Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Wolf Motor Away Adventure

When the boys arrived we had them experiement with buoyancy to see how many pennies it took to sink a foil boat.  Kind of like this.



Then we made juice box boats and sponge boats with popsicle sticks and kabob sticks for masts and various shapes of cardstock for sails.  An exacto knife came in handy for the juicebox boats to insert the masts.  The sponge boats were cut to a variety of shapes.  Leaders used lots of hot glue to attach sails to masts.



We tested the boats in a wrapping paper storage box on the floor surrounded by tons of towels!  We made a tin foil ramp for the boats too.  When it was time to be done I just put the lid on the water and it was out of site.  Convenient!
Indoor boat racing station:)




I pulled out my Lego box and we made spaceships while the boys arrived for the next den meeting.  Then we made paper airplanes.






The last den meeting we played the Stacking Logs game out of the den leader guide and built balloon cars.  I tried many rubberband cars, none worked, so balloon cars it was.  I found the one from here worked well: Wiki How to make a Balloon Car.  I liked the tip about lightweight cardboard.  I punched the holes in the wheels in advance and precut the cardboard.  The boys measured and cut the kabobs, and straws and taped things with very close supervision.  We used posterboard and cracker boxes.  Making cars was difficult.  We let the boys build Lego cars and then we helped just two at a time build their cars.  If we had tried to build all the cars at once (we have four boys) it would have been crazy!  We have two special needs boys who were afraid to blow up their balloons.  We found that pre-stretching them and then stretching them while the boy blew helped every scout be able to blow up their own balloon.  They were very pleased with themselves!  Maybe you could have the boys watch Disney Cars or Mater's Tall Tales or something while they wait for their turn to make a car if you don't have a gazillion Legos for the boys to keep busy with.



My daughter made this car for a camp activity.  It has a sail on top and they did blow dryer races.  Anyway, I show this because if you don't have tons of bottle lids lying around for wheels, pipe cleaners and life savers can work.  The kids cut the pipe cleaners and stuck them through the TP rolls on their own, I like that there was no hot glue needed.

Valentines We Made This Year!

These random creations with Hi-Chews were designed by my second grader, he wanted "eyeball" valentines. 
My preschooler wanted to make ninja stars with starburst, but he
saw these candy wrappers on Pinterest and had to have these instead.
My fourth grader chose these, I think we
were all craving chocolate and toasted marshmallows.

Sunday, February 5, 2017

Germs Alive

The first adventure I ever taught
and still one of my favorites!

Cub Scouts "Germs Alive!" Badge


Den Meeting #1 Confetti Bombs, Glitter Trails, and Green Popcorn.
The boys that arrived right on time got to do a "when to wash your hands" penny toss.  They had ten pennies at a time and we called it a fortune teller.  Whichever box on the chart had the most pennies landed on we said was the one they needed to remember the most!



Activity 1: Hand Washing song.  It is in the book, I also talked about "wash the tips of your fingers and inbetween, front and back and then you're clean!"

Activity 2: Sneeze Experiment, I used washable marker on a white sheet to make our bulls eye and it washed right out in the laundry.  I had no confetti, so I used dots from our hole punch that were green and purple.  We called them viruses and bacteria.  I had no regular balloons, but water balloons worked great, they pop so easily and we could make one for each boy.  I used the end of a food thermometer for them to easily pop the baloons, they LOVED having a "popper".  We used straws to push the paper dots into the balloons through a little plastic funnel.  Here is one of my honorary cubs filling and popping a balloon.  

 


Activity 3: We had translucent glitter left over from snow globes at christmas, even though it wasn't bright, it worked great.  We didn't worry about making a mess,  just went for it and then vacuumed the carpet after.  


Snack: Green Popcorn Recipe (Booger Popcorn)
Made this using yellow and green food coloring
Now that we are talking about germs, what do you think green popcorn looks like?  Yep, boogers.  Definitely let the boys eat some before mentioning boogers, because it scared a few boys off the first time I taught this badge, but if you wait until they try it, it works out well as a conversation topic.  

