What games do you play at your Den meetings

[mjengels]

Does anyone play games at the end of the den meeting? What games do you play with the kids? Any suggestions!

 

How many activities do you plan a night? I'm only a parent and want to help out and keep these kids busy and have fun.

Thanks

[johndaigler]

Hi, mjengels,

 

I'm a Wolf DL. At den meetings, our boys play during the "Gathering" time and often during the "Activity" time. We don't play at the end.

 

Many games are found right in the Wolf handbook and we also use the "games" in the Sports and Academics (Belt Loops)Book. One month we'll learn how to play Marble games, or Ultimate Frisbee, or Touch Football or Chess... Games can be found in several of the other CS resource materials.

 

Have Fun

 

jd

[cubbingcarol]

We cut 5 inch holes into a large box (looks like a phone number pad) and have the boys use beanbags, we did this for Emergency theme meeting so they had to hit 911 with the bean bags. We still play with it.

We've done the pingpong balls with tongue depressors in the mouth like hockey.

We've also done marbles which is one of the electives.

We made up a game with washers and nuts and bolts and little pieces of metal like from an Erector set (we got that from the movie 'Men of Honor' where they had to put all the nuts and bolts together under water).

 

I'll have to check my notebook for more.

 

Carol

[pelon]

A great resource for games is the Cub Scout Leader How To Book. It not only has a tremendous number of games, but it organizes them, so you can quickly find a quiet game or an active one -- or, when your boys have finished early, and you still have 20 minutes: a game that doesn't require equipment!

 

I almost always include a game at the end of my den meetings; the boys have come to expect it, and if they begin to lose interest in the main activity, you can remind them about the game that they'll be playing later in the meeting.

[theysawyoucomin']

Good question!

 

The all time favorite is The Den Leader says" which is just like Simon Sez. Sometimes the parents even play.

 

We play spoons which is a great card game. I usually hold that as "If we get all of or work done we can play spoons"

 

Another simpile game is all stand and say to the boys, "When you think one minute has passed sit down. I hold my watch and observe which boy was the closest. but don't tell until they have all sat down. A slow down kind of quiet game.

 

We play "in the pond out of the Pond" a rope or string makes the pond. When you say in the pond all the boys jump in. When you say out of the pond all boy jump out. Mix them up with sayings like"out of my mind" 'My hair is blond" or any other thing to throw them off. They like it.

 

Kim's game is fun and probably the oldest scouting game. We used to play it in the Marines. Place about 20 common objects on a table covered with a sheet. Exposed the objects for one full minute. The boys go back and sit down and write how many objects they remember. Spelling does not count for cubs. Mind strengthening game.

 

We play Charge! all the boys stick their neckerchief in their pocket with a whole bunch hanging out(like a flg for flag football) IT stands in the center an yells charge! the herd then tries to run the length of the field withou going out of bounds and without their flag being captured. Captures go in the middle and help IT.

 

Is that a good start? All these games I play with the boys and they seem to like them all.

 

 

 

[briantshore]

This is what I did at our last meeting. Relay races that my old drill sergant in basic training would have loved.

 

Equipment: For each team. 1 car tire without the rim, 1 basketball, 1 frizbee.

 

Race#1 Place frizbee about 20 yards away, player must roll the tire, arond the frizbee and back to the starting line and let the next player go.

 

Race# 2 Place tire 5 yards away, have one player stand near the tire. Players must bounce or throw the ball into the tire. The teammate than throw the ball back. All Players must make at least 2 baskets. When on is made it 2 times then they switch with the rebounder.

 

Race# 3 Place tires about 25 yards away, and have each team line up. The first player carries the ball and runs down and puts the ball in the tire, runs around the tire and runs back to the starting line. Tags off to secound player who runs down and picks up the ball, and goes around the tire, and runs carries the ball back to the starting line. Hands the ball back to the next player in line. Player number 3 runs down and puts ball into the tire. This keeps up till each player has run at least 2 legs of the relay.

 

Race# 4 Place the frizbee about 15 yards away, the tire is laying flat on the ground. Grab the edge of the tire closest to you lift the tire up and flip it onto the other side. Repeat the process till you have reached the frizbee. Turn around and roll( flip) it back to the starting line. The next player on your relay team does it again. Repeat till every player has made 2 laps.

 

 

 

 

Depending on the age group of the boys you can very the distances. We shortend the up a little becouse we had the tigers joining us. Now that you have your equipment, you can use your emaginaion to expand the game. You can do this at a pack meeting and mix up the boys, have parents and siblings join in.

 

Have fun Brian

[kenk]

I once made up a sort of pin the tail on the donkey game, but using a compass. Its been a big hit.

 

All you need is a simple compass, a bed sheet, and a pad of post-its.

 

Color one post-it a bright color and post it on a wall - that is the donkey (the target).

 

Now explain to the boys how compasses work. Show them that they can move the bezel to "box" the needle, spin around, turn their bodies to box the needle while leaving the bevel alone, and they'll be pointing in the same direction.

 

Initially the would do this game with lots of adult help, but eventually they could do it on their own:

 

Tell them to box the needle while pointing the compass at the target. Then we'd give them a post-it with their name on it, put a sheet over their heads, and spin them gently around. Then we'd tell them to turn their body to box the needle and then walk ahead with a post-it in their hand.

 

Again, at first an adult often would have to join them under the sheet to give guidance. We also would have an adult walk backwards in front of them to make sure they didn't walk hard into the wall. We'd rotate through the boys and then when done we'd stand back to see the scattering of post-its relative to the target. Its a lot of fun and teaches them some of the basics of compass use.

 

Last year, when they were Bears, I created a very simple compass course using a 3-4-5 right triangle (I can't remember what the angles in degrees were - see http://www.themathpage.com/aTrig/trigonometry-of-right-triangles.htm ). I created 6 starting points in a line using bean bags and had them use the compasses (I made sure we had enough compasses for each boy - some parents brought some) to run the course, giving them an angle to set the compass to and then a number of paces to walk. Because of the geometry of the course, it really didn't matter how long each boy's pace was, as long as they were consistent and set angles correctly the finish should bring them right back to the starting bean bag, but I didn't tell them that until they were done. Then we'd compare how close they were to the starting point. The first them they ran it, they had their parent helping them. The second time they did it on their own. It was only after the second time did I tell them where they were supposed to have ended.

 

Another time we simply had the boys buil paper airplanes and try to fly them into a large box. I was surprized to find that none of the boys and only a few of the parents knew how to fold a paper airplane.

[jens3sons]

The best suggestion I have for you....YOU DO NOT NEED TO RE-INVENT THE WHEEL! Use the Program Helps book...We get sooooo many suggestions for it! We don't always follow the month to month suggestions, but we do use them all! For example...The monthly theme for April was "Waterways of the U.S.A." We always do rain gutter regata in June, so we switched that monthly theme to June, and did May's idea "Pet Pals" in April, and May's pack meeting will be the June theme of "Destination Parks" as we are having our graduation outside. The other thing we do, is have each and every boy involved with part of the pack meetings. They are all assigned at the beginning of the scouting year what their duties will be each month. Our responsibilities are broken up as follows:

1. Set Up

2. Greeters

3. Flags

4. Song

5. Skit

6. Activity

7. Clean up

 

We usually don't give the new Tigers an assignment until after the second year Weblos have graduated out, but they are always welcome to contribute at any point in the meeting or in the year.

 

We also make sure that the dens who have song, skit, and activity have their assignment go according to the theme of the month. There are times dens trade activities according to what works best for their requirements etc, but the main idea is to have a good idea of what to expect before the year gets started.