Wednesday 28 March 2012

Yardsale Haul- Trefoil door knocker

This is probably the most unique Girl Guide item found at a yardsale...so far.  I did not even know that such a thing existed.  I have no idea where it was made nor how old it is.  There are no markings on it.  The funny thing is that I was on my way to the Year End Guider Banquet {June 2011} in Sydney and decided to stop along the way at a couple of yardsales in St. Peter's.  I could not believe my eyes when I spotted this little item.  I asked "how much for this?" ...she said $1...I said SOLD! So glad I stopped along the way.

Monday 26 March 2012

Yardsale Haul- Brownie Books + Guide scarf


This book was found at Mayfest fleamarket last May.  It is full of activities and ideas!



This older style Guide scarf was found at a church fleamarket last May.  The colours are so vibrant and of nice quality designed by Jean Miller for 
"The Girl Guides of Canada".


This 1977 Brownie Handbook was found at Value Village thrift store last spring.  I adore the artwork and colours!
You never know when or where old Girl Guide Stuff will pop up! This is why I love going to Yardsales, Garage Sales, Fleamarkets, and Thrift stores. I have more Yardsale Haul photos from last year to be posted soon!

Wednesday 21 March 2012

Yardsale Haul- Brownie Uniform

For those of you who know me , know that I LOVE yardsales and thrifty finds.  I started taking photos of my Yardsale Hauls last year and so I thought I would share with you some of my Girl Guide finds.  I found this 1990's Brownie Uniform at a community fleamarket in the country.  Our current uniform is an orange T-shirt with navy blue sleeves.  Our tie has changed and the badge sash is now navy blue.  We no longer use the belt and pouch which is a shame because they were so cute!  This ensemble was $2.00...  What a bargain!

Once I go through all the pics on my computer then I can post more Yardsale Finds!  Yardsale season will be starting in a few weeks in this town and I just can't wait!  Leave a Comment if you too have found any Girl Guide stuff at Yardsales/fleamarkets/thrift stores.

Saturday 17 March 2012

Happy St Patrick's Day! CIGA

In honour of St Patrick's Day I thought I would 
share in the sisterhood of Guiding in Ireland.  
The Council of Irish Guiding Association CIGA
Here is their logo : 
Council of Irish Guiding Associations
I noticed they have three Guiding Associations in Ireland:

Member of C.I.G.A
CGI have members in both the 
Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland
 

Member of C.I.G.A
IGG have members in the Republic of Ireland
 

Girlguiding Ulster is a region of Girlguiding UK

So, check out the links to these Irish Guiding Associations. You can look at their Promise and Law, Branches of Guiding, Uniforms, badges, pins and other info. The Catholic Guides of Ireland has a link to their Guider Magazine.  You can view the PDF version of the magazine...lots of great stuff!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

Wednesday 14 March 2012

Guides World Guiding Badge Lapbook

GGC WORLD GUIDING BADGE

The Guides earned the "World Guiding" Badge last week. {This week we are off because of March Break}.  This badge took a while to earn.  We did parts in February and March.  We also completed the "You In Guiding" Program Area badges.  We combined both "You In Guiding" with the "World Guiding" badge and created a World Guiding Lapbook. {A Lapbook is a file folder filled with mini booklets and activities}.  If you have any questions about Lapbooking please leave a comment.


