Autumn Lane School
Autumn Lane School
Physical Skills:
Aquanaut – Unless you have access to a pool and a BSA lifeguard, boys should earn this at Cub Adventure Camp. All 1st or 2nd year Webelos scouts that pass the BSA swim test (blue) are able to do the Aquanaut badge on the second day of camp. Swimming belt loop is earned for all that earned the red or blue on swim the test.
Athlete – Unless you can get access to a gym, plan to do this over the summer, or early fall/late spring at a playground outdoors. Use playground equipment. Boys really had fun doing stations of exercises and tracking their progress from week to week. Completion of this includes Physical Fitness belt loop.
Fitness (required for Webelos badge) – This one is tough to do and make it fun, especially if you’ve already covered the food pyramid as Tigers, Wolves, and Bears! We had this one done as homework as well. Boys had to write 2-5 sentences to cover being healthy and the dangers of drugs, tobacco and alcohol. They planned meals for a week and kept track of actual food eaten for a week. We had the boys take turns reading an article about drugs from a Boy’s Life Magazine.
Sportsman – This is a great opportunity to earn Sports belt loops. Great ideas for easy Individual sports: Marbles, Bowling, Bicycling. Great ideas for easy Team sports (make these pack activities if your den is too small to play): Ultimate Frisbee, Flag Football. Whatever sports you do, you earn the belt loop!
Mental Skills:
Artist – Ask the art teacher if she can help with occupations and give a presentation. Color mixing with colored water is easy to do for the primary/secondary color demonstration. You may want to make mobiles out of pre-cut wooden shapes (craft stores have nature/camp related ones) & provide the scouts with only the 3 primary paint colors, so they can figure out how to make other colors on their own if desired. Also, if you can get an overhead projector, do shadow profiles. This badge is a lot of fun. The Art belt loop works in easily with this badge.
Scholar – Get someone from school (teacher, principal, etc) to talk to the boys about education and work on the belt loops that are part of this badge. Hold a chess tournament and a Math Night (either for your den, or your pack). Belt loops: Chess, Mathematics, Language and Culture.
Showman – Make sure that you choose items from each of the three categories in order to complete the badge. You need at least one item from each of the three areas when you are done. We did a lot with the puppets, but also had one meeting where we covered music. For the drama part, we worked on skits for our annual Blue and Gold dinner. Music belt loop is part of this badge.
Traveler – Bring in materials from a car first aid kit and talk about what each item is for. Talk about travel safety while you are doing this. Bring items you would pack for a trip (and some you wouldn’t) and ask the boys to figure out what they would pack for a 2 day trip somewhere. Combine some of the map items with the Geography belt loop and borrow maps from AAA (you need city, state and country maps) to have the boys work in groups to answer questions about the maps. Geography and Map and Compass belt loops are available as part of this badge.
Community:
Citizen (required for Arrow of Light) – We covered the materials required over a couple weeks and tried to make it fun for the boys. America Rock (Schoolhouse Rock) covers some of the topics here. We covered the flag information at one meeting and had a flag retirement ceremony. At the end of the badge, we had them play Citizen Jeopardy to see if they remembered and understood what we had covered. The boys can also tour a local town hall to see how things work. Citizenship belt loop is required for this badge. Don’t forget to make time for a service project. We rang the bell for Salvation Army, but also considered having a canned food drive. Participation in Scouting for Food could count toward this, but we didn’t want to wait until after March for our scouts to earn the Webelos badge.
Communicator – A presentation by an exchange student can help cover part of the requirements (work on the Language and Culture belt loop for Scholar). You can also contact folks who train guide dogs to give a presentation about how the blind communicate. You can pick up Braille cards at Strong Museum (or maybe at the library), punch a message into a 3x5 card with a dull pencil & have the boys “decode” it. Most Boy’s Life issues have a secret code section somewhere-make copies or have the boys bring them in to do at a meeting. We also had the boys each pick their favorite Webelos pin to earn & write a short blurb about it for the Pack newsletter. Communicating belt loop and Computer belt loop are part of this badge.
