Paper Rocket Launcher, Compressed or Stomp: Wolf 10b, Bear 10b, Webelos Craftsman 4

 This image is from madlaboratory.wordpress.com, mentioned below.

You think water rockets are fun?  My favorite are paper rockets! They go WAY higher and faster and give me a huge thrill!  Last summer my husband made a water rocket launcher for our family to use in the summertime, and we're excited about that.  After having experienced air compressed paper rockets at Akela's Council in Sept, he is even more excited about making a paper rocket launcher.  Thus, the reason for this post. This can be done all year round without getting wet! 

An compressed air paper rocket launcher is DEFINITELY the one I'd use for a pack meeting!



At a den meeting the boys can make a stomp launcher for their rocket fun at home with things they probably have around the home:

plastic bottle

bicycle innertube or vacuum hose

2 ft (1/2-3/4” diameter) PVC tube or metal pipe

duct and masking tape or scotch tape

file folder or cardstock (for rocket)

A stomp launcher is where the force of air comes from stomping on a plastic soda pop bottle, sending the air through a tube, sending the rocket off the launcher. 

This would pass off several requirements or electives, but just taking a look at requirements:  Wolf 10b (Family Fun), Bear 10b (Family Fun), Webelos Craftsman 4 (Build something useful out of material besides wood)

Here is a paper rocket instruction sheet, but you can see one made with real pictures (much easier to understand, I think) if you just go to the original site: http://madlaboratory.wordpress.com/tag/paper/

Spontaneous Turkeys

This hilarious audience participation game was presented at Roundtable last night.  I wish I had taken pictures, but hopefully my description will suffice.  All of my measurements are only a guess to help you visualize, and the colors can be any you choose, so do what actually works.

Make 4 turkey tails, one of each color: brown, red, yellow, orange (or pink, blue, black, green ... whatever you already have around):

1.  Cut a 6" circle out of stiff paper for the following colors:  brown, red, yellow, orange,

2.  From the same paper cut out feathers.  The feathers we saw last night were just 6"x1.5" rectangles. 

3.  Attach the feathers to the top circumference of the circle.

4.  Get material 6" wide by 6' long to fit around someone's bottom and hips and tied in the front.  Sew the feathered circles to the middle of the material.

Make 4 turkey masks.  Here's a picture of a simple one that I would probably make, but with paper.

THE GAME:

Teach the audience the following words to the tune "Have You Ever Seen A Lassie" or "Here We Are Together":
    Have you ever seen a turkey, a turkey, a turkey
    Have you ever seen a turkey with feathers like that.
    There's brown ones and red ones and yellow ones and orange ones.
    Have you ever seen a turkey with feathers like that.

Get 4 volunteers who wear the turkey masks and tail throughout pack meeting.  Whenever a certain word is said, let's just pick "thank" for an example, the turkeys get up and start strutting around like a turkey would and the audience sings the above song.  When the color of their tail is sung, the turkeys wag their tails to the audience.

Honesty Fair

August value is Honesty. The theme is Water Carnival. This Honesty Fair could combine the two, or you could use the Honesty part with any multiple game fair. (Thank you, Cameron Clements, for sharing this idea.) Start off by printing fun money. Here is a link where you can personalize the money with someone's face you know, like the Cub Master or Lord Baden Powell's. At the beginning of your carnival or fair, give each boy two $5 bills. Do not tell them this is an Honesty Fair. Just call it a Water Carnival, or whatever. They must pay $3 for each game. When they give their $5, they will need $2 change, but instead they will be given 3 $1 bills back. They may feel lucky and keep the extra dollar, or they may try to give the extra dollar back, which case the boothmaster who just gave them the change tells them, "You must go to Customer Service for that." This gives the cub another chance to keep the dollar or take the time to give the dollar back at the Customer Service desk. If they continue on and return the extra dollar, Customer Service gives them a paper Honesty Award in exchange. Click Honesty Award for the template you see at the right with 8 badges on a page (from enchantedlearning.com) that you can print and write "Honesty" in. At the end of the game fair, talk to the group about how this was really an Honesty Fair, and each boy (if they were honest) should have 2 Honesty Awards. This is a great time for the participants to quietly look inside and take inventory of himself.

