(Construction plus Dinosaurs--kinda reminds me of my four-year-old's favorite TV show Dinotrux!)
Bear Adventure: Baloo the Builder requirements
Bear Adventure: Baloo the Builder requirements
Complete all of
the following requirements.
1. Discover which hand tools are the best ones to have in your toolbox. Learn the rules for using these tools safely. Practice with at least four of these tools before beginning a project.
2. Select, plan, and define the materials for the project you will complete in requirement 3.
3. Assemble your materials, and build one useful project and one fun project using wood.
4. Apply a finish to one of your projects
Wolf Elective Adventure: Digging in the Past requirements
Complete the following Requirements.
1. Play a game that demonstrates your knowledge of dinosaurs, such as a dinosaur match game.
2. Create an imaginary dinosaur. Share with your den its name, what it eats, and where it lives.
3. Complete one of the following: A. Make a fossil cast. B. Make a dinosaur dig. Be a paleontologist, and dig through a dinosaur dig made by another member of your den. Show and explain the ways a paleontologist works carefully during a dig.
4. Make edible fossil layers. Explain how this snack is a good model for the formation of fossils.
1. Discover which hand tools are the best ones to have in your toolbox. Learn the rules for using these tools safely. Practice with at least four of these tools before beginning a project.
2. Select, plan, and define the materials for the project you will complete in requirement 3.
3. Assemble your materials, and build one useful project and one fun project using wood.
4. Apply a finish to one of your projects
Wolf Elective Adventure: Digging in the Past requirements
Complete the following Requirements.
1. Play a game that demonstrates your knowledge of dinosaurs, such as a dinosaur match game.
2. Create an imaginary dinosaur. Share with your den its name, what it eats, and where it lives.
3. Complete one of the following: A. Make a fossil cast. B. Make a dinosaur dig. Be a paleontologist, and dig through a dinosaur dig made by another member of your den. Show and explain the ways a paleontologist works carefully during a dig.
4. Make edible fossil layers. Explain how this snack is a good model for the formation of fossils.
Den Meeting #1 "dino game and useful wood project"
Gathering Activity: play the Dinosaur Match game from the Den Leader's Guide. For a fun twist you can buy toy dinosaurs and have the boys match to actual 3D dinosaurs. We also challenged them to see if they could accurately sort the toy dinosaurs by whether they were plant or meat eaters and the boys loved showing us that they could! Dinosaurs for this badge are most cheaply purchased at dollar tree (if in stock) or from Amazon if you can get free shipping. Walmart and Party City are also options if they have dinosaurs in stock. I purchased 7" dinosaurs so we could use them to decorate the bookend project, but if you are using them for the game, for digs, or to make fossil footprints, or to decorate your edible fossils, pretty much any size will work.
This month, I have 7 boys in my den and four of them are special needs, so to keep things moving along, we made sure the Bear scouts did all four wood working skills (measure the book ends, screw them together, sand them, practice cutting with a saw on some scrap wood) and the other boys only had to sand their projects (my wolves didn't have the attention span or gross motor skills to do all the wood working skills.) My husband pre-drilled and put the screws in for the younger scouts (Bears helped put in their own screws) and Home Depot measured and sawed the blocks for us. The dimensions were 3x4" and 6x4" two blocks of each. The boys had fun sanding and then they painted their bookends. I had envisioned white, but my cubs found other colors of paint and we ended up with a lot of splatter painting which actually looked great. We used spray paint, but half the boys couldn't do spray painting very well and I was terrified it would get on their clothes, so next time I think I'll have paint shirts and acrylic paint ready to go. I had each boy choose a dinosaur toy to decorate their bookend so I would know which ones to have cut and ready for gluing the next week. The instructions I followed said to cut the dinosaurs with a stanley knife and glue the dinosaurs on with hot glue, but we used E6000 outside in a well ventilated spot just to be sure it would hold (see walmart craft section).
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| Amazon.com |
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| Yeonha Toys at Amazon.com |
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| Dollar Tree |
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| Dinosaur Bookends |
This month, I have 7 boys in my den and four of them are special needs, so to keep things moving along, we made sure the Bear scouts did all four wood working skills (measure the book ends, screw them together, sand them, practice cutting with a saw on some scrap wood) and the other boys only had to sand their projects (my wolves didn't have the attention span or gross motor skills to do all the wood working skills.) My husband pre-drilled and put the screws in for the younger scouts (Bears helped put in their own screws) and Home Depot measured and sawed the blocks for us. The dimensions were 3x4" and 6x4" two blocks of each. The boys had fun sanding and then they painted their bookends. I had envisioned white, but my cubs found other colors of paint and we ended up with a lot of splatter painting which actually looked great. We used spray paint, but half the boys couldn't do spray painting very well and I was terrified it would get on their clothes, so next time I think I'll have paint shirts and acrylic paint ready to go. I had each boy choose a dinosaur toy to decorate their bookend so I would know which ones to have cut and ready for gluing the next week. The instructions I followed said to cut the dinosaurs with a stanley knife and glue the dinosaurs on with hot glue, but we used E6000 outside in a well ventilated spot just to be sure it would hold (see walmart craft section).
