WEBELOS

Family Member

Simon Kenton Council

Den Activities

Play a game of hazards.  Set up a room with several hazards.  Have boys come in and find as many hazards as possible. 

Practice house cleaning skills by cleaning the chartered organization areas.  Be sure to get per-

mission and ideas first.

Have a mother come in to the den meeting and talk about clothes washing.  Announce that next week's meeting will be at the local Laundromat.  Each Scout is to bring a load of wash, soap, and change for the washer and dryer.  Practice ways to fold laundry.

Invite a home economics teacher or dietician to talk to your den.  Perhaps your den could also plan a week's worth of meals and visit a retail food establishment to price the food required.  This would also cover a requirement in the Fitness Activity Badge.

Make outlet insulators.  Use foam meat trays, save at home or ask local grocery store for some.  Use outlet covers as guides.

Invite a fireman to a den meeting to talk about home safety.  Perhaps he can also provide you with a copy of a home inspection sheet.

Take a guided tour a waste disposal facility.

Invite an energy conservation engineer to give a talk on energy.  Tour an energy conserving home that is built underground.

Make a list of fun activities that involve little cost; do them over several meetings.

Invite someone from OSHA or a plant safety committee to give a talk after touring a manufacturing facility.

Have a family relation's teacher visit and talk.

Switch chores with another family member for a month.

Keep a personal budget for a month.

Visit with a local financial institution to find out how the monetary system works and how saving money as a family unit can be beneficial in the long run.

Contact the local public utility companies, or the environmental control agency to find out how our natural resources can be saved and what we can do as individuals within the family unit to conserve energy.

Have the boys make their chart showing the jobs that they and other family members have in their homes.  Have them bring the charts to the meeting and tell what jobs they are taking on for the next two months, and how they will do them.

Before the boys inspect the home and grounds to make a list of hazards or lack of security, you might want to talk over some of the home hazards they may find.

You could also contact the Police Department and ask if someone from Crime Prevention could attend one of your meetings to talk about security in your home.

Make a contest out of making a list of things for which families spend money.  See who can make the longest list. Talk about the list and see what important expenses were omitted.  Give one point for each item.  Most boys will forget things like rent, utilities, car payments, stamps, insurance, etc.

Have a contest - take a small piece of cloth and a button, needle and thread.   He the boys sew a button on - judge the button that is sewn best.

Have a cooking contest. Have each boy cook one dish and bring it to the meeting.   Be sure they can tell how they made the dish.

Have the boys fix a meal and invite the parents to your meeting for a feast!  In the meal planning, they must plan the meal, shop for the food and then cook it.

Have a "Family" meeting at your den meeting and have the boys show Cub Scout Spirit by doing their best to make plans for the rest of the year, or at least three months.

You might invite a mother to show some cooking skills to the boys or to explain recipes.  Have the boys use measuring spoons, cups, etc.  Have them explain such terms as cream, braising, stewing, and steaming.

Plan a family game night - each family brings a game and takes part in sharing the game with another family.  The boys could even "invent" games for the families to play.

It might be fun to have the boys make a recipe book with their favorite recipes from home or a campout recipe book for den campouts. This could include breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Have a meeting where boys try food that they have never tasted before.  Have a "Taste It, You May Like It" party.

Personal Crest

A crest is a design signifying your name, and some noteworthy deed performed by an ancestor.  Have your boys design their own crest, incorporating the initials of their name, and some achievement.  For instance, if a boy's initials are J. O. T. and he is a baseball player, his Crest might look like the one shown here.  Have each boy explain what their crest represents and reproduce it on a foot locker, tool box, a box used to store baseball cards, a plaque, or on paper for a book cover.  Reproduce it with acrylic paints or permanent markers and cover it with clear urethane varnish or modge podge.

Sam Houston Area Council

Do not throw away those seemingly ruined clothes.  Let the Cubs try to save them.

Laundry Hints

Removal with a store-bought cleaner-ballpoint pen ink, facial makeup, motor oil, rubber cement, wax:  (One of my favorite pen ink stain removers is using a cheap hair spray on the ink spot--Baloo)

·        Put absorbent cloth or paper towel under stained area.

·        Place chemical cleaner on stain.

·        Rub stain until it leaves the clothing and passes into the material below.

·        Remove the absorbent material. Put cleaner on a new cloth.  Wipe around edges of stain and toward center of stain.

·        Let dry. Reapply treatment if removal unsatisfactory.

Removal with water - blood, ketchup, coffee and tea, dairy products, grass, mustard, soda pop:

·        Place absorbent cloth or paper towel  under stained area.

·        Rub stain gently with water.   If stain is persistent, rub in drops of detergent.

·        Rinse out detergent.

·        Remove absorbent material.

·        Wipe dry.

Family Facts
Sam Houston Council

Save your family memories and pass them on to the next generation.  Nothing gives more enjoyment to a family than "REMEMBER WHEN". Children learn who they are from their parents and grandparents.  To play FAMILY FACTS have each member of your family write out questions that only your family would know - the more personal the better.

Who went to Canada on vacation?

What was this family's first pet?

Who broke their arm during the school play?

Who ran into the basketball standard  and chipped his front tooth?

What was the address of our first  house?

When is Grandma's birthday?

When did dad graduate from high school?

Play in the car, home on a rainy day or at family gatherings.  For a different twist, make up cards in categories -dates, people, places, events, pets, vacations, etc., and play family trivial pursuit. Use the regular Trivial Pursuit game, but substitute you family cards.

Family Finances
Sam Houston Council

Many Cubs are not aware of how their families spend money.  Food, clothing and entertainment are obvious. Suggest to the parents that they share the actual bills with their children and have them add up the total cost. They will be amazed.  As the Cubs conduct the safety/energy checklist, encourage the parents to discuss the cost of keeping the house in good repair, the cost of water use, the cost of cooling and heating the house, etc.  Then the Cubs will be better prepared to share in ideas for saving money and they will be ready to develop a family energy-saving plan.

Family Conservation Project
Sam Houston Council

With the spring comes the opportunity to be outdoors. Earn the World Conservation Award while recycling and developing environmental awareness.