This Secret Code Wheel will help pass off: Wolf Elective 1a (It's A Secret: Use a secretcode) and Webelos Communication Achievement 5. Instructions: Print wheels on white or colored paper, cut out, and connect using a paper brad. The smallest wheel and the medium wheeleach have common alphabet letters, numbers, and symbols. This is so that one wheel can be turned then matched up with the other wheel for one code. For example, T can match up with K, setting all the other letters on the wheels up as a code itself. The largest wheel is for the boy to make up his own code; write new code symbols lining up with an upright letter on the right side of the wheel. The picture in color includes my son's made-up code on the largeset wheel as an example of a finished project. If a boy's friend has the samewheel, the first boy writing a note to his friend could put the code at the top of the note, for instance "T=K", so that his friend can line up those letters on the wheel and decipher the note from there. Of course, in order to write in his secret code, the friend will need to have the same code on his wheel. This alphabet wheel by itself makes several systems, since A can = A or B or C or L or K, etc. If H=5, then 4WW1 7WY means GOOD JOB
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Nanorover (Craftsman)
Craftsman #4 Nanorover
"You can build a nanorover too. Try this one, made from three styrofoam meat trays."
"This project is a little bit hard, so you might want to ask a grown-up or big brother or sister to do it with you."
First Aid Baseball (Readyman)
Webelos: Readyman
First aid
baseball is a fun way to review first aid skills with Boy Scouts and
Webelos. There are instructions for the game and a set of question cards
included here.
Turks Neck Woggle Slide (Craftsman)
Known
as both a Woggle and a Turk's Neck, this neckerchief slide is
fascinating. It takes about a half-hour to learn for a group of adults,
but once it's learned well it only takes about 5 minutes to make.
Suitable for Webelos and older. Click HERE for instructions.
Fire Starters (Craftsman)
Webelos Craftsman: Make 4 useful things (non-wood)
My 11-year-old son went on his first Snow Camping trip last weekend. The older, more experienced scouts were building the fire, but having a tough time keeping the flame long enough to catch the kindling on fire.
My
son gave them one of these fire starters that he made a couple of years
ago at home. It doesn't look like much, but not only did it light
right up, it kept the flame going long enough to get the dinner fire
going. The older boys were very grateful for his homemade useful item.
Webelos boys will be going camping in the next year. A homemade fire starter is a very useful thing to have, so easy to make, and very inexpensive. Also, backpackers want to carry very little weight, and this very useful item weighs VERY little!
What you need:
A cardboard egg carton with the sections cut apart
Clothes dryer lint
A candle
Matches or lighter.
(To make it more obvious it was from an egg carton, we didn't cut the sections apart for the pictures, but you only need one section per fire.)
Put
lint in the egg carton section, then drip wax over the top of the
lint. The dripped wax serves to 1) hold the fire longer, 2) hold the
lint in place in the egg carton section, and 3) waterproofs the lint
from the top.
My 11-year-old son went on his first Snow Camping trip last weekend. The older, more experienced scouts were building the fire, but having a tough time keeping the flame long enough to catch the kindling on fire.
Webelos boys will be going camping in the next year. A homemade fire starter is a very useful thing to have, so easy to make, and very inexpensive. Also, backpackers want to carry very little weight, and this very useful item weighs VERY little!
A cardboard egg carton with the sections cut apart
Clothes dryer lint
A candle
Matches or lighter.
(To make it more obvious it was from an egg carton, we didn't cut the sections apart for the pictures, but you only need one section per fire.)
Wolf Achievement 1 Relay
Achievement 1 Complete in a Minute, when it's a race!
This is how it was set up in the gym: One crib mattress on the ground, and a 2x4 plank on the ground in line with the mattress but about a yard in front of it. Someone timing each person with a stopwatch or second-hand on a clock.
1. Have the boys squat down while the den counts down from 10 down to "blast off!", At "Blast Off!" he jumps as high in the air as he can, hands and arms up. That's the start of his race.
2. Have the boy walk the plank forward, backward, and sideways.
3. Have him travel around the crib mattress 3 times: Elephant Walk once around, Frog Leap once around, and Crab Walk once around.
4. Then on the mattress have him front roll, back roll, and falling front roll.
5. At this point he will face his den leader (who is 10 steps away), who will throw a tennis ball to the boy to catch and throw it back.
This is how it was set up in the gym: One crib mattress on the ground, and a 2x4 plank on the ground in line with the mattress but about a yard in front of it. Someone timing each person with a stopwatch or second-hand on a clock.
1. Have the boys squat down while the den counts down from 10 down to "blast off!", At "Blast Off!" he jumps as high in the air as he can, hands and arms up. That's the start of his race.
2. Have the boy walk the plank forward, backward, and sideways.
3. Have him travel around the crib mattress 3 times: Elephant Walk once around, Frog Leap once around, and Crab Walk once around.
4. Then on the mattress have him front roll, back roll, and falling front roll.
5. At this point he will face his den leader (who is 10 steps away), who will throw a tennis ball to the boy to catch and throw it back.
Bear Elective 12f: Rock Identification
Our Bear Leader wanted something easy to understand and simple to do to teach his Bears how to identify rocks without having to gather them around the computer to look at pictures or for interactive identification. Something he can print and take outside in the rock's natural setting.
Here is the identification key they used.
Need: a nail, diluted hydrochloric (muriatic) acid, glass dropper, identification key, and at least one rock
Preparation: We got softball-size to cantelope-sized rocks from the side of the road, by a lake, construction sites, etc. and broke them with a hammer (before the boys got there) to give each boy a piece. Hint: The boys like the bigger rocks, but they should be small enough pieces to fit in the egg carton section. (You need to see the newly-broken inside for the test.) We also gave each boy an egg carton for their display. We used regular, unpolished rocks they see every day on the ground. After this activity, rocks will mean a lot more to them (and the leaders) and will look different from one another (the rocks).
*Remember, the Cub Scout Motto is: Do Your Best. They don't have to get it right at 9 years old to pass it off, they just have to give a concentrated effort and Do Their Best. This test for rock i.d. is only as accurate as the judge. My college son is much more accurate than I am at answering the questions. Even if I (or a 9-year-old) identify a rock wrong, we have still learned:
1) how rocks are made
2) ways rocks are identified (types, size of grains, hardness, how they break, react heavily to acid or not,etc)
3) rocks are often different on the inside than on the outside (for instance, they all looked like common gray household rocks to me until we broke them and placed the different rocks in side-by-side sections of an egg carton and saw all the different colors, designs, and sizes of grains)
4) to better appreciate the rocks, their similarities and differences, that I walk past every day
Getting philosophical: Maybe in the process, somewhere down deep, they will grow their consciousness by applying these above lessons (maybe unconsciously) to appreciating differences in other things like animals ..... or science ..... or games ..... or people.
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