October Cub Scout Roundtable Issue

Volume 7, Issue 2

Our Gifts and Talents (Webelos Showman & Citizen)

PACK/DEN ACTIVITIES

Luminous Skeleton
Greater St. Louis Area Council

Materials: Assorted bones, paint brush, craft wire, and paint

Collect various bones to make skeletons. Bones should be prepared first by cleaning in a bleach solution for 3 hours and drilling holes in bones so they can be wired together.

Paint the skeleton with glow-in-the-dark paint. Weird colors of green, blue and orange make them even more scary.

Project
Trapper Trails Council

Have each scout cut out four pumpkins from the orange craft foam, big enough to write on and to put a picture on. Cut four pictures of things the boy likes to do in scouting. Cut the pictures in the shape of a circle, using a canning lid, or glass as a pattern. Glue one picture on each pumpkin, in the bottom center area. Write the following words on the top part of each pumpkin:

1st pumpkin - "We develop"

2nd pumpkin - "many talents-'

3rd pumpkin - " in scouting"

4th pumpkin - write the name of the scout.

Glue the pumpkins on the four sides of the paper bag. Trim the top of the bag down with fancy scissors, or decorate however you wish. Fill the bag with some cookies, or salt-water taffy, or another treat.

Halloween Puzzle Pins or Scarf Slide
Trapper Trails Council

Materials: Puzzle piece, Pin back, .1' long, Black permanent fine tip marker, Acrylic paints

Choose appropriate puzzle piece for the pin you want. The back of the puzzle piece becomes the front of the pin. Basecoat your puzzle piece with white first. With a pencil draw the pattern on the puzzle piece. Paint the piece with the colors that you want to. After the paint has dried do the line work with a permanent marker (scary faces, ghost, Dracula, witch) and glue the pin onto the back of the puzzle piece. If you don't want to use them as pins glue a ring onto the back of the puzzle piece and use as a neckerchief slide.

Shrunken Potato Head
York Adams Council

Peel a large potato and carve face into it. Make deep holes for eye sockets and mouth. Push black pony beads into eye sockets. Push noodles in for teeth. Push paperclip in top for hanging. Hang potato in warm, dry place so that all moisture evaporates (but don't place in an oven or outdoors). It won't rot as long as it's dry. As it dries, it will shrink to about half its original size. Add black yarn for hair.

Rainsticks
York Adams Council

Materials: (to make five)

• One 1-1/2" diameter by 10' long plastic plumbing pipe
• 1 foot width of 48 inch wide, 1/2 inch hardware cloth (It looks like chicken wire with 1/2 inch squares)
• Tin snips
• Dog leash and a dowel or pipe to pull the mesh inside the tube
• Ten 1-1/2 inch PVC caps
• 2-1/2 cups of fine fish tank gravel (smaller than 1/4 inch rocks)

Directions:

Tip the rainstick on one end, and listen to the rocks fall to the other end. Then tip it upside down. This simulates the sound of rainfall. In approximately 2 1/2 hours of construction time, you will have five rainsticks that look like magic wands. I have watched both children and adults mesmerized and completely relaxed as they sit and tip rainsticks over and over.

The sound of rainsticks is very effective when singing rain songs or reciting rain poetry. Teachers, students, puppeteers, magicians, storytellers, and even stressed-out executives enjoy them. If you have discovered a unique way to use a rainstick, please share your idea by writing to me at 21012 Summit Rd., Los Gatos, CA 95030-8501. jpgreene@hooked.net

Hold A Magic Show
York Adams Council

Why not conduct a magic show during a den meeting? Make sure the boys know well in advance so they can practice their ticks away from the group until the Big Day. There is a selection of tricks at the end of this section.

Talent Show
York Adams Council

When my son was a Bear Scout, his den held a Talent Show during a Den Meeting. It was probably the first time he ever played his violin "in public" and he got through it well. The Den made a big deal out of the evening by getting everyone to make a snack and by making and mailing out invitations to all of the parents before hand. It was a real success for all of the boys.

You can give special recognition to all of the contestants (instead of trying to pick "the best") by giving them "Special Talent Recognition" Certificates at the end of the show.

