Getting your Webelos Activity Pins Done

The Important Introduction

Here's a great guide to another Scouter's experience with helping her two boys finish their activity pins. Both sons finished all of the pins. This web site re-publishes a guide to Webelos Advancement prepared by Bonita Vale from Lincoln Township (south of Ypsilanti). It is a homey and personal review of how she helped them finish their activities. Listen to her experiences. You'll hear how you can ease the process of helping your Webelos Scouts achieving their goals.

If you find something wrong or have a complaint, please contact me, Carl Wright. I've modified and augmented Bonnie's work so we can't blame her for anyhting that might be wrong now. If it's wrong, it's my fault.

The Beginning

To Webelos Parents:

This writeup was originally written in 1997 after doing a lot of things at an individual level with my older son. I updated it after working with my younger son's den, which was the 2000-2002 season of Webelos in Pack 295, also chartered to Lincoln School. My best advice is to plan around Michigan weather as much as you can, rather than doing pins in the order suggested in leader manuals or scouting magazines.Think Artist and Craftsman at Christmas . Think Athlete in spring. Do Forester when the leaves are out. I prefer Outdoorsman in warm weather, possibly split between late spring and early fall.

Parents who look at the Webelos handbook and can't imagine how or where to go to do some of the badges can check this resource guide for help.

This is a running commentary on how I worked with my son as a Webelos in Cub Scout Pack 243. After all this effort, it seems a shame to make every Webelos parent in the pack have to reinvent the wheel. So here's an account of resources used and opinions of how well things worked, which you can use as a starting point. By all means, try other things and add your comments as to what worked, so the parents who come after you can use them. Every badge can be done in Washtenaw County, and most of them can be done in the Lincoln Schools/Ypsilanti community. If you live more toward Belleville, maybe you can add some information about resources available in that direction.

A few words about money, your involvement, and timing. You can definitely do almost all these things on the cheap if you think about it a little. Scouting is about being resourceful, not about being expensive. As to involvement, yes, I did have to do a lot of coaching and setting up situations where my son could work on a pin. Kids this age still need you to do many of the activities with them. You need to check that they do exercises correctly, and to show them woodworking techniques and campfire building. They can't get to stores or parks or other places without you in order to get materials or do the requirements, in many cases. Also, they want to do things with you; which is not a situation that will last many more years. Other children in the family want to get into the fun, too, so everybody is working together. What you do together is what they'll always remember.

Finding the time is maybe the toughest part for parents. Our timing was flexible, but we worked to a rough schedule. I kept a master list of things to be done and probable good times to do them, and any setup (collect materials, check a field guide, arrange a nature trip). We discussed and agreed beforehand that both my son and I would schedule time to do a given requirement at a certain time - the next weekend, Christmas vacation, during the winter, etc. It wasn't an unexpected surprise to either of us that badge work was going to happen. Things got done when the neighbor kids weren't around, on snow days, when there were reruns on TV, instead of TV, when boredom from too much vacation was hanging heavy.

I hope your son, your family and you have fun with these pins. Best of luck from Bonnie Vale and Webelos Scout David Katanski. February, 1997.

A Quick Opinion List

Useful Places

Landscaping businesses that sell crushed rock (Bushell Center of Hollow Trucking Company on Rawsonville Rd. just south of Textile), for rock collecting and identifying for Geologist.

Gallup Park (in Ann Arbor on the Huron River, for winter open water ponds where lots of ducks, geese and birds congregate and stay year-round) for Naturalist.

Eddy Geology Center (in Waterloo Recreation Area, off I-94 west of Chelsea) for geology exhibit/nature center and labeled forestry nature trails for Geologist and Forester.

Hudson Mills Metropark (on North Territorial Rd. north of Dexter) for labeled forestry/nature trails and small nature center exhibit for Forester.

Toledo Zoo for zoo and natural history center (lots of indoor exhibits, so good even in winter) for Naturalist. ALSO U-M NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM - CLOSE AND VERY GOOD AND FREE ON WEEKENDS.

Lincoln High School Pool, for Aquanaut.

Ypsilanti Library, for checking out sports books, plant and animal field guides, career books, etc.

The Scrap Box (south side of I-94 across from Briarwood) for getting ideas and great stuff cheap for Artist and Craftsman.

Fingerle Lumber and Home Quarters (HQ), for free wood and styrofoam scraps for Forester and Craftsman.

Barnes and Noble Bookstore (on Washtenaw at Platt/Huron Parkway) for finding field guide information just by leafing through books while sitting in comfortable chairs.

Subdivision under construction in this area, for Engineer.

Meijers, Walmart, Office Depot, Office Maxx, Staples, Frank's Nursery & Crafts, Michael's Crafts (in the TARGET strip mall) etc., for simple woodcraft ideas you can copy, and materials like plastic modeling compound, clay, paint, big rubber bands, ink and laundry bluing, etc., for Artist, Craftsman, Engineer, Scientist.

Useful Books

I checked a lot of books out of the library and bought one or two that I think will get used in Boy Scouts - mostly field guides to trees and birds. I used the Ypsilanti downtown library on Michigan Avenue (open Saturday and Sunday and most evenings). Also, you can browse the Barnes and Noble bookstore on Washtenaw Ave. near the Council office (open most nights until 11:00, so you can go without kids, and they have comfortable couches and chairs) for the information you need without actually buying any books.

General.

Ameritech Yellow Pages.

This was the starting place for all kinds of things.

4-th Grade science book used at Lincoln Schools.

Check the back chapters that the class never gets around to studying. Good drawings for Geologist, Forester, Engineer.

Kids Catalog of Michigan Adventures. Ellyce Field. Wayne State University Press. Detroit, Michigan. Second Edition. C 1995.

I bought this one. A great book for parents and den leaders of every year of Cub Scouting. Descriptions, phone numbers, prices, hours of all kinds of places and things to do in southeast Michigan - museums, zoos, parks, historic sites, sports, entertainment, U-pick farms. I wish I had had this book years ago. Price: about $16.00. You can find it at any big chain bookstore; look in the "Michigan" section. This is written by the woman on WJR on Saturday mornings who does the 5-minute talk about fun things to do that weekend with kids. The earlier version is available at the library

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