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elaine whalley


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Hi I am new to scouting and are training to be asisstant leader of a pack and would like ideas about how to teach cubs the law and promise. Whether it be in a song, poem,play, cut out (I have a cut out hand) Hopefully there is some other ideas out there thanks if you can help me, elaine

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Welcome to Scouting Elaine,

 

I suggest that you get position specific training as soon as possible to start off with. Assuming you are with cub scouts and not boy scouts (cubs are 1st grade thru 5th grade while boy scouts are generally 11 yrs old thru 18) their Oath is different from that of boy scouts and they aren't taught the Law at this point unless they are Webelos (4th/5th graders).

 

There are lots of resources which your local pack should have (talk to the cubmaster and committee chair) such as activity books, song books, program help books, etc. At the pack level, you can put on a very good program just by following the book or you can add items / games that the kids like best.

 

Go to your District round table - it is held each month and will give you great ideas of what you can do with the boys.

 

HTH

Quixote

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Quixote,

 

The Cub Scouts do have the Law of the Pack and the Cub Scout Promise.

 

As for ideas.....

Repeation. You could incorperated props to help them along the way. The How To book provides several ideas for many different projects, games, etc. I think I saw a pection on promise and law...but I may be wrong. Get with you Unit Commissioner and get ideas from them as well as other packs at the roundtable.

 

Good luck, and Congrats on leading the boys,

 

Tim Dyer

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Your council service center has two large, brightly colored posters of the Law of the Pack and the Cub Promise that only cost $2 each. I would get those to decorate your meeting room and to help the boys to learn them.

 

Incorportate The Promise and Law of the Pack into opening and closing ceremonies at Den and Pack meetings.

 

Take each oath one line at a time and discuss their meaning with the cubs so that it becomes more personal to them then just repeating the words.

 

Best of Luck,

Bob White

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Try word searches, printing the words on card and making a jigsaw, looking through a newspaper and finding examples of people who would be keeping the Cub promise and law or breaking them.

We print the promise onto A4 card then cut it into pieces. We hve one set of pieces per group of cubs and run a quiz. every time a cub gets a question right he picks a piece of card. The winning group is the first to get all the words of the promise.

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Elaine,

Welcome to scouting. As it has been said in previous replys..repetition is the key. I have always used the living circle to close our den meetings. We have a couple of home made posters with the promise and the law of the pack on the floor inside the circle for the newer scouts to use as a referance only. They are encouraged to remember it as soon as possible.

Good luck in your scouting. It may frustrate you at times but there are those moments where you are beeming with pride for your scouts that truley helps you to understand why we devote ourselves to this the way we do.

YIS

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I have a handmade poster that has the Law on one side & the Promise on the other. I brought it to each meeting & we read aloud one or the other during our opening. Repetition is the key & eventually the boys get it.

 

I found a cute fill-in-the blank for the Bobcat trail that the boys did as a busy activity for one meeting. See

http://www.creighton.edu/~bsteph/pack114/funpages/bobcat1.html

 

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  • 1 month later...

Do Tiger Cubs still have a separate promise and motto, or do they now start learning the Cub Scout Promise and Law of the Pack right away, since we now have Tiger Cub dens and den leaders?

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Do Tiger Cubs still have a separate promise and motto, or do they now start learning the Cub Scout Promise and Law of the Pack right away, since we now have Tiger Cub dens and den leaders?

 

The answer to the first question is definitely yes, Tigers still have their Promise (I Promise to love God, my Family, and my Country, and to Learn about the World) and motto (Search, Discover, Share.) The answer to the second question is that while they do NOT learn the Cub Scout Promise and Law of the Pack "right away," they CAN do so toward the end of the "Tiger year," which is a change from the past.

 

The Cub Scout Promise, Law of the Pack and Motto are introduced as part of the Bobcat requirements, just as previously. The change is that previously, the boys did not work on Bobcat until they were into their "Wolf year" (for most boys, at the beginning of second grade.) Now, the Bobcat requirements are also at the end of the Tiger Book, and the den leaders can (I don't think they are required to) have the boys earn Bobcat while they are still in first grade. I have not gone over the book with a fine-toothed comb, but it is my understanding that after the boys earn the Tiger badge, they then do electives to earn beads, and at the same time as the electives, they can (either as a group or individually) do the Bobcat requirements.

