Are you smarter than a Cubscout?

[briantshore]

Here is a idea that I have been working on over the past year. Having the adult match up against the boys in there scout knowledge. At first I was going to include the parents. I may still do this, but I am thinking more about the leaders. Just like the game show, "Are you smarter than a 5th grader", the adults pick different boys to help them through. Instead of 1,2,3,4,5 grade questions, it will be Bobcat, Tiger, Wolf, Bear, and Webelos questions from the individual handbooks. The adult would get a peek, cheat, and copy as lifelines. The goal is to challenge the boys to at least study there own book so they at least know the area of the level they are on. What are your thougts?

[SctDad]

The only problem that I have is that I think that there a few of the boys in my pack would not be able to answer some of the basic questions.

 

I just can't get the parents/boys to work on stuff outside of the meeting. I have told meny of them that there are certain things that I am not going to go over in the meeting. Reason, I am trying to avoid it being like school.

[zippyboro]

I think it sounds like a lot of fun... even if there are kids who won't know. Anytime you can turn something dry into a game or competition, the boys will get into it and have fun. Is this for a pack meeting? Let us know how it comes out!!

[Sarge]

I think that is an excellent idea. And I know a few parents (and a couple leaders) that would get smoked in the first round...

[SSScout]

Along that vein, here's a game I've seen used to good effect:

 

Prepare a sries of 3x5 cards, one word to a card, listing the "Cub Scout Promise" and "The Law of the Pack". Fold'em each in half, and put them in a big paper bag.

 

At the start of a meeting, where a Cub usually leads the Pack in the CSP and LotP, CM interupts : "wait a minute,Horatio, I know YOU know the CSP, but I wonder if the parents have been paying attention." Here he brings out the paper sack and walks back to the parents. "I'd like to give the adults a chance. Here, pick a word out of the bag. Good, now arrange yourselves in the proper order for the CSP and the LotP." Keep on encouraging, the boys will lap it up. When the adults are in order, have each of them say their word.

Don't foret to give'm a cheer!

If the number of adults is too few, just pick out more than one card a piece. More fun!

 

MiF KiS YiS

[briantshore]

Well, I finally had time to work it into the program. It went very well. Our winner was a Dad who also is on the Pack Committee. We had one older sister of one of the boys that took 2nd place. Our Web. I leader said she was sitting behind her group and heard them whispering back and forth, while they were in the audiance. She could see that they were really thinking bout what they should know. I'll add it to my list of things to do again in a year or so.

[GKlose]

Maybe it was after seeing your original post, but I was working on something similar. I was thinking about working it into my Woodbadge patrol's project until I figured out Woodbadge already had a Scouting trivia contest (right before "Win All You Can"). So I scrapped it.

 

But I did sort of get to work it in on another project. I did an advancement overview of the entire Scouting program for Cub parents that I called "Trail to Eagle". The second year I did it, I was asked to orient it more towards Boy Scouting. So the compromise is that I took the highlights of the Cub Scout program and worked them into a trivia game called "Who's Smarter Than A Cub Scout" and I gave parents (about 30 of them) silly noisemakers to ring in with. I used the trivia game as an icebreaker for my presentation (I also used it as my demo presentation for a "Trainer's EDGE" course).

 

I organized the trivia questions by grade, but of course they aligned with rank (for example, "First Grade" was Tiger Cub questions, "Fourth Grade" was Webelos questions, etc). It only lasted about 15 minutes, but I had hoped that it would be a way to get the audience interacting.

 

It worked pretty well, but I think if I were to do it again I would want to revise the questions to be a little more fun.

 

Guy

[Sebastian a lady]

Would anyone who has done a game like this mind posting a selection of some of your questions?

It sounds like a great activity for Oct/Nov to see if the parents have been paying attention.

[GKlose]

I can provide some examples later, when I'm at home.

 

But mine were graduated in terms of difficulty. At the First Grade (Tiger) level, I asked "What is the Cub Scout motto?", for example. Note that my questions were for Cub parents, since Cubs weren't part of my session.

 

I scoured through rank requirements, and trivia, and through one of those decks of Cub Scout knowledge cards to find suitable questions. It wasn't hard to do. It was harder to narrow it down to 10 minutes worth of game/icebreaker.