Cub Scouts Activities September 2019

My youngest son has started in Cub Scout in the same pack that his older brother was in. Since I've had five years of experience, I bit the bullet and signed up as the den leader for his Lion Den. We went to a local Scout Store over the summer to pick up our uniforms which we wore to the first night.

Us in our outfits

The first meeting was recruitment night so I had all the new Lions (just three to start with) in a room. We learned the Scout Sign and Scout Salute. We also have a den theme song, borrowed from the leader guide. It's sung to the tune "If You're Happy and You Know It." The lyrics are switched:

If you're a lion and you know it, show your claws!
If you're a lion and you know it, show your claws!
If you're a lion and you know it and you really want to show it, show your claws!

If you're a lion and you know it, show your strong!
If you're a lion and you know it, show your strong!
If you're a lion and you know it and you really want to show it, show your strong!

If you're a lion and you know it, give a roar!
If you're a lion and you know it, give a roar!
If you're a lion and you know it and you really want to show it, give a roar!

If you're a lion and you know it, do all three!
If you're a lion and you know it, do all three!
If you're a lion and you know it and you really want to show it, do all three!

We went to First Fruits Farm to harvest produce that they will donate to food banks in the area. This particular afternoon we harvested potatoes. The work was fun but tougher the taller you were (i.e. farther from the potatoes). They had an amazing machine that pulls up the potatoes from underground and leaves a long line of potatoes (and rocks) that we picked through to find the good ones.

Potato digger

A picked over field

Harvesting potatoes

We harvested about 30,000 pounds of potatoes (there were other groups there, not just our Cub Scout pack). We felt great afterward, except for all the dust and dirt we collected on ourselves.

The month ended with our first pack meeting. The Lions didn't get any awards but we did play some fun games. The most challenging was trying to stack cups. I know that doesn't sound very challenging but the scouts were not allowed to touch the cups. They were given a rubber band with four strings tied to it. They had to pull the rubber band wide enough to snap onto the cup, move the cup to the top of the stack, then pull it off the cup without knocking over the stack. The boys had a lot of fun and practiced some teamwork too!

The stack

Working together