Balloon Rocket Derby

A space derby on a smaller budget.  I bet it's just as much of a blast, though. (oh - haha, pun not intended, but works!) You could even make an extra long string and when the balloon is deflated, the boy can blow it up again for the rest of the "track", if the track is hung at the the right height.  Click HERE for instructions.

February - Resourcefulness

Resourcefulness can be defined as "doing with what you have on hand", "recycling", or "respecting and preserving our resources".  Here are some games, activities, and field trips that support the value Resourcefulness, but it's up to you to "teach" it to the cub scouts by having a short discussion before, during, or after the activity, connecting the activity and their experience with Resourcefulness in their own lives.

Health & Fitness Pack Meeting Ideas

This was in a handout provided by the hosting units (stake).

These activities can be fun for the boys during summer, but they can all be done in the gym during the cold moths of the year. They are a good way to keep an aspect of fitness in pack meetings.  These activities are fun but have enough structure to not get out of hand. They are also good activities for team building. many of them can be used as an object lesson to discuss unity in the pack.

Relay Races:
have the boys separate into two teams. Have each team separate into two sections, one on either side of the set distance. When the race starts have one of the boys from each team race to the other side of distance and touch the hand of a teammate. The relay continues until the last boy's hand is touched and he finishes his leg of the race.
Variations: Crab walk, Bear Walk, Run backwards, skip, hop on one leg, when tagged to five pushups or sit-ups and then run to the other side, whatever else you can dream up.

Tennis Ball Relay: Same format as above, have each boy run to his waiting teammate with a ball under their chin. They have to pass the ball without dropping it to under the chin of a teammate.

Partner Relays:
Same format as above, but complete in airs.
Variations: Three legged race. Tennis Ball Races: Each pair has a tennis ball, they have to make it from one side of the distance to the other while keeping it held between their foreheads, held between their backs. If it drops they have to go back and restart.

Balloon War: This is a good activity for the gym. Give each boy a balloon and length of yarn. have each boy blow up the balloon and tie one end of the yarn to their ankle and other end to the balloon. At go all of the boys try to pop eachother's balloons while keeping their balloon safe. The boy with the last surviving balloon wins.

Sentry: blindfold two boys and have them "stand as sentries" in the middle of the playing field. Divide the rest of the boys into two teams. Send two boys, one from each team, through the sentries. The object is to sneak by them without getting detected. The team that has the most boys make it through the sentries undetected wins.

Team Ball Carry:  Get a ring and tie several lengths of yarn to it. It's okay if they are varied lengths. Have one boy for every piece of yarn. Have each boy hold their piece of yarn and fan out from the ring holding it up off the ground. Place a ball in the ring and have the boys practice holding their yarn and keeping the ball steady, not dropping it. When they get the hang of it have them move from one point to another. Each boy has to keep his string taut so the ball doesn't drop. If they drop the ball, they have o restart. If they can master this then make them go through an obstacle course, around chair, under tables, etc. This activity is a good one for illustrating the importance of teamwork in the pack.

The Easy Peasy Workout Game

So it's that time of year again. You know. When the boys start getting very ansy to be outside doing their running and jumping and goofing around. But it's still so cold. Maybe rainy and snowy. As a leader, I bet there are some den meetings that you just want to pull your hair out because they're so keyed up. Today, I have a solution for you. 

I was taught this in a P.E. class a couple of weeks ago. It's a great workout. It takes a deck of cards and some space. That's it. Each suit in the deck is a different exercise. Hearts = squats, Diamonds = push ups, Clubs = sit ups, Spades = jumping jacks, Jokers = running to the corner, running up and down stairs twice, running around the gym, anything to get the heart rate up. If you use cards other than face cards, just assign by color. You can choose whatever exercises you want. There are so many to choose from. Then, shuffle the deck and start with the top card. 2-10 = face value, J = 11, Q = 12, K = 13, A = 14. Pick a card and do the exercise that many times. Jack of Hearts would be 11 squats. 2 of Diamonds would be 2 push ups. It's constantly changing and it's a very good and fun workout. And you learn really quick that you want the face cards and aces first. . .

Walk In My Shoes

A disability becomes a handicap, when it limits a person's potential. Many people with disabilities can lead full and active lives, if they are provided with essential support. 