 
Lapbook cover
- you can add a title and images for decoration
Lapbook Inside View
- lots of mini books, puzzles, pockets, pictures
Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in Wartime 
Layered Mini Book
WAGGGS/World Centres/CWFF Mini Book
A Pocket to hold various Mini Books
A Mini Envelope to hold things
History Fortune Teller/Cootie Catcher Game
Inside View
Mini Song Book
Inside View- 
Guides' Opening and Closing Songs 
{French and English}
Passport from Thinking Day Celebration 
with Mini Postcards
This Colouring page of Lady Baden-Powell flips up to reveal her information...image and info found in the Brownie Program book 1995.
Underneath the image of LBP are more collage photos {found through google search}
This is a Puzzle...the circle is folded into 4ths then one fourth is glued to the Lapbook so that it can be opened.  The Puzzle pieces are in a mini baggie attached with a paperclip. Remove the paperclip then open the circle then add the pieces. {not sure where I found this puzzle}
This may be left as a puzzle for future use or the pieces may be glued on
World Flag Card {purchased from the GGC store}held in place by photo corners 
so that the card can be removed
The back of the card explains the parts of the World Flag
Promise and Law Wordsearch folded and glued to Lapbook so that it can be opened
One square of the page was glued to the Lapbook to keep it in place
This is a colouring sheet of Uniforms fan folded into a Mini Book {found in the Guide Programme book 1985}
The colouring sheet of Uniforms is quite long...
a fan folded Mini Book works well
One end of the fan fold was glued to the Lapbook to keep it in place
A GGC Bookmark was clipped to the back flap
A second folder may be attached to the back flap if doing the Canadian Guiding Badge.  In this case I would have info about Casa Loma, Lady Pellatt, the GGC Cookie Story, and other GGC history.
I had precut and pre folded most of these items.  It would take a really long time if the girls did all the cutting and folding.  I would rather do the prep work and allow more time for the girls to learn about what they are gluing into the Lapbook.  This took the Guides about an hour to complete..spread over a couple of meetings.  

The Girl Guides in Wartime layered book was an entire meeting in November.   The passport booklet was from our Thinking Day celebration.  The colouring of the uniforms and the wordsearch are meant to be done at home.  

The Guides expressed that they thought this was a really cool activity!  That is enough motivation to keep doing Lapbooking at Guides!  {I would suggest only doing 2 per year since it is time consuming}.

I will soon post other Lapbooks that we did in previous years at Brownies .

More Lapbooks on Owl & Toadstool:

Brownies: Aboriginal People in Canada Badge

Brownies: Exploring Space Badge

All:  100 Years of Anne Challenge

Guides: Canadian Guiding Badge

Guides: World & Canadian Guiding Badge

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Owl & Toadstool: 1000th View!

Hey BlogLand,  Today my little Owl & Toadstool Blog reached 1000 views!  Thanks , whomever you are, for reading my blog!  I'll try to post more frequently.  Please leave a comment if you would like to know more about what you see on this Blog.  My website "Lee Ann's Girl Guide Notebook" has more photos and ideas of past meetings and outings.  

Thanks! 
Guider/ Brown Owl 
Lee Ann 
{yes I am a Guide Guider and 
Brown Owl at Brownies}

Tuesday 6 March 2012

Brownies' Exploring Space Badge

This week the Brownies worked on the Exploring Space badge.   The Owls did a great job preparing activities for this badge.  This is one of those topics where there is so much info and it is always changing.  It seems every few months there are new discoveries in the Science of Astronomy.

White Owl prepared slides to cover  the Badge questions and showed a clip about life aboard the International Space Station.  The Brownies took turns reading and had a great discussion about Outer Space!
The Astronauts did  physical training exercises to get into shape before SUITING UP!
then... training to see how it feels to work in a Spacesuit
The astronauts in training had to do mental tasks such as assembling blocks ...not as easy as it looks!
...and do some International Space Station manoeuvres
Then we sang this song...to the tune of "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean"


Brownies Exploring Space Badge Lapbook

Monday 5 March 2012

Girl Guide & Girl Scout Patch Collecting Blog

Hi Everyone!  I thought I would share this post from Jessica at Girl Guides & Girl Scouts Patch Collecting Blog.  Last year Jessica did a blog post about my crest collection which is displayed on my website...Lee Ann's Girl Guide Notebook.   She had contacted me and we have since traded a few crests!  This is why I think blogs and websites are great for sharing in the sisterhood of Guiding! Go to the link below to see Jessica's awesome blog! {She has an amazing retro fashion blog too!}

Girl Guides & Girl Scouts Patch Collecting Blog: Have you seen Lee Ann's awesome Girl Guide patch collection?

Thinking Day February 22nd Activities

Our Sparks, Brownies, and Guides gathered together to celebrate Thinking Day...a day late on Feb 23 since that happened to be our Guide night.   We had several stations set up and the girls went around to do the activities...which focused mainly on the four World Centres and World Guiding.  Then we had an indoor campfire which included a "World Flag Recipe" skit put on by the Guides... followed by World Centres fruit salad game.  After the fun and games we sang Happy Birthday to Lord and Lady BP then ate cake!  We only had 1:15hr to celebrate!

