Tell me your fun Cub Scout family campout ideas!

[jodifla]

I'm looking for hints and suggestions to plan a fun family campout in a few months. Our pack has about 40 boys and their families. We'll be at a BSA camp and have the usual: tent camping, archery, bb guns, fishing, swimming, fire at night.

We need to pick out a theme and do meal planning. We arrive Saturday right before lunch, so we need Saturday lunch, Saturday dinner, snacks, and Sunday breakfast. Also looking for games and other activities.

TIA!!!

 

[Liberty Belle]

Our cubscout camping trip is coming up in April. Can't wait!

I think one fun thing would be for the boys to make one of their own meals using the foil packet method. Maybe chicken breast and potatoes or chicken breast, potatoes, and green beans or carrots?

 

[funhouse8]

Paperbag skits. Before leaving home make up paperbags with props. Things found around your house, Around 5 in each. One bag for each group. Maybe a patrol or each tent. Hand out the bags during quiet time in the afternoon and tell each group they have to come up with a skit lasting a few minutes by using the props in the bag. Then at night you have them perform their skits around the campfire. It can be very entertaining.

 

[funhouse8]

Oh kick the can icecream is lots of fun too. You make it in a small coffee can placed inside the large one. Goggle it. Have fun!

 

[RF536]

Our pack does, tug-of-war, capture the flag, kickball, hiking, scavenger hunt, map and compass, ultimate.

 

[Swank]

Do a few activities that will earn a Belt-Loop, like ultimate frisbee, marbles, hiking ect.

Find a Leader or Parent who has a GPS for Geo Caching.

If you need a Vegetarian Option here is my wife's very simple camp Chili Recipe


1 can diced tomatoes, I used Store Brand brand diced tomatoes with basil and oregano, or Mexican Version
1 can dark red kidney beans
1 can pink beans
1/2 green pepper
1/2 red pepper
1/2 onion
1 package McCormick's Orginal Chili Mix

DO NOT drain any of the beans, just put everything in the pot and mix. I use an Iron Dutch Oven over the fire.

Last Saturday I doubled everything which feed about 10 or 12 people.

 

[stsomewhere]

Make it easy.

Everyone bring a bagged lunch. For dinner hot dogs/ hamburgers, chips.
While foil dinners are great, I believe fire cooking is only allowed for WEBELOS.

Skits, songs around fire, night walk

 

[Magpie]

You've got to have S'Mores!

Put a marshmallow on the end of a stick. Roast it. When it's good and hot, get a friend to help smoosh it between two Graham Crackers, with a square of chocolate in between.

It's a traditional snack, that goes great with slightly naughty songs around the campfire. (ie. My Poor Meatball. Blue Moon. Great Green Gobs of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts. etc...) Also - ghost stories about murdered campers.

 

[KiminChicago]

The scouts wouldn't have to actually cook the foil pouch dinners, they could assemble them and one or two of the adults could handle the fire. We used to do this all the time -- just have the scouts write their name on their pouch with a Sharpie before they fill the inside. We used hamburger patties for the meat and got a huge bag of frozen veggies from Costco. For lunch, you could use the chili with snack bags of Fritos for walk-around tacos -- crush up the Fritos, open the top of the bag, dump in some chili, a little shredded lettuce and some cheese and you have an easy lunch with not a lot of cleanup.

ETA: We also used the frozen hash brown potatoes for the foil pouch dinners, along with some shredded cheddar cheese (which we also used for the tacos). The chili can be premade and the lettuce pre-shredded before you get to the campsite, so all you have to do is heat the chili and you're ready to serve lunch. For breakfast, I'd just offer donuts, bagels and fruit. Depending on when you're scheduled to leave on Sunday, most families will want to be packing up, so cooking a big breakfast was never a priority with our pack.

 

[RF536]

FYI - Cub scouts can only do shooting sports at council sponsored events such as Day and Resident Camp. Below is from the Guide to Safe Scouting.

Cub Scouting Standards
Cub Scouts are permitted to participate only in the following shooting activities.

Archery and BB gun shooting are restricted to day camps, Cub Scout/Webelos Scout resident camps, councilmanaged family camping programs, or to council activities where there are properly trained supervisors and all standards for BSA shooting sports are enforced. Archery and BB gun shooting are not to be done at the pack level.

Tiger Cubs, Wolf Cub Scouts, and Bear Cub Scouts are not permitted to use any other type of pistol or firearm, including pellet guns.

Webelos Scouts are permitted to use air rifles at Webelos resident camp in accordance to BSA national standards for resident camp.

 

[shirleyb]

I used to plan GREAT Cub Scout family campouts. I did one that was a mystery theme. Someone stole the Cubmasters favorite neckerchief, and I planted clues all around camp - puzzles they had to solve, things with disappearing ink, etc. It was a big hit.

Twice we did Survivor campouts. We split the parents, siblings, and Cubs into teams, and had them do all kinds of Survivor type challenges - food challenges, making fire, obstacles courses, etc. I gave each team different color and styles of bandanas as their buffs and they had to make a team name and flag that they carried with them all day.

Another time we did Amazing Race.

Another time we did a Geocaching thing where each team had their own GPS and had to find the cache at each set of coordinates to then find their next set of coordinates.

Our family campouts used to be so much fun. In the evening then, we'd do skits and a campfire. Both my boys are now Eagle Scouts, so those days are behind me, but I have lots of great memories of Cub family times.

 

[MichelleinMaine]

Make it easy.

Everyone bring a bagged lunch. For dinner hot dogs/ hamburgers, chips.
While foil dinners are great, I believe fire cooking is only allowed for WEBELOS.

Younger cubs can cook over a fire (properly supervised, of course!) I was program director for our district's day camp (Nat'l Camp School trained)- we had them all cooking on the fire from the get go, age-appropriate, of course.
As said above, I'd not have the cubbies tending the foil dinners, or say, frying hambuger on a grill. They surely can cook a hot dog or marshmellow over the fire or make a pizza on a tin can burner/etc.

 

[Tink888]

Agree with a prior poster about having the boys work on requirements for a belt loop. They could also work on the requirements for the Leave No Trace patch.

Pizza mountain pies and walking tacos were always big hits when my boys were in scouts.

Banana boats make a great snack. Take a banana, leave the peel on and slice banana lengthwise about half way through, fill banana with pieces of chocolate and mini-marshmellows, wrap banana in foil, have an adult place in campfire long enough for chocolate and marshmellows to melt. Tastes like a banana split.

 

[jodifla]

great ideas! Thanks. I've printed them out and am talking them to my meeting tonight.