Tell me your fun Cub Scout family campout ideas!

[JamesMom]

This isn't what we've been told.

In fact, I was just at a boy scout jamboree in the fall at a boy scout camp, and all the cub scouts were using bbguns and doing archery.

We are setting this all up through our Boy Scout Council, and they are completely aware of everything we are doing, and have even assigned us the bbgun and archery ranges.

If this is a council sponsored event, then yes, BB gun and Archery will be available. Our council has several 'family' campout weekends that any cub family can attend with or without Den/Pack registration and they have all these activities available. For general Pack campouts or reservations, then no.

 

[JamesMom]

One more comment about food (Pack Committee Chair here), Families responsible to bring water, sack lunch, drinks, snacks and breakfast items. Families coordinate with their Dens for dinner (food, plates, firewood, drinks, condiments, etc) and can either do the same for breakfast or plan as families. Our pack plans and prepares no meals. I know of some packs who do though. Find out what your pack has done in the past. No sense reinventing the wheel.

 

[shirleyb]

See my post in this same thread on the CB.

 

[tyniknate]

We did minute to win it games. The boys had a blast and it was done with simple things we had around the house. Each Den brought a game or two and we got some wonderful pictures from it. Minute-to-Win It has a website with game descriptions or you can make up your own.

We also did soda bottle rockets. The kids keep asking when we are going to do them again. You can find the specs online.

Our pack prepares all the meals for our campouts. We collect around $3 per person for the weekend and prepare food for everyone. We had a problem with familes "remembering" what they signed up to bring or not bringing food at all. It's just easier to have one or two moms prepare the meals and know everyone is getting hot, hearty and healthful meals.

Biggest thing to remember is to Have fun!

 

[Jedana]

Make sure they have some downtime. We did cubaree this year, and it was go go go go...and my Tigers got burnt out..

We've had three campouts this year. One was up in GA, and at the national park, they did a tour about the local flora and fauna. We also did games--there was one where they were split into teams of 3-4 and had 2 pieces of carpet or floor mats--and had to get everyone across to the other side (from rope to rope), without touching the ground.

This time, we're doing a rock climbing wall. Also, they are making bird feeders (pine cones, natural twine, suet, oatmeal and birdseed) and the Bears are hosting a "carnival" theme game area. Plus a volleyball set up, so they can work on the volleyball belt loop. The Weeblos 2 are crossing there, so it'll be a lot of fun!

Always, skits around the campfire. Silly boy songs (like I've run over my dead dog rover)

They can work on their Leave No Trace badge. See if there is a service project to do.

 

[Jedana]

One more comment about food (Pack Committee Chair here), Families responsible to bring water, sack lunch, drinks, snacks and breakfast items. Families coordinate with their Dens for dinner (food, plates, firewood, drinks, condiments, etc) and can either do the same for breakfast or plan as families. Our pack plans and prepares no meals. I know of some packs who do though. Find out what your pack has done in the past. No sense reinventing the wheel.

We are on our own for Friday night dinners at camp. Most people bring Subway or fried chicken.
The rest of the meals are done by the pack. The parents rotate who is cooking (Weeblos parents Sat morning, Bears SAt lunch, Wolves, Sat dinner and Tigers Sun breakfast). The pack collects $5 plus the $ (usually $1-2) for the campsites. We have a trailer, and all the equipment, although we have stayed at a couple of places that had kitchens available for our use.

 

[jodifla]

such great ideas! thanks everyone.

 

[jodifla]

You have some great ideas for food. You asked if anyone had done subs. Our pack has done subs. We actually ordered take-out subs from a local deli's catering menu. They called it their great divide and you got 30" sub which was easily cut into 6 inch subs in one type for @$15 each. We got three different kinds. Italian, Ham and Cheese and Baloney and Cheese. Between those, bug juice and some chips our work was done.

For activities, aside from the archery and bb gun shooting I recommend planning some other non-skill activities. Setting up camp will take time but it won't take all day. We do a pack campout every june and outdoor activities include fishing, volleyball, badminton, bug finding/identification and pick up games of soccer and baseball. Since this will be a pack event I highly recommend the volleyball because they can earn the belt loop. Another belt loop that you could try to tackle with them - kickball. It's a new belt loop this year and all it will take for planning is a ball and some of those throw down plates or some cones that I'm betting someone in your pack already has.

I have to say some of the best activities I've seen have come out of the electives in the back of the handbooks. Just last week my den played Pie Pan washer Toss an elective in the back of the Wolf book. A few foil pie pans - some candy eggs instead of washers (cause I have some "enthusiastic" boys who tend to get hurt - one of them still got hit in the eye but at least it was semi-melted chocolate and not a metal washer). We added a few variants to the game like put the pan on the ground and see how far away you can stand and still get your egg in the pan without it bouncing out and we had half an hours worth of entertainment. One the best things for the kids was at the end they each got to eat a "egg". I had several of the boys ask if they could take the pie pans home they were having so much fun with them. There are also have some other great ideas like ring toss and some great crafts in the backs of the books. Pick an activity from each scout level and not only do you get some great easy peasy (and inexpensive) ideas but the boys get rewarded for their participation by elective points which count toward arrrow points/beads.

