Paws On The Path Den Meetings

Paws on the Path!


We had four activities (a lot I know) for the first den meeting on this adventure.  1) Stop Sign, 2) Buddy System, 3)Warm/Cold clothes relay, and 4) Egg Hunt.


If you get lost remember this stop sign picture!  Don't go far from where you are.  Stay calm, get in plain sight, close to the trail if you can.  Listen for the group you might be able to hear them.  blow your whistle, Pray!

The buddy system means 2 together at all times.  To make it fun we showed this picture.  Why would it be bad if socks didn't follow the buddy system?  Don't be a lost sock, stay with your buddy.

I know my kids actually wore their heavy winter coats in July last year and shorts with no coat on Christmas, but I'm hoping your cub scouts will have more weather sense when they dress for their hike!

I got a set of warm clothes and a set of cold clothes and set them on the far side of the yard from the cub scouts.  Then I would call out a cub and a clothing item and they would run get it.  Such as "hat for a warm day", "pants for a cold day".  The cubs didn't patiently wait their turn, so maybe I would have them dress each other up instead of running one at a time, but the running was fun even for my non-athletic den.

Egg Hunt to assemble the scouting six essentials.  I try to work in egg hunt type activities whenever I can because they are loved by this age.  Especially at the den meeting before Easter which this was.  Six of the eggs contained the scouting 6 essentials.  When they pulled out the papers, I helped them read them and then showed them an example of what was meant by each item.  You can trade the papers for special candy treats or have it already in the eggs.  I hid six eggs per scout and that worked well!

For the second den meeting, we did a 1-mile hike and the outdoor code.  We hiked to Look Out Point.  It was a perfect 1-miler for our boys, you can see our entire town with nice lake and mountain views all in about 30 minutes round trip.
The boys had a great time.  I was a nervous about it being too steep, but the boys were fine, it was just hard for me!  I pulled out these posters at the top of our hike while they munched on their trail snacks.

Posters we used for Leave No Trace and Outdoor Code: