Tiger Cub Scouts Requirements to Earn in April Meetings

April Tiger Cub Scouts meetings are some of our favorites! It’s the best time of the year to get the Tiger Cub Scouts outside and enjoying nature again. While your den can absolutely work on any required adventures that still need finishing up, we tend to find that most of our scouts have made rank and earned so many elective adventures. This is the perfect time to look at earning the Conservation Good Turn Award or the Outdoor Activity Award.

April does tend to be a little rainy and usually filled with school events too, so it’s important to have a clear plan for April. We also plan a back up meeting place if we are meeting outside, just in case the weather changes. While looking at dates, keep in mind the Easter or Passover holiday. Also take a look at special events like open house or concerts for your district.

April is often a time when new scouts are eager to join the fun, so don’t be surprised if you new Tiger Cub Scout signs up for your den. If the family is motivated, the scout can earn Tiger Rank and Bobcat Rank. If the family is more interested in being a part of the group and learning about scouts, it is perfectly okay to not earn rank and just experience scouting too. If the family really wants to earn rank, be sure to take a look at our Fall Tiger Campout for an easy plan to earn Tiger Rank in a weekend.

As you begin to move into the more busy spring months for scouting and families in general, it’s important to help your straggling Tigers earn their Tiger rank soon. Check out our first and second Tiger Scout meetings for earning some required Tiger adventures. Tiger meetings and Tiger outings help you to outline your Tiger Scout year, as well as a done for you Tiger Cub Scout Camping Trip to earn Tiger rank. It’s never too late to begin cub scouts and you most definitely can make Bobcat rank and Tiger rank in the second half of the year.

April Special Events

You are probably just as ready for some warmer weather as your scouts. I know we always were. April is such a fun month to get your Tiger scouts outside, but do plan a back up location in case of rain or even snow. April Tiger Cub Scouts meetings are great for a hike or an introduction to fishing. You could even plan a special picnic.

April is Keep America Beautiful Month, National Volunteer Month, National Move More Month, and National Garden Month. These are some of our favorites for getting Tiger Cub Scouts outside in April. If any of your scouts have a connection to the military, April is National Military Child Month. The first week of April is National Read a Road Map and the second week is National Garden Week. You could definitely pair reading a road map with reading a trail map and gardening with a service project or two.

There are so many special days in April that it was difficult to limit the list. If you really search, you can find some for every day. Whenever possible, we try to include some holiday or special day fun with our scouting meetings and outings. Our Tiger Scouts love the little extras and it helps to keep scouting fun as we begin to wind down our Tiger Cub Scout year.

April 1st: April Fools Day AND Children’s Picture Book Day

April 2nd: National Love Our Children Day

April 5th: Read a Road Map Day

April 6th: National Walking Day

April 8th: National Zoo Lover’s Day

April 10th: National Farm Animal’s Day AND National Siblings Day

April 11th: National Pet Day

April 14th: National Look up at the Sky Day, National Gardening Day, AND International Moment of Laughter Day

April 17th: International Bat Appreciation Day

April 21st: National High Five Day

April 22nd: Earth Day

April 23rd: National Picnic Day

April 28th: National Kids and Pets Day AND National Superhero Day

April Special Activities

April is packed full of special days about animals, volunteering, gardening, and enjoying the outdoors. Tiger Cub Scouts love to take advantage of exploring their outdoor world. As their den leader, encourage this love and get your scouts outside as much as possible.

During April, we focus on the Sky is the Limit Tiger elective adventure for National Look Up At the Sky Day on March 14th. You can also add in some animal activities with National Zoo Lover’s Day on April 8th, National Farm Animal Day on April 10th, National Pet Day on April 11th, and National Kids and Pets Day on April 28th. April is also a time to celebrate our heroes, especially our military as this month is recognized as National Military Child Month and National Superhero Day on April 28th.

Try a short hike with your Tiger Cub Scouts in April. We have found that one to two miles is the perfect hike. While our Tiger Cubs enjoy a loop hike because they circle around to where they began, you could also try an out and back if you have an interesting natural feature to see. Try pairing this with April 5th Read a Road Map Day by asking your scouts to read a trail map. National Walking Day is April 6th and April is National Move More Month as well, so a hike in the beginning of April is perfect.

With Earth Day on April 22nd paired with National Gardening and National Volunteer Month, April can be the perfect time for some gardening fun. There is so much fun your Tigers can have with gardening. If you are looking for a community service project, check in with your town hall or scouting meeting location about planting a butterfly garden or weeding invasive plants. These are two community service projects that give back to the community and assist your scouts with meeting Tiger Rank.

