Beginning of the Year Wolf Scout Campout

As you move from Tiger onto Wolf Scout, it’s important to plan your beginning of the year campout. This let’s you to make as much progress towards rank as possible. Many families love to camp the entire weekend, Friday night to Sunday morning. However, other families can only commit to part of the day Saturday. So we use Friday night, Saturday morning and Sunday morning for more elective or optional activities. Then we jam pack out Saturday afternoon/early evening with our requirements.

If you have families who all camp, feel free to spread out our Saturday afternoon/evening activities more equally throughout the weekend. You could even add in time for your scouts to work on Duty to God with their family. Moreover, you could complete the elective Finding Your Way to be even closer to earning Wolf rank with your den. This is also a great opportunity to add in a STEM project or begin work on Nova Awards.

Wolf Scout Campout Agenda

We are providing an agenda for a camping trip with a Friday night arrival and Sunday morning departure. However, feel free to use whichever pieces work for your den and scouts. We will further break down the Wolf advancements in a separate section below. Once you have your agenda, take a moment to e-mail this out to your families so they can see all the fun you planned.

Friday Night on Wolf Scout Campout

Be sure to plan some time for setting up campsites and making dinner (or a late night snack). Your families will need time to get everything just right and might even need to run to a store or borrow items from someone. We all forget things when we go camping.

If you built a first aid kit with your scouts as Tigers, this is a great time to refresh your scout’s first aid kit. Ask each family to supply one first aid essential. For example, we asked families for band-aids, antiseptic wipes, antibiotic ointment, gauze, medical tape, and tissues for our scouts beginner first aid kit. If this is your first time making first aid kits, you will want tweezers and a Ziploc bag too. If you haven’t already, get our labels for free. Then have each scout get their first aid kit and let them refresh by adding 1 – 3 of each item in their first aid kit.

It is always fun to go on a night hike scavenger hunt. Have each scout bring a headlamp or flashlight and take a little hike to familiarize yourself with the area (especially the bathrooms and how to get there). Have your scouts make a clear track to the bathroom, maybe add some signs, or lights, to help them find their way.

Wolf Scout Campout Saturday Morning

Have a plan for early risers too. Most campouts have quiet hour times, so you will want a plan for your scouts who wake before these end. Hopefully most scouts will sleep in until quiet hours end, but just in case, it’s best to have a plan. We love to have some quiet activities for our scouts. Coloring is wonderful if your scouts enjoy it, however, we also include some building or construction activities too.

You’ll need a plan for breakfast and lunch – both the food/materials needed as well as preparing the meal, including what the scouts will do while the den leaders or families prepare the food. This is a great time for the scouts to sneak in some fishing, a little more exercise, a game of catch, or even some quiet outdoor reading or drawing. We also love to leave a little time for families to work on their Duty to God adventure with their scout. Try to keep this low key as you will need to prepare both breakfast and lunch as well as get ready for the requirements for rank in the afternoon.

There is usually a flag ceremony and pack welcome too. Be sure to have the time for this so that you can have your scouts ready to go and looking good. Your den may even have a specific role for the opening ceremony too. Some packs will also plan a pack activity too. This might be a ropes course, dirt bike track, climbing wall, or shooting sports. Add in your den’s time for any special activities to your schedule too.

Saturday Afternoon/Evening on a Wolf Scout Campout

This tends to be the best time to get most scouts at the campout. Here is where you focus on most of your rank requirements. If more scouts are coming to camp only Saturday night, be sure to have some downtime planned to allow those families to set up campsites while offering something for families who are not camping or who camped Friday night. This is a great time for lunch, a late snack, or even an exploring activity.

Once we have our families settled in and are ready to begin, we start with running with the pack.

Running with the Pack

Once everyone was settled, we focused our first hour on Running with the Pack. We were able to complete steps 1 – 5 during the campout and step 6 was completed at our meeting prior to our campout to prepare for the day. As the families were setting up camp, we asked the scouts to play catch to practice their catching and throwing skills. During this time, scouts could also practice their square and overhand knots with the leaders in smaller groups. This activity can last as long as needed until all families are ready.

These two activities are a great way to let the scouts get started, while providing time for those families who need more time.

Then we had the scouts practice their balancing and flexibility. Depending on the recent weather and the campground, you may wish to bring a tarp or outdoor blanket. Some scouts worked on balancing while forward, backward, sideways while others worked on flexibility with front roll, back roll and frog stands. Then we had all the scouts and families work on frog leap, inchworm walk, kangaroo hop and crab walk. Now that the scouts are all warmed up, we played a game of soccer – scouts vs family members. What fun! Running with the Pack 1 – 5.

