Scouting

I have been doing cub scouts for about 2 1/2 years now. I finally feel like our den is running smoothly. I've learned a lot and have learned to love the LDS cub scout program instead of just enduring it.

One of the things that really helped me where these tracking sheets and activity planner forms. I originally found the Bear Trail Record sheet on one of my favorite LDS sites www.sugardoodle.com from a post shared by Kristie Udall but I had to  tweak it a little to work better for us.  I love these sheets they truly make record keeping and activity planning so much easier for us and we can now focus on better things, like making sure our boys are having fun and getting their awards.   

One of my pet peeves was that our boys were not getting their religious knots.  I had my two boys get them when my youngest was a wolf and the older a Bear.  As a parent (and prior to my my calling as Bear Den Leader) I just thought that if any church/organization should be pushing for the religious knot it should be the LDS church; don't you agree? Anyway, each of my Bears for the past year has successfully received their religious knot.

The first thing I do when I get a new Bear cub scout is either email, text or call their mom and go through the list of Faith in God achievements. And guess what? Sometimes they haven't done anything and that's ok! I have extra Faith in God booklets handy and I start the Bear in their FiG book. But sometimes I have a scout that has actually done quite a few. Usually not the ones that the boy needs for the religious knot though. So once we setup record sheets for them we start planning according to what they need for their religious knot which is surprisingly not a lot and pretty easy to finish in a year. I don't worry about doing any of the other FinG requirements just the ones that they need to earn their religious knot.  When the Bear scout advances to Webelos I send their mom, and new leader a copy of their records. For the mom so she knows what her son finished in his FinG book and for the Webelos leaders so they know they earned their religious knot.

I'm not sure that we can post documents here on Blogger so if you like them just email me and I can email it in either pdf or word/excel format.

I also attended the University of Scouting a couple of weeks ago and found some really cool stuff and links which I will be putting up to share with you all.

Cub Scouts can really be a lot of fun and once you organize yourself it really isn't that much work. If your ward has not provided a lot of direction start out by putting a Bear, Wolves or Webelos bag that you can pass on once you're released. Handing the next person the records, data, etc. can help with a smooth transition. Instead of having the next person recreate everything you have created. Aren't we always telling our kids to share?! My predecessor gave me the "bag" and I just added to it and made it better and I really hope that once I'm released I can do the same for the next leader. Remember that the boys love scouts.  They love creating, building, and learning.  They are rowdy most of the time but if you can learn how to get them involved your den will start to flourish.

Check back often for more fun and helpful things!