If you are looking for some more home or gift gardening options, we’ve got some perfect ones for you. Tiger Scouts love to plant seeds and watch them to grow. You can grow some flowers, fruits or vegetables to start your own garden, gift to a teacher or friend, or even start a community garden. Grab a few cardboard egg cartons or peat pots for planting. These are great because you can plant the whole pot or egg holder in the ground without transferring the plants.

If you want to try the egg carton garden, be sure to use a cardboard egg carton. The cardboard will disintegrate in the ground. If you have a Styrofoam or plastic egg carton, you will need to transfer the plants. Poke a few holes in the bottom of each of the egg cups to allow for proper drainage. You can even cut off the top and use it as a tray to catch the extra water. Then label and plant each seed.

With International Bat Appreciation Day on April 17th, you can introduce your Tiger Scouts to the wonderful animal of bats. We love to make coffee filter bats. Begin by gathering your supplies: toilet paper roll, coffee filter, markers, scissors, and water bottle. The leaders should cut two slits across from each other on the toilet paper roll. The scouts can begin by coloring on the coffee filters with washable markers: for bats try blue, purple, black, gray, and brown. The lightly spray with water to allow the colors to blend. While this dries, allow scouts to cover their toilet paper roll with black, brown or gray paper, tissue paper, or color with markers. Once dry, thread the coffee filter through the slits in the toilet paper roll and spread to make wings. Your Tigers can add eyes and a face to their bats.

While these activities are extra fun, they can be tied to the Conservation Good Turn and Outdoor Activity Award in addition to some Tiger adventures.. Below we will explore a Tiger Scout specific adventures that we love for the month of April.

Sky is the Limit Adventure Requirements

April is a great time to plan for the Sky is the Limit Tiger Elective Adventure with National Look Up at the Sky Day on April 14th. May 6th is National Space Day and May 5th is National Astronaut Day, so you could save this for May as well. Be sure to allow some flexibility with your dates as April does tend to be a rainy and cloudy month, so getting a good view can be a little tricky.

1. With your den or family, go outside to observe the night sky. Talk about what you see or might see.
2. Look at a distant object using a telescope or binoculars. Show how to focus the device.
3. Find out about two astronauts who were Scouts when they were younger. Share with your den.
4. Observe in the sky two constellations that are easy to see in the night sky. Learn about the names of the stars in the constellations and how the constellation got its name.
5. Draw and name your own constellation.
6. Create a homemade model of a constellation.
7. Find out about two different jobs related to astronomy.
8. With your den or family, visit a planetarium, observatory, science museum, or astronomy club.

Sky is the Limit Meeting Agenda for Tiger Cub Scouts

For the Tiger Adventure Sky is the Limit, joining a local astronomy club is an amazing option. Many times the adults are so excited to share their telescopes, binoculars, and knowledge with the Tiger Cub Scouts. If this is not an option, a sledding hill can be another amazing place to host this adventure. If nothing else, stepping outside your meeting place a night can work as well.

Before the meeting, we ask each scout to research to astronauts who were Scouts when they were younger to share with the den. Just know, many of your Tiger Cub Scouts will pick the same astronauts so sharing can go pretty quickly. If you are looking for more variety, you may wish to assign names to your scouts. There are hundreds of astronauts to pick from.

To open this meeting, we suggest asking each scout to draw and name their own constellation. You can provide the scouts black paper and white crayons or colored pencils to draw. Another option is to hole punch some white or yellow stars and provide glue sticks for the scouts to create their constellation. If you really want to go overboard, you could provide glue bottles and some glitter. The scouts can dot of their stars with glue and then add glitter to make shining nighttime stars.

If you want to make some star constellations quickly, you can try out pipe cleaner constellations. Bring some star beads and pipe cleaners. The Tiger scouts can bend the pipe cleaners into any shape or design and slide the beads on. Be sure to bring some paper to write down the constellation name.

Next, we bring all the Tigers together to share their constellation and their astronaut research. This can be as simple as going around the circle and asking each scout to share. If time is a factor, you could ask each scout to write out their facts about the astronauts, then lay out the astronaut fact sheets and constellations. Each scout can walk around and learn about the astronauts and view the constellation at their own pace.

If you are looking for something a little bigger for sharing, you could make a poster for each astronaut that your scouts researched. Print off a photo for the top of the poster and write their name. Then let each scout add their information to the large paper. We love to use a table for activities like this with the label on one side and the answer on the other.