Here are some ideas for a Pack Disabilities Awareness Night. For the full instructions of these activities, refer to the two sites I have included at the top of the page.  

I have tweaked an idea or two to fit the activity as I had experienced it at my local Cub Leader Pow Wow or what my pack has done in the past.  These ideas are to spark your own imagination on how to have the Cubs and Webelos experience a bit and learn compassion for kids in their classes or in their scouting units.  

Follow up with a discussion on specific ideas how to support someone who has an impairment or disability in Cub Scouting/Scouting or at their school/neighborhood.

Cub Scout Service Projects

At the bottom of this post is a link to a bunch of ideas I've found. 

First, the following items to consider for a service project is found in 

Pack 98 Service Project Committee Guide

1.  Does it serve a real need?

2.  Is it within the boys’ ability and understanding?

3.  Does it show dignity and privacy of the people being helped?

4.  Does it make the best use of time and money being spent?

5.  Is it a project that the boys are interested in?

6.  Can it be supervised adequately?

Here is the HUGE list of Cub Scout Service Projects

Pay It Forward

At Roundtable Rachel Hawley gave an idea on a service project  "You've Been Served".  "I thought of the idea when someone BOO'd us [for Halloween]."  It the same thing, but in services. 

Her scouts have done it twice and love it!  Here are the links to the poem and instructions and the picture for the door.

You can pass off One Faith In God, and in Bears you can pass off 9f 9A and 9D.  She broke them into groups - just two - and made two batches of cookies.

Power Point Games

These classroom games were created in PowerPoint and LOOK very attractive and user-friendly.  

Download the templates and modify the games to fit your curriculum needs here.

Lots of whole class participation games similar to Jeopardy,Wheel of Fortune, Pyramid, Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?, Password, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, and more.

Feb 2012: I just found another site with 52 more power point game templates.  Click here.

Space-Themed Blue & Gold Banquet Ideas

I found a bunch of neat ideas and links regarding Space.  This is the collection of what I found.

If you live in Utah County or Salt Lake County, Dr. Aaron Orullian is a NASA affiliate representative and presents fantastic presentations!  He loves to talk to groups of any age, school-age to adult, and he doesn't charge!  What he teaches is classified as public information, but the public doesn't generally have access to his information.  Email Dr. Orullian and schedule him as your guest speaker.  You'll be delighted you did! "AARON ORULLIAN" <orupsyd2000@msn.com>,

Short film on keeping clean in space (watch this before clicking on TowTabs)
In place of napkins: TowTabs (Dehydrated towels in tab form) 120 individually wrapped for $24

Centerpieces:
Paper mache' balloons painted as planets

Saturn table decoration (pictured to the left)

Space napkin rings (pictured to the right)

Attire:  Wear black and tape stars cut out of aluminum foil on your shirt


  
Activities & Games:
Space station team running game
Make Gingerbread Robots
Paint donut holes into little planets with food coloring
Color and cut to make a mosaic robot puzzle
Star Finder by the month, a constellation-themed cootie catcher
Film Canister Rocket Must be done outside.  Quick assembly and exciting!

Food:
TANG, the powdered drink invented for the NASA Space program
Use Pop Rocks in/on something
Moon Balls (little cheese balls)
Crater Taters (potato bar)
Flying Saucer pizza
Little Dipper chicken nuggets
Blast-off Gelatine
Asteroid chips
Asteroid Potatoes  (Asteroids you can eat, made from mashed potatoes)
Ham Sandwich Rocket (second from the bottom on the page I'm linking you to)
Colored Star Cookies that can teach that stars have colors and what they mean



Song: Planets Go Spinning (tune: When Johnny Comes Marching Home)

Star Ceremonies: Opening (flag) Ceremony, Advancement Ceremony, and Cubmaster Minute

More ideas: from NASA for Cub Scouts, specifically for passing off rank achievements

Luau Blue & Gold Banquet

This year the Banquet responsibilities were assigned according to what could pass off rank requirements or electives:

WOLF:
A12f  Make a poster for a Cub Scout project or a pack meeting
E9a    Help with a party: Planning the party, scenery, decorate/setup the room, serve the food, and clean up.

