Whittling Chip/Bear Claws, Day 1

Requirement(s) Met: Whittling Chip (earned), Requirements 1, 2, and 4, and Bear Claws, Requirement 1, 2

After much anticipation, we have started the Bear Claws adventure! We started this adventure off by earning our Whittling Chip tonight! Admittedly, there was a lot of talking tonight, but we were going over all the safety rules with knives and how to correctly hand a knife to/receive a knife from someone, learning about different types of knives, and learning how to sharpen knives. There was a lot of information, but the boys did GREAT! They asked lots of good questions, and proved themselves to be very responsible. We'll continue our Bear Claws with the boys whittling their first items when we return from Thanksgiving!

Practicing safely handing a knife to someone else

The boys taking their Whittling Chip Pledge

If your Scout would like to bring his own pocketknife to the meeting on 12/1, please make sure that it is a locking knife, meaning that the blade locks into place and they have to push a button of some sort to fold the knife back up again. I will try to have a couple extra knives, but I don't have enough for everyone. I actually found a locking pocketknife at Wal-Mart in the camping section for less than $2. It isn't the best knife out there, but it works perfectly for whittling!

Again -- thanks to all the boys (and their parents) for remembering to bring their handbooks this week!

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at the Space Derby next week -- don't forget to have your scout bring his completed Space Derby Rocket with him!

A few upcoming dates:

• This Saturday, 11/12 at 9 am: Pick up food for our Pack's Scouting for Food event (Meet at the Totem Pole park)
• Thursday, 11/17: Awards Ceremony (be sure to wear your Class-A uniform) and Space Derby!
• Thursday, 11/24: No meeting -- Happy Thanksgiving!
• Thursday, 12/1: Bear Claws meeting -- the boys are encouraged to bring their own pocketknife to the meeting (be sure to remind them they have to have their Whittling Chip in hand if they will be bringing/using a knife in the meeting).
  

Grin and Bear It and Critter Care!

Requirement(s) Met: Grin and Bear It, Requirement 4 and Critter Care Requirements 5 and 6

We had a busy week this week! We started off with a review of the Carnival last week. We talked about what worked, what didn't, and what changes we would recommend for next year's carnival. The boys had some really insightful ideas about the changes they would like to see made!

We then moved on to Critter Care! This is an elective adventure that the scouts can choose to participate in or not. We completed Requirements 5 and 6 together tonight in the meeting. Requirements 1 - 4 are to be completed at home either with a family pet or your Scout can (with adult approval) sign up to take home our den mascot, Scout, for a 2-week period. Requirement 7 is an outing that we will take to a local vet's office or animal shelter (TBD) later in the year.

We started out by playing a "What's My Animal?" game where the boys had a picture of an animal attached to their backs and they had to walk around and get clues about what their animal was. It was fun to watch the boys try to figure out their animals!

Then we talked about the ways animals help people (Requirement 5) and wrote down some ideas in our books. We also read about rabid animals in our handbooks (Requirement 6). Then we met Scout! He was being shy tonight, so we didn't really get to get him out and handle him, but it wasn't too surprising with all the excitement surrounding him! :) Benjamin has been taking care of Scout for the past 2 weeks, so he completed a poster to share with the den (Requirement 3). He did a great job! Ayden is our next scout to take him home, so we'll look forward to listening to him share his poster and experiences with Scout when he brings him back in 2 weeks!

On a side note, one of our scouts asked about how to earn additional patches/belt loops at home. I will put together some different things the boys can work on and put it into a separate blog post (hopefully sometime in the coming week). It's exciting to see the boys so anxious to earn awards!

Our next adventure that we will be working on will be the Whittling Chip and Bear Claws! This is always one of the most anticipated adventures for the Bears, as it is the first time they are allowed to use a pocketknife. I'll be sending out more information on this as I get prepared for the meeting.

Also, this Saturday at 10:00 is our Scouting for Food event! Please join us at the Totem Pole Park in countryside for this fun and rewarding event! Hope to see you there!

Halloween Carnival!

Requirement(s) Met: Grin and Bear It Requirement 1, 2, 3

This past week (on October 27th), Pack 969 held its annual Halloween Carnival, and the Bears had a lot to do with planning it! The boys helped create a game for the carnival, they helped younger Scouts learn how to play the games at the beginning of the carnival, and they also created gifts for the adult helpers from the carnival that we will be giving out at this week's meeting. We will also be talking at the beginning of our meeting about what went well, what didn't, and what we could do to improve it next year. I hope your boys had as much fun as mine did -- they both slept well that night! :)

The Rat Fling

The Rat Fling/Rat Basketball

Space Derby Ghost Race

Our game, the Ball Toss. Kids had fun with it!

 More play at the Ball Toss

Look at these hams -- we have a great group of Bears! I wish we had gotten a group shot earlier so that we could have had everyone in it!