Family Member – Choose items from this for the boys to do at home and bring resulting information, or parent signature in for credit. This badge is all about home, so have them do it at home. One fun thing to do is have them help prepare 3 of the meals that they planned for the Fitness badge. Boys can earn the Heritages belt loop as part of this badge.
Readyman (required for Arrow of Light) – For this badge, we covered some basics through playing of “Trivial Pursuit” with Readyman questions. Then we had a Boy Scout troop come and cover basic first aid. We also visited our local Ambulance for more advanced cases. Other ideas – visit the fire department or the Red Cross.
Technology:
Craftsman – Crafts, crafts, crafts! Any time you make a craft, neckerchief slide, etc count it toward this badge. We used crafts as filler-time at meetings and it was easy to fulfill part of the requirements with these. Have the boys build a shoebox display for their pinewood derby car. For wood-building crafts, contact Home Depot, or Lowes. Another woodworking craft is building a camp stool, see attached information. The boys can whittle their own fishing lures out of pine or balsa wood & add screw-eyes & hooks after using wood sealer. Using thin copper sheets to make neckerchief slides or picture frames out of is fun & easy.
Engineer – RMSC does this badge, but it’s not that hard to complete on your own. The milk carton catapults were a hit, as were the electrical circuits (battery, wires with alligator clips, light bulb). To learn about bridges, we had the boys create toothpick bridges and then put weights on them to see how much they held. A fun field trip is the RGE Live Wire demo. Mathematics belt loop is part of this, but can also be done as part of Scholar.
Handyman – We set up a car and bicycle in the parking lot of our meeting place, plan to do this over the summer or early fall/late spring. Other requirements may be done at home then each Scout can describe what they did at a Den meeting.
Scientist – RMSC covers this badge. We held a Science Fair, assigning different requirements to each scout. They had to prepare a demonstration for one of the requirements and show it to the rest of the den at our science fair. The bottle rockets (made from 2 liter bottles) can be used as part of this badge. Science belt loop is required for this badge – have the boys do some experiment at home and answer questions about what they think is going to happen (scientific reasoning). I found a cute scenario for this that included the questions and it only involved a cup of water! Astronomy belt loop and Weather belt loop can also be earned.
Outdoor:
Forester – Tinker Park in Henrietta does a very nice job with this badge and is only $1 per scout. Contact them early as they fill their dates quickly. Cummings Nature Center (near Camp Cutler), Helmers Nature Center (Irondequoit), and Genesee County Museum (Mumford) also cover this badge.
Geologist – RMSC covers this badge. We went to Herkimer Diamond Mine. The museum provided a lot of the informational pieces and the boys had a great time looking for diamonds. Another place to set up a visit is the Dolamite Quarry. They gave us a talk about what they do & then let the boys dig (bring your own tools) for minerals. Geology belt loop can be earned here.
Naturalist – We went to Genesee County Museum for this badge and it was very good. Tinker Park, Seneca Park Zoo, and Cummings Nature Center cover these as well. This one doesn’t seem like it would be too hard to cover on your own either. A field trip to Braddock Bay would cover parts of this badge’s requirements. A great idea is to send away for butterfly larvae & watch them hatch (they will send you food for them as well)-you can also collect the caterpillars on your own, but make sure to read up on it 1st, so you know how to feed them-this is awesome to watch! Wildlife Conservation belt loop is part of this badge.
Outdoorsman (required for Arrow of Light) – This is what it’s all about! Camping! Make sure you provide lots of opportunities for camping and overnights. Do some outdoor cooking (foil packets, Dutch oven) and have the boys help prepare. Cover fire safety and do campfire programs. Make sure you teach the boys to set up their own tent – they will need help, but they should participate in setup. Cover Leave No Trace every time you camp or hike. Participate in Scout Sweep (or some other conservation project).
To prepare boys for Boy Scouting, we made some components of badges “homework”. The boys had to do some component at home and bring in the results to show the leader before they could earn the badge.
If the boys have already earned the belt loops mentioned with each badge, you can either do the work again, choose another activity (if the belt loop is an option), or work on the requirements for the Pin!
If there are any scouts that have missed out on doing a pin, contact your other Webelos den(s) in the Pack to see if the scout can join in with them when they are covering it (& visa-versa).
Please remember that activities outside Monroe County require a local Tour Permit.