Activity Day

Here's a fun idea for your activity day girls to do during July. Play some old fashioned games and make pioneer dolls--either cloth, yarn, or sock dolls. There are lots of ideas if you do a web search for "pioneer doll making" or "handmade rag doll." You can make them with fabric scraps or handkerchiefs and very little sewing.

Cub Scouting in Small Units

I recently visited with a friend who works with BSA. I was telling him about the annual plan I had put together for combining our wolf and bear dens (see my post on annual planning) . His comment was: "Oh, like the Year A and Year B plans." He then told me about the BSA materials available that work through all the requirements for boys to get their rank advancements while being combined in dens. These are really good references with ideas that can be used if you are combining 2 dens together or all dens including Webelos together. How have a been a Cub Scout leader for 15 years and never heard of this? This plan is designed to be used by either small units that need to combine dens because they don't have enough boys, or by larger units that need to combine dens because they don't have enough leaders. The PDF versions of these materials can be found here for Year A and Year B.

I also recently heard David Beck (current LDS General Young Men's President) talk about 'Real Growth through Scouting.' The LDS Church would like to welcome boys who are not LDS into our LDS scout units. Brother Beck emphasized that this is not to be used as a proselytizing tool, but only as a chance to bless the lives of all boys-whether they are LDS members or not. So if your unit is small, look for those other boys in your neighborhoods who could benefit from the Boy Scout Program. Welcome them into your units, encouraging these boys to do their best at doing what they believe is their duty to God.

Cub Scouts

For June our Cub Scout plans have included doing the bicycle requirements for both our wolf and bears. The boys are out of school, the weather is nice, it's time for outside fun. The eight year old boys need to learn about bike safety, and the nine year old boys have several additional requirements. Pick out the requirements your are most comfortable with, but they can't get too many reminders on safe biking practices. Here are some good ideas for bike games you can do with the boys that could be done in a parking lot or large driveway. I like to show them the photo of my son's bike helmet. He was in a bike mishap and cracked his helmet, but had no head injury. It's a good reminder of the importance of wearing a helmet.

Annual Plan for Combined Wolf & Bear

In our pack we have combined the 8 and 9-year old boys together in one den. Because of this we have re-worked our calendar so we are doing similar things at the same time. Sometimes everybody does everything, and other times we split the boys to opposite sides of the room with one leader helping each group.

Here is the calendar we are using. Combined Wolf & Bear Annual Planning Calendar

Cub Scouts and Food

Cub Scouts love to eat. This month we had the nine year old boys each take a week to bring a snack they had made. We talked about junk food and the food pyramid-which is now called the food plate. The boys made no-bake cookies. We cooked an outdoor meal. (Hot Dogs and S'mores, along with chips and a veggie platter). Here's an easy way to make s'mores: use the fudge covered graham crackers and skip the chocolate bar. Also I recently saw them made by topping the marshmallow with a chocolate kiss candy. The cooking requirements need lots of things to be done with their families; so I typed up a list the the requirements and told the parents which ones were being done in den meeting and which ones needed to be done at home.

This is a good month to have the boys do the Faith in God requirement that asks them to help plan, prepare, and serve a meal.

Activity Day

Last spring we taught our activity day girls how to crochet. They spent both April and May working on it. They loved making chains (some of them never wanted to progress on to the scarf). The girls struggled with keeping the right number of stitches on their rows. If I did it again, I would have them do an infinity scarf and just keep working around in a large circle instead of trying to work back and forth. Another fun idea is making necklaces with the chain stitch. You use trellis yarn, and chain five strands and then hook them to a single strand to go around the back of your neck. My daughter showed me one of these-she had printed instructions that came with her yarn. The best tutorial I have seen is at justanotherhangup blog. I think especially the younger girls would have more fun learning to chain stitch and then using just the chain stitch to make a project. They could give them to their mothers for Mother's day if they wanted to.

Cub Scouts and Faith in God

In April we have been having the boys work on the religious electives. We had a leader from our congregation come and visit and talk about how the boys can help their church and live their religion. Another week we had the Easter Hunt hunt (posted earlier). We practiced the LDS Articles of Faith, discussed prayer, played a scripture Who Am I game (with the names of scripture heros stuck to their backs), played a scripture bingo game, and let the boys try out stilts.