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| rubberbands help hold things in place while the glue dries. |
Supplies for Dinosaur Bookends
1x4 lumber cut into two 3" and two 6" blocks
1 1/2" screws
medium or fine grit sandpaper
paper or cardboard to cover ground while painting
paint (green, white, black)
paint brushes if using acrylic paint rather than spray paint
hot glue or E6000
rubber bands or masking tape to hold dinos in place while glue dries.
Den Meeting #2 "imaginary dinosaur"
Gathering: Finish gluing or painting or staining the "useful" project if needed, (such as gluing dinosaurs onto the bookends), or tell dinosaur jokes. If you plan on doing dinosaur digs next time, have the first boys to arrive help you with these, if boys are late and don't help make the digs, don't worry too much, the requirement only specificies that they do a dig made by another cub scout, not that they personally make the dig.
Dinosaur Digs: lay out bones, dinosaurs, toys, sea shells, coins, etc in a plastic container, 1 for each boy. For an easier dig Mix 4-8 cups sand with 1 cup plaster of paris and 1 cup water. Working quickly (this sets fast) layer sand, then misc items, then more sand and leave to air dry, (don't cover with a lid) until next week. The following week they can dig them out with spoons, plastic knives, bamboo skewers, and paint brushes. If you use all plaster of paris you will need nails and hammers to do the dig. The easier dig will take 15-20 minutes. If you have a lot of older boys, you'll want to make the dig harder.
Activity: Make an imaginary dinosaur(s) and fill out a trading card or cards for each dinosaur.
The imaginary dinosaur pictured in the Wolf book uses paper rolls, boxes, and bottles. If doing these kinds of dinosaurs have lots and lots of tape and some sharpie markers on hand. I knew my den needed something simpler. The simplest version I saw for this was clothespins , foam shapes, and paper (see picture below). The gluesticks, clothespins, plates, foam, and markers can all be purchased at the dollar store, craft store, or walmart. If you are lucky you will even find the foam in little peel and stick shapes. I would have the foam, head and tail pieces prepared in advance. Then the boys can add their own color to the plates and clothespins with crayon or marker and glue the foam on themselves!
Another option is making playdough dinosaurs. Check out these pictures of great playdough fantastical dinosaurs!!! (scroll down to the eighth project-pasta, googley eyes, and play dough. There is even a wood imaginary dinosaur project, so you could have the Baloo "fun project" and the "imaginary dinosaur" be the same activity!!!).
I love having a fill in the blank card ready where we write down the creature's name, food, and where it lives so that they can take home and show off how creative they are. I encourage silly dinosaurs like pizza-o-saurus or stinkysock-o-saurus.
example:
name: Bubble Gum-a-saurus
favorite food: bubble gum
lives: in sticky swamps and blows bubbles out of slime and muck
Dinosaur Fossil Dough from Red Kite Days blog
Activity: make edible fossil layers
You can layer in cups, but the layers were more visible using a glass pan. I had half the recipe in cups and half in the pan. We weren't able to get two layers of cream, but you may have better luck with pudding. Also if a boy doesn't like one of the layers, he can take his dessert cup home to his family and just munch on pretzels or plain jello for his snack at the activity.
Ingredients (made 10 jello cups plus an 8" pan):
Then teach the boys about how fossils are formed when animals are caught in layers of sediment. (Sediment: solid matter like rocks broken into very small bits such as sand and gravel, leaves, branches, etc.)
We have some edible sediments to layer on our edible animals. Some layers make the animals dissolve and others don't (like the jello vs the pretzel layer).
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| Check this book out from your library, my cub scouts loved it as a gathering activity! |
Dinosaur Digs: lay out bones, dinosaurs, toys, sea shells, coins, etc in a plastic container, 1 for each boy. For an easier dig Mix 4-8 cups sand with 1 cup plaster of paris and 1 cup water. Working quickly (this sets fast) layer sand, then misc items, then more sand and leave to air dry, (don't cover with a lid) until next week. The following week they can dig them out with spoons, plastic knives, bamboo skewers, and paint brushes. If you use all plaster of paris you will need nails and hammers to do the dig. The easier dig will take 15-20 minutes. If you have a lot of older boys, you'll want to make the dig harder.
