Howling at the Moon/Roaring Laughter

Cub Scout Comedy Den Meetings!

Wolf Adventure: Howling at the Moon requirements Complete each of the following Requirements.  1  Show you can communicate in at least two different ways. 2  Work with your den or family to create an original skit. 3  Work together with your den or family to plan, prepare, and rehearse a campfire program to present at a den meeting or pack program. 4  Perform your role for a den meeting or pack program. Faith in God Developing Talents #3 (LDS religious emblem) write a poem, story, or short play that teaches a principle of the gospel or is about Heavenly Fathe's creations.

Bear Elective Adventure: Roaring Laughter requirements Complete at least four of the following. 1.      Think about what makes you laugh. Write down three things that make you laugh.       2. Practice reading tongue twisters.       3. Create your own short story. Remove some nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs from the story, leaving blanks. Without telling the story, have a friend insert his or her own nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in the story you created.       4. With a partner, play a game that makes you laugh.       5. Share at least two jokes with members of your den to make them laugh.           6. Practice at least two run-ons with your den, and perform them at a pack meeting or campfire program.

Meeting 1: Comedy Activity -1 (also LDS religious emblem)

Wolf	Bear
Howling at the Moon #1, #2, #4 (also LDS Serving Others #6)	Developing Talents #3 (LDS religious emblem) Roaring Laughter #1, #2 (also LDS Serving Others #6)

Discuss communication, laughter is a kind of body language, speaking is another way we communicate.

Practice tongue twisters

Make up a short skit, poem, or story on a gospel topic
(serving others #6 learn about and practice good manners and courtesy)

 Gathering Activity: We had the boys read tongue twisters as they arrived.  There are great ones in the book or you can read pages out of Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss.  They got pretzel twists for participating.  Then we watched a couple studio C sketches including "Prop Switch".

Talk Time: discussed different types of communication verbal, non-verbal, written, and visual, etc.  We learned the scout motto in sign language as a demonstration.  We also had the boys in the circle send a message with body language to the group either "I am happy" or "I am mad" or "I am confused".  

"Communication is important for education as well as enjoyment.  We are going to be learning about a fun kind of communication in this adventure badge: comedy."  We discussed what made the boys laugh, I had the bears specifically list three things (they could duplicate each other).

Activity:

Then we talked about how they got to make their own comedy sketch or skit with props today.  

Prop Basket

I had a laundry basket filled with various props: an artificial flower, tray of play food, pillow, blanket, pool floatie, watering can, a wrapped present, a broom, a wig, etc  

I told them our skit needed to teach a gospel principle and the principle for our pack this month is courtesy.  Good manners are part of treating others the way Jesus would treat them.  So I challenged them to use their props twice in the skit, once to teach what courtesy is and once to teach what it isn't.  I told them we would be performing this skit at pack night for families.  The boys came up with the situation and chose their props, the leaders helped direct a bit, but the boys were able to improv with their props pretty well and we had a cute skit for pack night.

Den Meeting 2 Comedy Activity -2

Wolf	Bear
Howling at the Moon  #2, #3, #4	Roaring Laughter #4, #5, #6

Share jokes such as those on Laffy Taffy.  Play games that make you laugh such as the minute to win it “face the cookie”.  Work on skits/poems/stories. 

Homework: Howling at the Moon #4 or else perform for parents in a den meeting.

Gathering Activity: We did several Mad Labs using a Mad Libs app.

Talk Time: discuss the Howling at the Moon Legend in the book and the 6 parts of a campfire program.  We don't go camping in our pack, but we use most of the principles in our pack night and this is approximately how we plan to do it at our next pack night: 
Opening: prayer and flag ceremony
Songs: we choose not to sing at most pack nights, but this is fun around a fire- have any of the boys done this?  What song did they sing?
Cheers: We love cheers we did the "bobcat cheer" and "the wave" this month for boys getting awards.
Skits: We will have our courtesy skit and hopefully some run-ons from the Bears.
Story: Our cubmaster is a great storyteller, he always has captivating stories to help us remember the gospel principle of the month.  Stories are also great around a campfire.
Closing: We will have a drawing at the end of our program (entries for everyone who was on time, wore their uniform, or came to support their cub scout brother) then we will end with a prayer.

The 6 stones and 6 pieces of paper for fire represent the six parts of the campfire program.  The seventh  part should be S'mores!

Activity:
Joke Circle:  We had a joke circle where we went around and each boy got to share at least two jokes.  Each boy started with two Laffy Taffy's they could eat while we shared.  They could share the joke on the candy or share a favorite joke they already knew.  There are also great ideas in the book, or library's have fun joke books.

Rehearse Campfire Program:  This was essentially a run-through of our skit from last week and a practice of some run-ons for the Bears.

Play a game that makes you laugh:  You could play the soldier game in the handbook (try to make someone with a serious face laugh) or any other game you know that results in laughter, we did a blindfold game where the blindfolded person had to first find a person in the room and then that person had to say "peep" in a silly voice and the blindfolded person guessed who it was.  If time is short you could do Minute to Win It, Face the Cookie where you try to move an oreo from your forehead to your mouth by scrunching your face muscles.  Our boys didn't have much luck, but they laughed and enjoyed eating the cookies anyway.

Note: we finished this this badge in two den meetings, for the third week, you could do makeup activities, or do more of the above activities such as making a rock and paper campfire, having another silly games activity or watching some comedy sketches and discussing, or reading a joke book from the library would be a simple and fun den meeting.