Post date: Jul 30, 2011 5:4:21 PM
Last week, I worked at the district cub scout day camp.
The theme of the camp was mid-eval times. I worked at many stations and activities. There were 8 boy scouts (1 eagle) assisting 2 camp leaders, and Pack leaders were also there. We had about 150 kids from various cub scout packs. The camp was run by Mrs. Crank and Mr. Forester (Troop 1128). We setup 6 stations and the cub scouts could earn beads for how they act and coming to the class. The beads are like money there that you can trade in at the trading post. Generally, they all had fun and they were pretty good. On several occasions, you end up with an obnoxious group of kids that did not behave well so it was hard. We ran some stations individually (1 boy scout) and some of the other stations that had more work needed 2 boy scouts. I learned a lot about leadership even though some of the kids misbehaved.
On Monday, I was one of the leader at arts and craft, helping the kids building stuff. So, we helped them built mini catapults! After that, we made targets and they had to shoot the marshmallows at the target.
On Tuesday, another boy scout and I worked at nature. At nature, we made etchings. We took a 10 minute walk around the building and took 2 leaves from the ground. Then, we passed out paper and crayons so that they can do the etchings.
On Wednesday, 2 other boy scouts and I worked at field games. The kids got to use a catapult and we shot a ball in the field so the kids in the field had to catch it.
On Thursday, I worked at nature again and I showed the kids what paper looked like in the mid-eval times. It was very messy because I had to use ground coffee mixed with water. I was messy but the kids liked it. Many of the kids thought that we were going to drink the coffee.
Friday was the water day. We were outside at different stations and the kids played games like water balloons and more. It was also a short day. Everyone was wet but we were all happy about it because it was a very hot day.
Each day we setup activity stations in the morning and took them down at the end of the day.
I had a very fun week. I would recommend this experience to other scouts because you learn a lot about how to deal with and control a group of wild and sometimes crazy kids. I definitely want to do this again next year.