Wolf Scout Campout Hike

The second hour was dedicated to hike which mixed a few different adventures. We paired Call of the Wild (1, 3AB), Paws on the Path (1 – 5), and Finding Your Way (2B – 4) (elective) into our hike. So much to cover in a short hike.

Before the Cub Scout Hike

Our hike began with learning the Outdoor Code and Leave No Trace Principles as well as checking that each scout had the 6 essentials for hiking and appropriate clothing from our talk at our meeting before the campout (Paws on the Path 1 and 3). Before departing on our hike, we learned about the buddy system and all found a buddy for the hike.

These are great essentials to cover before any hike. As your scouts become more comfortable with hiking, they can remind you of the Outdoor Code and Leave No Trace Principles, but in the beginning, you will need to remind your scouts of these principles. Another tip is waiting until right before the hike to pick a buddy. This way no one is disappointed because a friend couldn’t attend at the last minute or another scout can suddenly attend.

During the Wolf Scout Hike

Then we passed out a map of our area and a compass to each scout. You can purchase compasses pretty cheaply or purchase a more robust compass. We taught a little compass skills (finding north and figuring out the other directions) as well as using map during our hike. This will take a little bit of practice. Using a compass and map do not come so easily to most scouts. They will need some direction on how the compass works and how to use one. Then show the scouts how to pair their compass with the hike map.

Then we went for a 1 – mile hike and asked the scouts to find 2 interesting things they have never seen before. While walking, enjoy looking for signs of animals, interesting plants, and trash to clean up. We ended our hike with a scavenger hunt to use our compass to find a secret item (set up by our den leader). For directions, provide your scouts approximate steps to take and direction to travel in. It can also be helpful to include some sights they will see so they know they are going the correct direction.

As a group, at the end of the hike, we discussed how we protected the wildlife while on our hike and scavenger hunt. Call of the Wild (1, 3AB), Paws on the Path (1 – 5), and Finding Your Way (2B – 4).

Campfire Program

Our next part focused on Howling at the Moon (1 – 4) and Call of the Wild (3C, 4AB) during our campfire program and dinner. Begin with a discussion of the natural disasters that might occur in your area and how to stay safe (Call of the Wild 4A). Then move into planning your skit (which could have something to do with natural disasters if you want). First, show 2 ways to communicate (verbal, nonverbal, written or visual). Then have the scouts create the skit and work together to rehearse it. The rehearsing is a great activity for them while dinner is being prepared.

Before serving dinner, take a moment to explain the importance of handwashing (Call of the Wild 4B). And before letting the scouts near the campfire, take a moment to go over campfire safety (Call of the Wild 3C). Finally, enjoy the campfire program and your scouts skit!

Wolf Requirements Covered and Those Left to Do!

This Wolf Scout campout brings you closer to completing your Wolf Scout rank. With this one campout, your scouts will complete 4 of the 6 required electives for Wolf Scout rank. We also plan for your Wolf Scouts to complete most of the elective Finding Your Way. If most of your scouts plan to camp Friday night or Saturday night, you could easily finish up Finding Your Way too. And if you ask families to work on Duty to God during a quiet time or while preparing a meeting, your scouts will be 6/7 of the way to completing their Wolf Scout rank.

This campout covers Call of the Wild 1 and 3 – 5. We covered Call of the Wild 2 at our meeting prior to the campout but it could easily be added into the talk on natural disasters too! DONE!

Howling at the Moon 1 – 4 was all done during the campfire part of the Wolf Scout campout. DONE!

Paws on the Path 1 – 5 was all part of the fun during the hike. DONE!

Running with the Pack 1 – 5 was scheduled at the beginning of Saturday afternoon. We covered Running with the Pack 6 at our meeting prior to the campout to help us prepare for our meals. DONE!

Elective Finding Your Way 2b, 3, and 4 were covered at the campout. We needed to finish up 1 and 2a at our meeting following the campout.

That leaves Council Fire and Duty to God as the last requirements to finish to make Wolf Rank! And if you provided time in your schedule for individual families to work on Duty to God, you are another step closer to Wolf Scout rank. What a great way to get so close to making rank with just a few things left to finish up.

Good luck on your campout and remember HAVE FUN! Be sure to read more about our Wolf Scout year meetings. We would love it if you would leave a comment below if you find this campout plan helpful or see something else we could add. Have you camped with your scouts before? What advice was most helpful for you? What would you share with future Wolf Scout leaders? Drop us a comment and let us know.

Hi, I’m Nicole.

Here at Creatingbutterflies we provide families with practical solutions to real life problems for everything parenting, scouting, dual language, and enjoying time outdoors. We are a family of 6 with 4 wonderful becoming bilingual children who loves scouting, camping, and hiking with their family. Mom is an educator and dad is a firefighter/paramedic.