Form That Band
York Adams Council

Now that I am "all growed up and married" and especially now that I am married to a musician, I have come to realize that there are lots of "music people" out in the world. With that said, I would check around your neighborhood and find someone who might be able to lend a hand with actually putting a rag-tag band together with the homemade instruments. (Or if you have the good fortune of having a whole den of "real instrument" players, maybe even a "real instruments band").

Puppet Making Tips
Indian Nation Councils

Scrap Puppets
Scrap puppets are fun, easy and quick to make. Give an old sock a fresh look. Dress up a paper bag. Paint a face on an old wooden spoon and decorate it. To make finger puppets start with an old glove. Cut off the fingers - you know have 5 puppets ready to decorate. Use buttons, beads and pom-poms to make eyes and noses. Bottle caps and jar lids make hats or eyes or ears.

Popsicle Puppets
Take a Popsicle stick and paint the eyes, nose and mouth. Use lace to make the dress and wool yarn for the hair.

Bee Puppet
Put pom-poms on a yellow sock as the eyes. A pipecleaner serves as the antennae.

Popsicle Puppets
Draw any kind of character you want - a dog, cat, person, or anything. Cut it out and color it; then glue it to a Popsicle stick. You can also make a family and friends for your puppet.

Cereal Box Puppets
Cut one side of a SMALL cereal box in half (width) and fold the box towards the uncut side. This forms the mouth; your fingers fit into the top jaw; your thumb fits into the lower jaw. Add eyes. Lips, and hair. Drape scarf over your arm for clothes.

Doll Puppets
To make a doll/puppet, you will need scissors, two buttons, tights/socks, a piece of material/cloth, a red pen, a needle and thread, wool, a ruler and some rice.
Cut the tight, (up to the ankle), then fill the foot part most of the way up with the rice. Use some of the wool to tie up the end. This forms the face. Then sew the two buttons on the tip part (as eyes). Draw a mouth with the red pen. Cut the wool into 4-inch pieces and use the needle to sew the wool pieces on the head to make hair. Cut the cloth into the shape of a dress/t-shirt. Sew this onto the bottom of the face and then you have a doll/puppet.

Decorating Puppets
Use fabric paints to color things in or use it just like glue. You can also use dry foods such as spaghetti, elbow noodles, or spiral noodles for hair, eyes, noses, mouths, or hair. Use steel wool for hair to make witches. Straws and pipe cleaners are great for whiskers and antennae. Hair can be fashioned from yarn, string and rope. Old jewelry, ribbons and feathers will give your puppet an exotic look. Shells can make interesting eyes or ears. Seaweed hair is stylish and smelly! Nuts, bolt, washer, hooks and springs are neat attachments for making robot puppets.

Imagination Puppets
Trapper Trails Council

Week 1 - come up with a theme or use the theme "Imagination Station" to let the boys write their own script for a puppet show. Encourage them to each participate and come up with different ideas that can be used. Make sure that there will be enough parts for each boy to use for their puppet.

Week 2 - Use a basic hand puppet pattern to cut out a puppet for each boy. If it's a person cut the pattern from flesh or pink felt, a dog, from tan or brown felt, etc. Then let the boys create their puppets with various odds and ends of felt, material, button, sequins, or whatever you can come up with. Ask for donations of odds and end from their parents or families. Glue the edges of the hand puppets together with low temp glue guns or thick tacky glue. Let them have fun with the glue to create their own puppets.

Week 3 - Get a large appliance box and cut it so it has a front and two sides that will bend as wings to hold the box upright. Cut a large square hole in the front to form the window for your puppet show stage. Let the boys decorate the front of the box to go along with the theme of your script. If you're brave they could even paint it with poster paints.

Week 4 - Practice practice, practice! Make sure each boy knows their parts and cues so that they will be able to perform a puppet show for your pack meeting. The boys love to perform and this will be a project that they will remember for many years! Give each boy the chance to be an announcer, emcee, or narrator for your show! If your boys have been learning about magic tricks this would be a great time for them to show your den their talents in the magic area or save the stage and use it at a later date for a magic show that the boys can put on.

Some prop ideas: an empty oatmeal box with a cut out front oval can become a hollowed out log when covered when brown paper then cut out a silhouette of a bunny or squirrel and glue inside the oval.

Tip a card table on its side and put a scene on it.

Materials found in Baloo's Bugle may be used by Scouters for Scouting activities provided that Baloo's Bugle and the original contributors are cited as the source of the material.

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