One suggestion for your campfire - Boy Scouts are wonderful at campfire activities - we often get a couple of boys to help out. We've found they can keep the entire pack in stitches for hours with skits and tell some fun ghost stories and they'll do vespers and taps. Ask your local troop if they have any boys who might like to participate by leading campfire activities. It can be a win-win for both the pack and the Boy Scouts as in addition to making things easy for you the Boy Scouts can complete a merit badge requirement for Communications (an eagle required badge) and they can earn community service hours.

For our campouts we tend to skip "themes" because it just makes it more complicated and expensive - though in a way I guess you could say our theme is fun in the great outdoors.

Love the volleyball and badminton ideas, and some of the games. It feels like today's kids don't play the outside games that we used to.

 

[jodifla]

We had the campout last weeked....it went great! We had about 30 kids, about 70 people total. When we got there, everyone set up, and the boys made medallions as a keepsake from slices of wood that were then on a string. The original idea was to have each boy add a feather to the medallion after each event, but we nixed that because it was so hot the boys didn't want to wear the medallions.

Our theme was Native American, and a representative from our local tribe came in to talk to the boys. Then we did field games, swimming, practiced our kits, archery and BB guns.

Breakfast was simple both days....coffee, juice, milk, cereal, bagels, muffins, breakfast bars.

Lunch was Subway sandwiches.

Dinner was burgers, potato salad, beans, regular salad, cake.

The only downside was it was unseasonably hot in Michigan! But all the boys were thrilled.

Thanks everyone for your great ideas.

 

[3boymthr]

Glad you had a great time. We just did ours last weekend too. Lucky for us it was sunny and cool (73 for the high). The kids went swimming anyway.

 

[labdogs42]

Bumping for any more ideas since these are a few years old and I have a Cub scout campout coming up in a few weeks! Funny thing is, I'm a hard core DIS-er (as you can probably tell from my post count), but it never occurred to me to look here for Cub Scout ideas. But this thread came up in my google search! Why do I ever look anywhere else but the DIS? The DIS knows ALL!

 

[GraysMom]

Our pack has about 100 boys in it. The last two years my husband and I have organized and run spring camp, which takes place at a Boy Scout camp, but none of the facilities are open for the season when we're there at the end of March (including indoor bathroom facilities!). We sleep in a one room lodge with bunk beds, electricity and a fireplace. There are usually 60+ scouts and adults on these trips since it's Tigers through Bears. We feed them 3 cooked meals on Saturday plus a quick breakfast on Sunday before cleaning up. We look for food donations to keep the food costs down as well.

Foods we usually make include hot dogs (fried on the pack's electric griddles), spaghetti ( water cooked over the fireplace, sauce heated in crock pots, garlic rolls on the griddles), pancakes and bacon (pancakes cooked on the griddles, I precook 10 lbs of bacon before camp so they can just heat & eat it), chili (over the fire), foil puppies (over the fire-boys can select from canned diced potatoes, corn, hamburger, butter and some spices such as garlic powder and seasoned salt), and we always have s'mores over the fire on Saturday night.

A popular activity was the Astronomy belt loop. Our camp is in the Poconos so there is much less lighting to deal with and the boys can see further with the help of a few telescopes (we also use the SkyView free app to help initially locate what constellations and planets we are looking for).

We also ask the boys to bring board/card games along in case of bad weather.

 

[GraysMom]

Bumping for any more ideas since these are a few years old and I have a Cub scout campout coming up in a few weeks! Funny thing is, I'm a hard core DIS-er (as you can probably tell from my post count), but it never occurred to me to look here for Cub Scout ideas. But this thread came up in my google search! Why do I ever look anywhere else but the DIS? The DIS knows ALL!

Jessica, do you mind if I ask which camp your pack goes to? We usually stay at Settlers Camp at TSR.

There is also an app for the iPhone called Camp Songs that I've used at Cub Scout Day Camp as well as Knots 3D Free that demos how to tie various knots. I have a Summer Time Nature Scavenger Hunt Bingo pinned on my Pinterest page as well, so that might be another activity idea.

 

[labdogs42]

Jessica, do you mind if I ask which camp your pack goes to? We usually stay at Settlers Camp at TSR.

There is also an app for the iPhone called Camp Songs that I've used at Cub Scout Day Camp as well as Knots 3D Free that demos how to tie various knots. I have a Summer Time Nature Scavenger Hunt Bingo pinned on my Pinterest page as well, so that might be another activity idea.

Our resident camp is at Akelaland. And we do a spring campout at Camp Minsi. That's all we have really done so far.

 

[GraysMom]

Our resident camp is at Akelaland. And we do a spring campout at Camp Minsi. That's all we have really done so far.

Akelaland and Trexler Scout Reserve (where Settler's Camp is located) are joined together so I know where you mean. Our summer resident camp is also at Akelaland. Next year DS will be doing Winter Camp since he will be too old for Spring Camp, but I don't know where that will be (hopefully some place with indoor plumbing! The 2 seat outhouse at the end of March is rather chilly and...doesn't smell so fresh after being shared with 59 other scouts and dads ).

DH did the mini week with DS9 last year, this year it's my turn for the mini week . DS would love to do the full week but I'm not up for that and not ready to release him for a week on his own quite yet since he had some bouts of sleepwalking when he was younger and I worry about him wandering off in the night. Is your DS going to resident camp this summer? Maybe we could have a mini DIS meet at scout camp, LOL!