing choices of the Inuit.

Page five at this website.

Staying Safe in the Cold Checklist - for taking home.  If they forget everything, at least they'd have this resource, right?


Finally at the end of the night the girls made hot apple cider, and a cup full of trail mix.  There were a bunch of different choices for them - pretzels, dried fruits, nuts & bolts etc.