 

Our pack had previously had a "Tiger graduation" either at the last or next-to-last pack meeting in the spring. It had no real official meaning as far as I knew, and no badges were given out, it was just a nice ceremony to recognize the boys and what they had accomplished during their first year with the pack. With the change this year, as Assistant Cubmaster, I encouraged the den leaders to have the boys earn Bobcat in time for the last meeting of the year and award that as part of the "Tiger graduation." That is what they did, and for their last meeting of first grade, all the boys recited their newly-learned Cub Scout Promise in front of the pack. Somewhat haltingly in some cases, but some of these boys are still 6 years old.

 

I don't think you would get a very good result introducing the Cub Scout Promise and Law of the Pack "right away," that is, at the beginning of first grade -- when some of the boys may still be age 5. I think the BSA has done a good job with the progression of "promises," "laws" and "mottos," increasing both the number, length and complexity of the things the boys have to memorize and recite as they get older and better able to learn and repeat information verbatim.

 

On the other had, I myself get confused sometimes. As a den leader and now ACM I have never been able to memorize the Cub Scout Promise because it is so close to, and yet different from, the Scout Oath, so when I need it I read it from a book or paper. I cannot keep both in my head at the same time, and I have no desire to un-learn the Scout Oath which I have known since I was almost 11. In fact, a few weeks ago I was "flying solo" running a pack meeting for the first time because the CM was away, and when it came time in the opening ceremony to ask the boys to recite the Cub Scout Promise, I had to think for a second whether it was called an "oath" or "promise." I did get it right, and I hope my momentary fumbling wasn't noticeable to the boys. :) Of course, I had forgotten to bring anything with the Promise to the podium, so it was really "led" by the boys, which was not a problem since the flag ceremony was being done by an incoming Webelos den, and they can do it in their sleep.(This message has been edited by NJCubScouter)

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Prior to this year we would hold a Tiger graduation ceremony at our last formal Pack meeting of the school, in May. This was when all ranks would graduate to the next level of Scouting. The Tigers would receive their "Tiger Cub" bar to be worn on their blue Cub Scout shirt and the "Tiger Graduate" patch for their red patch vest.

 

This year the the Tigers had rank advancement ceremonies just like the other levels. At our first Pack meeting in September, the boys demonstrated their knowledge of the Tiger Cub Motto, Cub Scout Sign and Cub Scout Salute to earn their Tiger Totem. As the months went on they earned their achievement beads (3 in each of 5 areas) and then their Tiger Rank. Their rank badge (which now goes on the blue Cub Scout shirt where the Webelos rank badge used to go) was presented at a Pack Meeting with a very nice advancement ceremony where we made a big point of telling everyone that this was the first time EVER this badge had been awarded! The boys were VERY proud!! For our May Graduation Pack meeting this year, the Tigers (new Wolves!) received their Wolf scarf, Wolf book and a wood scarf slide with their initials woodburned in. They had been practicing the Cub Scout Promise at each den meeting the last few months and had started on the Law also. By our September Pack meeting they should all be ready to receive their Bobcat Rank! I have a real cool ceremony using light sticks powered by Cub Scout spirit that I want to try! Maybe we can call it "Cub Scout Fuel" and have them Blasting off to Bobcats!!

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As in all things, whether your Tigers should/must work on the Bobcat requirements is a matter of that in which they're interested as well as that of which they're capable. There's no ironclad rule that they should complete Bobcat before their Tiger year is up, and there's no rule that they can't. If you believe that they'll be unsuccessful at it because as kids they're simply not ready, why set them up for failure? And conversely, why hold them back if they're ready?

 

I'm now on my 3rd time thru, and just finished w/our Tigers (including my 3rd son.) Those boys could scarcely hold still for anything - so we let the Tiger year be "low-key". Frankly, I think the chief goals of the Tiger year should be familiarizing the *families* with the program, and letting parents/guardians have a crack at leading den activities and develop relationships amongst themselves.

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What I did for my boys (actually my wife came up with the idea) was make a bookmark out of construction paper and I had preprinted on paper the Boy Scout Law, Oath, Outdoor Code, Motto, BSA Symbol, etc. and had the boys cut them out (I made sure they were the appropriate size) and paste them onto the construction paper bookmark and then had them "laminate" the bookmarks with clear contact paper. This served two functions, I told them that when I sign-off their requirements, be sure to put the bookmark in the appropriate spot and they got to see the Law, Oath, etc. again and again. The same can be done for Cubs.

 

Another early assignment I give them is to make book covers so that I can tell whose book is whose!(This message has been edited by acco40)

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