 

Ingredients

  • 12 large marshmallows (1/3 of a mini marshmallow bag, 3.6 ounces)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 Tbs light corn syrup (Karo syrup)
  • several drops green food coloring (neon green is best, or half yellow-half green)

  • 1 stick butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 packages microwave popcorn, popped (8-9 cups)

Directions


  1. Cook and stir the marshmallows, sugar, food coloring, corn syrup, butter, and vanilla extract together in a pot over medium-low heat until the marshmallows are ALMOST completely melted, the longer you cook the harder the finished product.

  2. Put the popcorn in a large bowl; pour the marshmallow mixture over the popcorn and gently stir with a big spoon to coat.  Roll into a popcorn ball for each serving or spread out on a cookie sheet to dry or until ready to eat.


Den Meeting #2 Gross Box Game, Germ Sweep Relay, Moldy Bread, and Job Charts
Gathering activity was Ned's Head, using another halloween activity we had the boys grab things out of Ned's head to see who could finish finding all their items first.  You could use any box with a hole if you don't have Ned's Head.  We had them talk about which items would have the most germs!


We put a plate of items in ziplocs with a bit of water sprayed on them for the mold experiment.  I would also write on the bags MOLD GROWING EXPERIMENT.  TAKE A PHOTO IN 3 WEEKS.  THROW AWAY WITHOUT OPENING.  
Note: cheddar cheese can take 5 weeks to mold, so try monterey jack, mozzarella, cottage cheese or feta for quicker results.  Also store bought bread has a lot of preservatives and won't mold too quickly in the winter, if you have homemade bread or cornbread or even pancakes, those will mold A LOT more quickly for the boys to observe.  (Just have pancakes for breakfast or lunch the day of the activity.
Mold 3 weeks later, nothing on the bread or cheese,
so avoid cheddar and store bought bread.
We made job charts.  (note: this is a great time for LDS cub scouts to do Faith in God activity Developing Talents #7, the items they list for helping parents can go on the job chart.)  

To get the boys moving and having fun, we had them do the "germ sweep away relay".  We made "germs" out of unopened water bottles and they swept them back and forth the length of the room with brooms.  I thanked them for "cleaning" the germs out of my house!


pulling faces at the mold
Germ Sweep Relay from the Den Leader Guide


Snack: regular, non-slimed popcorn this time!

Den Meeting #3  Slime 

source: Pinterest
The gathering activity was making germ monster pictures for pack meeting.  They were cute.  I didn't get pictures, but they looked a lot like this picture.  I had eyes and teeth and a few things to get them started.

To get moving, we played germ tag and then we made slime.  The recipe in the book was confusing and the "updated" one online was the same confusing thing, so I just used the one we did in my daughter's school class from a mommy blog.  I wrote the recipe down on strips of paper and had the boys pick one or two so they each had a job to do. 

1. combine 1/2 tsp borax and 1/4 cup warm water
2. pour a small 4oz bottle of glue in a separate bowl
3. fill empty glue bottle with warm water, put the lid back on, shake it, pour it in with the glue
4. stir the glue and water 10 times (have someone else stir more if needed)
5. leader: add a few squirts of bright green food coloring
6. pour the borax into the glue and stir ten times (if you can!)
7. leader: pour the almost slime into a freezer ziplock
8. squeeze the ziploc 10 times each until it really is slime.
9. put slime on a plate and do the mucous demonstration with glitter.
10. divide the slime into baggies to take home.



******************

Do Not Eat:  Mold Growing Experiment.  Keep this bag for one week and observe if any mold grows and what it grows on first! Typically store bought bread will not mold in the winter due to the many preservatives and orange cheese is slow to mold, so we have used white cheese and pancakes as well as a banana.  Have fun and see what happens.  Throw away in one week.  If mold has grown cover hands with glove or a baggie when handling the plate. Optional: take a picture to share with the den at den meetingJ