Afterwards, spend a little time discussing the safety for the equipment and how to use the equipment. Ask your scouts to share some of the objects they can see in the night sky without any of the special equipment and share what they hope to see. Then it’s time to let your scouts explore by looking through binoculars and telescopes to view the night sky.

We love to bring along a night sky viewer app and ipad or other tablet. This lets us to identify where to point the telescope or look for constellations in the sky. Simply point upwards and the app will identify what you are seeing in the sky. This is extremely helpful if you have limited telescopes or long waits to keep the waiting Tiger Cub Scouts entertained.

Sky is the Limit Crafts

Sky is the Limit has so many different crafts you can try with your scouts. We love the constellation craft above that we use to earn requirement 5 for the Sky is the Limit Tiger Adventure. Below we will include two different space crafts that your Tiger scouts will love.

Our scouts love designing their own alien spaceships. Simply fold a paper plate in half and glue closed. Then let your scouts decorate using scraps of paper, paint, markers, crayons, and any other materials you have available. If you have any glow in the dark coloring supplies or paint, these are always a favorite. To add a little extra fun, try making some aliens using large pom poms, googly eyes, and pipecleaners.

Another option is to make a rocket ship. Gather some toilet paper or paper towel rolls. You can cover the paper towel roll with paper or allow your scouts to paint or color with markers. To make the cone, simply cut out a circle, then cut one slit from one edge to the center and form into a cone by gluing the two edges together. For the base, simply cut out two large isosceles triangles with a bottom base of about 5 inches. Cut a slit in one triangle from the top point to close to the edge and fit the two triangles together. Then cut 4 slits in the bottom of your paper towel roll to slide in the triangles. The 4 flits should be equidistant from each other.

If you want to try to fly your rocket, you will need a few extra supplies. First, be sure to securely glue or tape all the parts together. Then purchase two different size straws: one with a larger diameter and a smaller diameter. Cut the larger straw into about a 2 inch piece and tape the top and sides tightly closed. Glue this to the inside of your rocket. Then insert the smaller straw and blow.

If your Tigers absolutely love the moon, we have the craft for your den. Start with a white paper plate. We have found that the thicker paper plates work at little better here. Make a variety of shades of silver and grey by mixing black and white paint. Using pom poms, dip the pom poms in the paint and dab all over your plate to create a crater filled moon. You could even use the left overs from making aliens and shapeships above.

And of course, a space craft wouldn’t be complete without some galaxy slime. For galaxy slime, you’ll need 1 cup of glue, 1 tbsp baking soda, and 2 tbsps of contact lens solution. If you want colored slime, feel free to buy colored glue or add in a little food coloring to get the color you love. For an even more galaxy feel, add in some colored glitter. You will want to add the coloring and glitter to the glue, then mix in the baking soda before adding the contact solution.

April Service Projects for Tiger Cub Scouts

Since April is National Volunteer Month, this is the perfect time to plan a service project or two for your Tiger Cub Scouts. Pair this with gardening and Earth Day for a wonderful experience in Tiger Cub Scouts.

Plant a Butterfly Garden

Butterfly gardens are a wonderful way to help butterflies during their migration. Just remember, these will also need to be caterpillar friendly and will also help bees. Start by locating a space that gets lots of direct sunlight each day but is protected from the wind. Ask your local school, library, town hall, or even Cub Scout meeting place.

Then you will want to choose native butterfly friendly plants. The best way to find these plants is a stop at a nursery. You will want both host plants for the caterpillars and eggs and nectar plants for the butterflies. Some great plants to consider include: black-eyed susan, butterfly-weed, downy sunflower, little bluestem, lupines, coneflowers in various colors, showy goldenrod, wild petunias, zinnias, and don’t forget the milkweed if you want to attract monarch butterflies. Other host plants include parsley, dill, fennel, and rue.

Begin a Vegetable or Flower Garden

Just like a butterfly garden, you can start a herb, vegetable or flower garden. Find a space which could be communal like a school, neighborhood entrance, or park. You could also have each scout start their own in cardboard egg cartons to transfer to their own home gardens. Local food pantries love to receive fresh produce so if you ever find you have a little extra, call and see if they are accepting donations.

They could also make vegetable garden kits by putting together a few seeds of a variety of different vegetables with instructions for growing the vegetables for other families to begin their own vegetable gardens.

