bmarkey

Just a clarification. The council isn't making anything homeschool based. The leader happens to homeschool her own children, and the rest of the Lions came from our regular public school. She's just throwing in some of the lessons from her homeschool curriculum to give the kids some additional stuff to learn.

I wanted to update this to tell you a little more about what I found out about the Lions program: Well, I had a short conversation with the Wolves DL that is heading up the Lions program for our pack. She told me she that she was given a book "Learning for Life" that is appropriate for the kindergarteners (http://www.learning-for-life.org) I guess it's a program that has levels for older kids as well. She said in addition she's been supplementing this with adding in some other science information, having the boys say the pledge, and learning the laws of the pack. She said they have been more than responsive, and they are learning things like sponge.. She homeschools her children, so she's using part of her science lessons from that. In order to combat the whole babysitting thing, she has insisted (like Tigers) that a parent remain with their child, and that they also participate and help with the program. She said she had a few more kids at the beginning, but when the parents found out they couldn't just drop the kids off for an hour of free babysitting, a couple dropped out. She said that when the kids become Tigers next year, they'll all have already learned everything they need for their Bobcat. Hope this helps.. Bruce...

Our pack is in the Moraine Trails Council. About 40 miles NW of Pittsburgh,PA I know they meet a totally different place, different time, etc. It's completely removed from our pack and the only way I even knew about it was that the Wolf DL is heading up that group. I hadn't really paid much attention to it since I thought it was happening everywhere.. (that, and my son is in Webelos) I'll see what additional information I can get you. Thanks, Bruce.. (This message has been edited by bmarkey)

We have this going on this year in our area. They are indeed called Lions, and I believe they meet once a week but have nothing to do with our pack. One of our den mothers is running the program and we haven't really heard anything about it other than referred a couple parents that mistakenly showed up at one of our den meetings looking for the Lions. I could probably find out more if anyone is interested.