Activity: Make an imaginary dinosaur(s) and fill out a trading card or cards for each dinosaur.
The imaginary dinosaur pictured in the Wolf book uses paper rolls, boxes, and bottles. If doing these kinds of dinosaurs have lots and lots of tape and some sharpie markers on hand. I knew my den needed something simpler. The simplest version I saw for this was clothespins , foam shapes, and paper (see picture below). The gluesticks, clothespins, plates, foam, and markers can all be purchased at the dollar store, craft store, or walmart. If you are lucky you will even find the foam in little peel and stick shapes. I would have the foam, head and tail pieces prepared in advance. Then the boys can add their own color to the plates and clothespins with crayon or marker and glue the foam on themselves!
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| picture from a Facebook post |
Another option is making playdough dinosaurs. Check out these pictures of great playdough fantastical dinosaurs!!! (scroll down to the eighth project-pasta, googley eyes, and play dough. There is even a wood imaginary dinosaur project, so you could have the Baloo "fun project" and the "imaginary dinosaur" be the same activity!!!).
I love having a fill in the blank card ready where we write down the creature's name, food, and where it lives so that they can take home and show off how creative they are. I encourage silly dinosaurs like pizza-o-saurus or stinkysock-o-saurus.
example:
name: Bubble Gum-a-saurus
favorite food: bubble gum
lives: in sticky swamps and blows bubbles out of slime and muck
Den Meeting #3 "Dinosaur Fossils"
Gathering: Make a fossil cast or do a dinosaur dig
To make dough for the fossil cast look authentic, try adding coffee grounds to the recipe. Ask at any restaurant or a good friend if you don't have your own, they just go in the trash after all, I'm sure they would be glad to help out the cub scouts! Or you can put sand in the dough for a nice texture as well. Here are two great idea pages
Sand dough from Frugal Fun for Boys
Activity: make edible fossil layers
The Wolf book calls for strawberry jello, animal crackers, crushed graham crackers, and vanilla pudding. We subbed our favorite pretzel jello dessert recipe which is similar, but we especially like because of the buttery sweet pretzels.
You can layer in cups, but the layers were more visible using a glass pan. I had half the recipe in cups and half in the pan. We weren't able to get two layers of cream, but you may have better luck with pudding. Also if a boy doesn't like one of the layers, he can take his dessert cup home to his family and just munch on pretzels or plain jello for his snack at the activity.
Ingredients (made 10 jello cups plus an 8" pan):
8 oz pretzels
5 tbs butter
4 tbs sugar
1 cup sugar
8 oz cream cheese
1 8oz container whipped topping, thawed
6 oz strawberry jello
8 oz frozen strawberries, cut up a bit (optional)
2 cups boiling water
1 cup cold water
1 package animal crackers (small dollar store package is plenty)
Advance Preparation:
1) crush pretzels until the pieces are very small then toss with melted butter and sugar. Spread out in a pan and toast at 350 for 6 minutes, stirring halfway through, cool. 
2) Dissolve jello in 2 cups boiling water. Then add 1 cup cold water and strawberries, if adding a full 16oz of strawberries you can skip the 1 cup cold water. Or you can skip strawberries entirely. Pour a 1" layer of jello in each clear cup or in a glass casserole dish. After about 10 min in the refrigerator you can put an animal cracker in each cup to represent animals caught in the fossil layers
Cub Scouts Cooking:
Have the scouts watch or participate in adding 1 cup sugar and the cream cheese to a mixer and mixing until smooth. Then gently fold in the whipped topping.
Then teach the boys about how fossils are formed when animals are caught in layers of sediment. (Sediment: solid matter like rocks broken into very small bits such as sand and gravel, leaves, branches, etc.)
We have some edible sediments to layer on our edible animals. Some layers make the animals dissolve and others don't (like the jello vs the pretzel layer).
To make their own sediment layers the boys first sprinkle a thin layer of pretzel on the jello. Optionally they can add another animal cracker, then they dollop a spoonful or two of the cream filling on that. If they dip their clean fingers in water they should be able to smooth the cream layer down flat without it sticking, wet spoons can also work. Finally they sprinkle another thin layer of pretzels.
Den Meeting #4 "fun dino wood project"
Make a "Fun" Project such as dinosaur tic tac toe (see the Wolf book). Again it doesn't have to be a dinosaur project, whatever is simple for you to do. Our day camp always has the bears do a fun wood project and making a pinewood derby car definitely counts as well, so if you did this badge closer to day camp or the pinewood derby you could even skip this den meeting.
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| full page of dinosaur trading cards |