Send a Note of Hope

April is the National Military Child Month. This is a great time to send a note of hope to a serviceman or woman serving overseas or away from their family. Maybe gather some of your leftover Easter candy or some toiletry supplies. Make a few cards or drawings and mail a care package to someone in the military or a military family.

Book Drive

April 1st is National Children’s Picture Book Day. With your den, gather used picture books to donate to families in need. If you happen to have a literacy project near you, they could also help package books for children in need. Your scouts could also put together lists of their favorite books and authors to share with others to ignite a passion for reading with other children their age. Another option is to work with your school or town library to refresh their book collection and donate books that aren’t leaving the shelves.

Organize a Hike

Gather your 6 essentials for Cub Scouting and organize a hike for local families. Find the perfect hiking trails for young kids, seniors, and everyone in between. Bring extra water and snacks for each person attending the hike. Then go out and enjoy nature with others.

You can coordinate this with your local senior citizen center, library, special education rec program, or faith based groups.

Local Park, Beach, or State Park Clean Up

April is make America Beautiful Month, so invite your scouts to meet at a local, beach, or state park with gloves and a garbage bag. Then put your Tiger Cub Scouts to work cleaning up the litter that has accumulated now that spring has begun and the parks are in use again. Not only are you helping your community to have a safe and litter free park, but you are helping all the local animals too.

Spring Farm Clean Up

If you live in an area where farms are plentiful, lots of farmers look for volunteers to help get their land in order for the spring. Farmers who plant crops often need help cleaning up the fields, raking, leveling fields, and washing equipment. Farmers with animals may ask for assistance with preparing the animals’ outdoor areas, cleaning the animals’ sleeping areas, grooming animals, feeding animals, or making repairs around the farm. It never hurts to ask how you can help.

Tiger Cub Scouts April Outings

April is the time for Tiger Cub Scouts to enjoy the outdoors and explore their natural world around them. As always, have a back up plan just in case the weather doesn’t cooperate and an emergency plan is severe weather or a tornado moves in. While it’s never fun to cancel a scouting adventure, safety always comes first.

Go For a Hike

April 6th is National Walking Day. This is the perfect time to go hiking. If your scouts are new to hiking, 1 -2 miles is the perfect length for a hike. For Tiger Cub Scouts who are hiking experts, it’s time to increase their distance and try out a 2 – 5 mile hike. If you choose a 5 mile hike, plan a picnic lunch to enjoy about halfway on your hike. If you can plan the hike to end near a park, the scouts always love this. Be sure to practice the Outdoor Code and Leave No Trace Principles again.

Zoo Trip

April 8th is National Zoo Lover’s Day. Plan a trip to the local zoo with your scouts. Enjoy the sights and sounds around you as you visit with the different animals. As you are on your trip, be sure to bring along a garbage bag and gather up any trash laying around.

Farm Trip

Plan a trip to a local farm as April 8th in National Farm Animal’s Day. There are plenty of petting zoos and places to pet farm animals around. If possible, ask one of the farmers to be available to answer your Tiger Cub Scouts’ questions. You’ll want to bring along a few dollars so you can buy some feed for the animals.

Picnic

April 23rd is National Picnic Day. Work with your Tiger Cub Scout families to plan a picnic lunch. You can make this a pot luck lunch by asking each family to bring an item or two or you can have each family pack their own lunches. Bring along a few picnic blankets and your water bottles to enjoy a beautiful picnic outdoors with your scouts.

Fishing

Our Tiger Scouts are definitely very interested in fishing and learning how to fish. Any time that you can, plan a fishing trip for the scouts and allow them to cast their fishing lines into the pond, lake or river. Be prepared to help them with taking fish off of the line, putting bait on, casting, and reeling in. You may also need some fun “waiting” activities for the kids and maybe even support with taking turtles off of fishing hooks.

We’d Love to Connect with You!

April Tiger Cub Scouts meetings are wonderful for reconnecting with nature and enjoying the beautiful weather that is on the way. Since we are nearing the end of Tiger Cub Scout year, we usually plan only one den meeting to focus on requirements during April and plan one or two outings to enjoy nature or take a den trip. April tends to be a busy time with spring sports beginning, school open houses, end of year concerts and art exhibits, and religious years wrapping up too.

Leave a comment below and let us know if you’ve earned your Sky is the Limit elective adventures. What worked well for you? What would you have tried differently? Did your scouts love the adventures as much as ours? If you are looking for more Cub Scout leader tips, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter below.