BEAR: (details below)
9a,b,c Make cookies, snack, and a dinner side dish
15b,c  Play two organized games with your den and select a game that your den has never played. Explain the rules. Tell them how to play it, and then play it with them.
18d  Write an invitation to someone
24d   Tell two people they have done a good job (make a thank you note)

WEBELOS:
Craftsman - to make 4 useful things (non-wood) each out of different material: Centerpieces for the tables (*volcano centerpiece, *tiki hut centerpiece, *big feather palm tree centerpiece, *paper palm tree centerpiece, *totems by decorating cereal and oatmeal boxes with faces, *coconut boats by halving coconuts and make a sail by gluing a construction paper triangle to a bamboo skewer, *turn a pineapple into a candle holder, palm tree, or flower vase)  and to make paper leis that they can place around the necks as people arrive with an "aloha"... in other words our greeters.

As a SKIT: All cubs will perform the Haka. (Can be found under the "Songs" tag.)


BEARS, Continuted from above:

I was looking for an invitation for Polynesia that looked masculine for the boys to make.  What I came up with was a Tiki Totem (made with an empty toilet paper roll).

1. I drew out the size rectangle on a piece of paper that would be needed to wrap around an empty t.p. roll, 5 1/2 inches by about 4 1/4 inches.  Two fit on one 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Then I searched Tiki Totem patterns.  Once I found a pattern I liked, I clicked on the picture to make it big on my screen, then I traced it onto typing paper inside the designated rectangle and filled in the pattern to the ends of the rectangle.

2. I traced over my lines with a black sharpie to make the lines crisp and easily seen.  Then I photocopied onto tan paper, since the totems were made out of wood.  When the boys cut out the rectangles, they left a 1/2 inch to the side so that they could overlap the paper when they wrapped it around the t.p. roll to glue it.

3.  I made a 1 1/2 inch slit in the mouths for the tongue.  I typed all the invitation information onto paper to fit within the 1 1/2 inch wide tongue, and printed it on pink paper.  The boys glued the tongue into the mouth before wrapping the rectangle around the t.p. roll.

For the activities:

Surfing: a surf board with a dad on each end to hold while boys attempt "surfing" with dads moving the surf board around... mattress underneath of course.

Tititorea: Click Maori stick game and Tititoria (the game starts at 0:37) to watch - a rhythm game challenge with a partner from New Zealand. To keep the sticks light-ish, we will use lenths of PVC pipe.

'Ulumaika: Similar to bowling, this game (pictured above) used to be played with slices of green breadfruit called ulu or round disc rocks rolled between wooden stakes outdoors in the grass, but it can be played indoors by rolling a tennis ball between two 2-liter soda bottles full of water.

Limbo: We just happen to have 6-ft bamboo sticks at our house, so I'll use them, but you could use a length of wide ribbon or a broomstick or PVC pipe.

Your Hawaiian Name:  The Hawaiian alphabet has 13 letters: five vowels (long and short: A, E, I, O, U) and eight consonants: H, K, L, M, N, P, W, and one being a glottal stop shown as ' (called 'okina in Hawaiian).  All Hawaiian word end with a vowel.  Write your first name as close as you can with only these letters and ending with a vowel, then wear it on your name tag.

Cookies:  Polynesian Cookies  (one recipe suggested the nuts are optional)
 OR         Crispy Coconut-Oatmeal Cookies
Snacks:  Polynesian Snack Mix
 OR        Tiki Snack Mix
Side Dishes:  Hawaiian Baked Beans
 OR        Pineapple Fried Rice with Ham

CUBMASTER:   I will give each boy receiving any award a lei with the awards attached and say "Ho'omaika'i", which is "Congratulations" in Hawaiian. I'll have the mother's pin on a lei also, and have the boys put the lei on their mom.  Click Polynesian Cub Scout Rank Advancement Ceremonies for the ceremonies I actually plan on carrying out. Here are some more Hawaiian words if you'd like to find ways in your ceremonies or evening to use them.  This is My Aloha Ceremonies that I am actually going to use tonight at our Blue & Gold, if you want a peak and it can help you in some way.
     For ceremonial decorations:  I will use cardboard tubes from the middle of new carpet rolls (from Home Depot, Lowes, and Ogden Carpet or any carpet company) to make the posts for a hut, and I'll make big palm or banana leaves out of green butcher paper (or maybe I'll get light tan and cut it in strips for a grass hut) for the lean-to-type one-slant roof. [I ended up renting two green grass table skirts from Royal R Rentals in Lehi for $1 each, folded them, and laid them and taped them across the roofing, which was a cardboard frame and plastic covering.] Of course, the leaves or grass will need to have plastic or a frame structure for it to be tacked to. It's still a thought in process. I have a plastic bamboo-print table cloth.  I will put this on the ground, covering a folded blanket used for padding, and have the cub scouts kneel on it.
   
