Marbles For Days - Boy and Cub Scout Activities

I was recently put in as a leader for cub scouts. I am over the Bears group. Having no boys in my family, I have never had kids in boy scouts.

20 years ago, I was a Pack Master / Assistant and would have to plan pack meeting and was rather good at planning the fun events we would do once a month at pack meeting. I did that for a year or two and it wasn't a bad experience, but it wasn't my favorite activity as boys are rather active compared to the girls I have worked with and the activities they like to do are different many times. 

I would always donate to "friends of scouting" fundraising drives, and would joke that I would donate $100 a year saying, "I will donate as long as you don't make me have to work with the scouts." I also felt that someone needed to teach boys how to provide and protect as my girls would need prepared men to marry, so I felt like donating to scouts was a worthwhile thing. 

I will share next week how we made the drawstring pouches for marbles, but wanted to share this video today on the activities we did this month for scouts and how we did marble races and used old toilet paper and paper towel roll tubes for that. 

The kids loved making those long tunnels with the tubes and tape and also enjoyed racing their "marble racers" they colored. In the end, it was really hard to determine whose car won as they all let them go at different times so I just had them pick a number and they got prizes for whoever was closest to the number I picked so that made it a bit more fair. 

Their favorite was playing marbles using round chocolates I purchased from the dollar store. Instead of using marbles in the middle, they used the big marble shooters and we put the round chocolates in the middle of the circle and they could knock those out of the ring. 

After the game, I divided all the chocolates evenly amongst the boys and told them to play marbles at home with their families using the chocolates. Next meeting, when I asked them about it later, they said they just shared the chocolates. I am guessing they wanted to keep the majority for themselves, but it was still a fun activity for them. 

I collected the paper towel tubes for over a month when everyone was home for the holidays as we went through lots of paper towels as that is all we use in the bathrooms and kitchen to dry our hands, so I had plenty for the marble racing maze tubes. 

The boys all came up with a marble game that they shared with the group as well. I thought they were quite creative with it which was nice. I wish we had time to actually play the games they described but it seems our group always starts late as we do our opening with the other age groups so by the time we get the oath, flag, etc done, there just isn't much time to get things finished. 

I wasn't sure I would be very good at this, but the boys seem to like the ideas I have, and the activities we have done so far, so I guess I am doing alright. I have had a few moms share that their boys are enjoying it so that also reinforced that it is going OK. 

It was cute to see them carrying their marbles in the bags they made and being proud of the job they did making them, so check out that post next week. 

Have a Blessed day!