Cub Scouts: Waves of Fun Pack Meeting

My new position in Cub Scouts left me in charge of this month's Pack Meeting.  Last year's water theme Pack Meeting involved water balloon games.  I heard some of the boys were disappointed with the lack of wetness.  With the 110 degree weather here, I wasn't interested in doing Pack Meeting outside.  It was a good call since there was a huge monsoon downpour during our Pack Meeting.  

We went with a ship theme instead.  I pulled several ideas from Balloo's Bugle.  Our gathering activity was School of Fish.  One of our Wolf leaders taped the name of a fish (catfish, cod, etc.) on everyone's back - yes, parents too.


After the Pledge and a prayer, we talked about the six ships of scouting - scholar-ship, fellow-ship, friend-ship, Workman-ship, sportsman-ship, and statesman-ship.  I also talked for a minute about the importance of parent involvement to the success of their son's Cub Scout program.


We sung a very lively Shark Song.  I'm so glad I taught my Wolves the song while I was their Den leader!  I had them stand up with me to help teach it to the audience.  


To receive their awards, the boys had to cross the shark infested waters.  Some of them really hammed it up and crossed them backwards!  Even though our den leaders would never fish for compliments, we thanked them with a bag of Red Swedish Fish and a roll of Lifesavers (do you know how hard it is to find a roll of Lifesavers these days?).  Our cheers were all fish / ocean related.  My favorite was the Jaws cheer.

Our activity was our version of Balloo's Bugle's Crab Race (p. 66).  We divided the children up in two teams.  Four of them at a time would get inside a hula hoop and race to the table at the opposite end.  One of them would pick a paper out of the bowl and would have to do the Bobcat requirement they drew; the Cub Scout Salute, the Oath or the Promise, etc.  The first team to complete all seven requirements won bragging rights.  The children had fun and they had to work together to get everyone to from one end of the room to the other.  One of the teams tipped over and lost one of their team members.  They had to go back, get everyone back in the hula hoop before they could continue.


We settled everyone down with one of my favorite stories about a starfish (p. 42 of Balloo's Bugle).  After our closing prayer, everyone picked up a bag of Goldfish crackers as they headed home.