Web Rangers


I stumbled upon this fun website for kids while planning our upcoming family camping trip. It's a National Park Service site for kids. http://www.webrangers.us/index.cfm

Perfect for the upcoming May theme of Leave No Trace. The website is full of fun activities and a "virtual patch blanket". Activities range from easy to difficult and include lots of activities that Scouts do, such as recycling, be safe in the parks, artifacts, dinosaurs, maps, and all sorts of other fun things to do. When they complete all of the activities, the National Park Service will send them a patch! And we are all about the patches!
Definately worth checking into!

New BSA Family Program

There is a new BSA Family Program. They have taken the old program and revamped it into a 5 part program. You can earn patches and pins for completing 2 activities in each of the 5 sections.

  • Shaping your Families Identity
  • Developing Personal Skills
  • Building a Family Team
  • Connecting with your Community
  • Facing Family Challenges

You can create a fun summer program while keeping your scouts engaged this Summer.

Tie it Right Elective 17

We are doing all of Elective Chapter 17 in one den meeting. We are setting up stations and having the boys move from one station to another upon successful completion of each activity.

Elective 17A~ Tie a knot
Elective 17B~ Tie your shoes
Elective 17C~ Wrap and tie a package
Elective 17D~ Tie a stack of newspapers
Elective 17E~ Tie two cords together
Elective 17F~ Tie a neck tie
Elective 17G~ Whip a rope

Dinosaur Footprints

We are making "dinosaur footprints" next week as part of Jurassic Pack theme. Concrete stepping stones are an easy and fun project for the boys.

What you'll need:
  • Bag or box of dry concrete
  • water
  • decorative stones or mosaic tiles
  • paint sticks
  • small containers such as small trach bins (for mixing cement)
  • WD40
  • water catching plant trays (approx 10-12 inches)

You will mix the concrete and the water in the small containers with your paint sticks. Prep your plant trays with WD40 so that when the molds are dry, the stepping stone will pop out easily. Once you add your cement to your trays allow the boys to decorate with hand prints, foot prints, rocks, tiles, etc.

Instant fun activity! And it will keep forever!

Go Out and Play!


One of our parents is the Asst. Coach of a girls softball team. They arranged for our cubs to attend the practice, practice with the girls and then play a little scrimmage against them. It was so much fun. The weather is nice and you probably have some sports parents in your den or pack. Take advantage of this resource and earn some belt loops! It makes for a super fun den meeting and as a leader you actually get to sit back and play with the boys instead of leading them.

Softball Belt Loop Requirements:

  • Expain the rules of the game to your leader/adult partner.
  • Practice 30 minutes of softball skills
  • Participate in a softball game

Geology Belt Loop


With this months theme of Jurassic Pack we worked on the Geology belt loop. There is a great resource to teach kids the rock cycle, the different types of rocks and minerals. http://library.thinkquest.org/J002289/cycle.html. It gives you every thing you need to know to walk through this belt loop.

I made this activity a game and it was meant to be more like final Jeoporday, but ended up more like poker... but the boys really loved it. I gave them all 5 dinosaur tattoos. I would then read to them something about rocks, minerals, rock cycle, etc and let them wager how many tattoos they wanted. If they got the answer right, I matched the tattoos and if they got it wrong, I took the tattoos. Wow, did those boys pay attention! They did great!
Geology Belt Loop Requirements:
  • Define Geology
  • Collect a sample of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks and explain how they are formed.
  • Expain the difference between a rock and a mineral.
I went to the used book store and bought geology picture books since I didn't have access to actual rock samples. And you can find flash cards with sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks as well.

We wrapped up the activity by breaking geodes. That was so awesome! Some of them were solid crystal and others were hollow and had lots of individual crystals, but the boys had a blast! I highly recommend that activity!

I got the tattoos and the geodes from http://www.orientaltrading.com/