    

Hikes and Nature Scavenger Hunts

Here is a second collection of hike ideas, to keep the cubs' minds busy and present (not to get to the end of the hike fast). There are also a couple of scavenger hunts. I particularly like the Camera Scavenger Hunt, because the Outdoor Code is about "Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints".

Water Carnival Games

Have a Wet and Wild party with your pick of these very cool water games!

Raingutter Regatta Flair

Many packs enjoy a summertime Raingutter Regatta. You can download this certificate at this link. A great song to sing at your Raingutter Regatta is sung to the tune When Johnny Comes Marching Home, and the lyrics are found on the 2nd page of the June 2008 Program Helps (right column. Heading: "Song: Regatta Day). Just click here: lyrics.

Have you tried a Vegetable Regatta? Slice the top off of a bell pepper, gourd, zucchini, or other vegetable. Hollow the middle with a spoon. Add a shishkabob skewer or two and a piece of paper for a mast. Test the floatability and mobility in a sink or tub of water.

Dinosaur Eggs

One of the most memorable Pack Meetings I have attended was the summer of 1998 when the cubs hunted Dinosaur Eggs. The week before the pack meeting the leaders made paper mache' dinosaur eggs. A toy dinosaur was inserted through a flap door made in the egg after the egg was painted. We always had our pack meetings outside during the summertime. The eggs were hidden around the property before the boys arrived. The first egg the boy found was his. Last year our Cubmaster made a dinosaur egg for each boy receiving awards, and they had to crack the egg to get to their awards. To make a solid egg that the kids can excavate their dinosaur from, go here: dino egg for excavating. For display only, a more realistic looking and cracking egg would be a plaster of paris dinosaur egg. It's made from the inside of a balloon, so this one's best for show (unfillable).

PVC Kid Wash

These PVC Kid Washes would be fun for the neighborhood, a Water Carnival (if you're planning to get wet) or a Bike Rodeo. Click on the description you're interested in.

The mist wash claims that it saves on water (My guess is about $20 to make this one).

The deluxe wash - who knows what the materials cost to make it, but it looks like a ton of fun!

The drip wash states that it takes less than $10 to make.

Check them out!

Homemade Rocket Launchers

ROCKET LAUNCHING IS FUN!

Here are three rockets you can make at home for your pack, family, or (ooooh) Scout Expo!

$10 Soda Pop BottleStomp Launcher sends paper rockets 75 feet into the air!

Compressed Air Rocket Launcher launches paper rockets 200-300 feet into the air!

$10 Overhead Water Rocket Launcher for soda pop rockets or water balloons. Included are variations, such as making it self-supporting, like the picture I included.

Hiking Themes, Hunts, Checklists, and Activities

Webelos: Outdoorsman 9

Doing a scavenger hunt while hiking will help the boys really explore the world around them while they are walking, rather than getting from point A to point B as quickly as possible. This scavenger hunt is a “check off” type hunt. They don’t actually bring the items with them. This fits in with the Leave No Trace guidelines. Here is a list of 14 Themed Hikes, including: Hold the Front, Puddle, Stop-Look-Listen, Crafts, Color, Historical, City, I Spy, Nature Cribbage, Follow the Odor, Awareness, Breakfast, Sealed Orders, Touch and Feel. Another fun hike is taking the boys Geocaching! Do you have petroglyphs or fossil sites nearby? Have the boys draw a picture of what they see to take home with them. Without A Trace are activities that can help the boys appreciate nature, getting a feeling of why we would want to preserve it and why we adopt ways such as Leave No Trace. Ready, Set, Go! includes things the boys need to know before taking a hike, as well as things the adult leaders need to know before taking the boys on the hike. Happy Hiking!