The Sparks, Brownies, and Guides were given a little Passport and a pencil. The title "Passport" was colour coded for each branch of Guiding. They were instructed to go around to all of the stations to learn about the World Centres and World Guiding.  There was a Guider/Owl posted at each station.  After completing the activities they got their Passport stamped then moved on to the next station. The rest of the pages in the Passport were used for collecting autographs from each person in attendance which promoted mingling among new friends.
At this station they had to locate the World Centres and other WAGGGS countries on the globe {electronic talking globe}.  Also there were some International Sparks Paper Doll uniforms at this station.  They got two stamps here.
I had printed these Paper dolls and uniforms about 10 years ago when I was  a Spark leader {yes, I save everything!} I do not know where they came from...the site is probably gone by now.  But they are really cute.  I glued the doll on cardboard to make it last longer...well it lasted 10 years so far.
This photo is a Canadian Spark..the blue apron is a Daisy USA uniform.  Our Canadian Spark uniform is still the same  but I do not know about the others...they may have changed over the past 10 years. 


Top Left to Right
Gumnut Australia
Beaver Netherlands
Pippin New Zealand
Bottom Left to Right:
Teddy South Africa
Rainbow UK
Lady Bird Ireland
Canadian Flag rubber stamp with red ink
"Journey" rubber stamp with black ink. 
{I got this stamper in a GeoCache trade}
At the England station we had a Pax Lodge info poster, photos of our pen pals "5th Nuneaton Brownies", a world map, paper dolls with UK Brownies Uniform, and ink/ stamper. The girls had fun playing with the paper dolls and Uniforms. {These were found on making friends.com...they have several paper dolls with paper uniforms, international clothes, and a bunch of other types of paper doll outfits}.


UK Brownie Uniform
 English Rose rubber stamp with red ink
The Switzerland station had an Our Chalet info poster {I had made these info posters about 5 years ago and have used them pretty much every year since}.  I couldn't find any paper dolls for this country nor the Guiding Uniform so here they had to locate Switzerland on a map, read the info and get a stamp.


Snowflake foam Stamper with silver ink

The Mexico station had an Our Cabana info poster, paper dolls with traditional Mexican clothes {I couldn't find the Mexican Guiding uniform for the paper dolls}, world map,  and ink with stamper.
Traditional Mexican clothes
Mexican Sombrero rubber stamp with orange ink

The station for India had a Sangam Info poster, a world map, Paper Dolls with Guide Uniform and traditional clothing, and an elephant rubber stamp with pink ink.
  Traditional Indian dress and Bulbul Uniform
Elephant rubber stamp with pink ink
The colours of Canadian Guiding
At this station the Girl Guides had learned about the different Branches of Girl Guides of Canada.  We had  GGC store catalogues opened to the pages of each branches' uniform.  You can also see in this pic three Girl Guide dolls in uniform.  The girls made an easy and quick hat craft at this station too.  They chose a coloured bead to represent each of the GGC branches of Guiding { Pink=Sparks, Orange=Brownies, Blue= Guides, Red=Rangers, Blue=Guiders/Owls} and put them on a large safety pin {another smaller pin was used so that it would hang flat}.
Hat Craft
 Around the room were several posters of 
International Brownie uniforms from 1985. 

Canada 1985
United Kingdom of Great Britain 
and Northern Ireland 1985



We also had a couple of similar Uniform posters 
from 1974 but I don`t have a photo of those yet.


After about 20 minutes of free range learning 
at the stations we gathered around the campfire
for about 20 minutes of singing.
My little plug in campfire...
got lots of use over the years!
Guides performed a skit during campfire ...
World Flag Recipe Skit
Fire Owl  made this beautiful cake but I did not get a chance to snap a picture before it was cut.  It was the Earth, with the green land and blue water icing.  It was really nice and yummy!  Fire Owl's Brownie daughter helped to decorate it.
A very helpful Guide delivered the cake around to everyone on this cart!

Hope you all had a fun 
Thinking Day celebration!