PLEASE NOTE: Since the publication of this post, the Pathfinder Handbook has been published. You can learn more about it here in the announcement on the OSG website. One of the newest badges available for pathfinders to earn, is the Gardener Badge which is included in the new Pathfinder Handbook Pre-Release. The 17th Black Bears in Virginia participated in a...
Story time is part of many otter meetings. Kids just love stories, and picture books can help them relate to others, grasp new ideas and develop empathy for others and our natural world. Amazingly, you can even do a story time over zoom, if your group can’t meet in person. But if you aren’t a children’s librarian, how do you...
Learning about animals is a traditional part of scouting that our scouts have enjoyed. While you can actually visit domesticated animals and track some wild animals, not all are safe for that type of lesson. Our group has really enjoyed learning about bears and I recently came across this packet of pages that you can use with your group to...
With scouts still doing many meetings over zoom, what new ideas have you come up with? The 17th BlackBear pathfinders asked to make paracord bracelets. And as a scout led organization, the adults worked to help make that happen. Scout leader Richard Sowdon, created kits with buckles, and pre-fused paracord and mailed them to his pathfinders. Cord colors were in...
Finding our way into scouting this fall is challenging. The pandemic means that many groups aren’t able to return to “normal” with meetings and activities. What are some reasonable ideas? The 17th Black Bears has decided to do a 3 pronged approach. Those 3 prongs are on-line meetings, home projects and monthly in person, socially distant activities. Each one is...
This is a set of ideas all around map skills to use while scouting during the 2020 Pandemic. Each zoom meeting idea is laid out below. The set is designed to progress from the most basic ability to read a map, up to reading a topographical map. Each idea is supposed to be the foundation for one meeting. Read them...
This is a great time to have your pathfinders work on the Naturalist badge. You can see all the requirements below. Your pathfinders can tell you the answer to number 1, over the phone or zoom. You can challenge them to work on #2 by watching plants and animals in their own yard or ones in their neighborhood. Your scouts may...
Recently, my mother texted me this picture with the questions: “Is this Bear Poop? I found it in the yard.” So, we created a scout zoom meeting around this question, and asked the scouts to figure it out. We showed our scouts this picture and how we proceed depended on age level. Our timberwolves were taken to look at the...
Now is the perfect time to actually use semaphore with your group. Scouts can social distance and send messages to each other! Semaphore a method of sending messages with 2 flags, where the flag positions indicate a number or letter. While phones may have made the need for using flags for long range communication obsolete most of the time, this is...
As social distancing and the challenges of Covid-19 continue, your group may find they want to meet on-line. There are several ways to do this.
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