The weather didn’t help me today.
My Cub Scout Den is full of active, high energy kids. I had planned on getting them outside to work on some of their Achievements, but it started raining about an hour prior to the Den meeting. Since taking them outside in the rain wasn’t really a viable option, I had to do my best to keep them moving indoors.
I also decided to stray from my normal “no snack” protocol because my meetings this year are immediately after school. I anticipate that most of them will have the munchies to varying degrees, so giving them some snacks would be necessary to keep their blood-sugar levels stable enough for me to actually be able to accomplish anything with them. For this meeting, I brought pretzel sticks, though a bunch of them also had their own snacks.
So after I distributed the snacks, the kids start laughing. I turn and look, and one of them has stuck a pretzel stick up his nose. Shortly after that, another one has one going from his nose down into his lower lip, so it looks like some gangly tooth sticking up his schnoz. After that, another one decides to set a Guinness record for most pretzel sticks in a nostril.
Let’s just say that it made the Den meeting a challenge.
As Bear Scouts, they actually have some latitude in what they do to earn their Rank Badge this year. There are 4 categories which they have to satisfy Achievements. Each category has a different number of Achievements to complete, totalling 12. But the handbook lists 24 overall Achievements, so they have quite a few different ones to pick from. That at least makes the curriculum possible to accomplish in a year with likely only a couple of Den meetings a month.
The hard part of the Den meeting is trying to keep the material fun and interesting for them. For instance, they all have to review their Bobcat Requirements, and the newer Scouts have to learn them. So rather than have them just sit and memorize the material, I ran a relay race with them where they had to answer a quiz question involving one of the requirements. So they got a chance to practice plus they got a little exercise along the way.
But some of this stuff doesn’t always fall so easily into a game. I discussed the concept of “respect” with them today and I had about 5 minutes or so before I lost the entire room. Some of the kids aren’t even listening when we start the discussion. How to turn a talk about respect into a game? I suppose there’s a way to do it, but I’m not the one to figure it out. At some point, these guys have to grow up a bit and learn to listen to things other than farting and belching. Of course, this could likely be as much about my own limitations as a presenter of the material. But hey, someone has to do it.
The next Den meeting looms now. My preference will be for something where I can get them outside. But it’s Fall in New England, and counting on the weather is never a good idea.