Bear Cub Scout Beginning of the Year Campout

Are you looking for a fun and engaging Bear Scout fall campout where you can check off many requirements towards making rank this scout year? Hopefully, your cub scout program, pack, or council has a fall campout planned. Now that you are a season camper, planning your Bear Scout beginning of the year campout should allow you to make a lot of progress toward rank.

Hopefully, you have a good idea of your scouting families preferences with regards to camping. 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. While still other families may wish to camp overnight only Saturday evening. Therefore, we use Friday night, Saturday morning and Sunday morning for more elective or optional activities. Consequently, we jam pack out Saturday afternoon/early evening with our requirements.

If your scouting families love to 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 additional elective adventures. Additionally, this is a great opportunity to add in a STEM project or Nova Award too.

Before the Campout

For Bear Cub Scout year, it can be helpful to have a meeting prior to the beginning of the year campout. During this meeting, you can prepare for the campout with your scouts to allow you to further progress towards Bear Cub Scout rank.

Bear Cub Scout Den First Meeting

As this first meeting, it would be beneficial to invite each scout’s parent or guardian as you will be discussing the fall campout. During this meeting you will most likely also assign roles and responsibilities for the camping trip.

With the scouts, plan out your camping trip needs. Have the Bear Cub Scouts brainstorm a list of items they will need to pack and bring for their weekend camping trip. Then the scouts can help prepare a list of group equipment the den needs to bring along in addition to the scout’s personal gear. Be sure to plan for meals, snacks, and water too. This is a great time to assign responsibilities for which families should plan to bring different items or secure these items from the Cub Scout pack.

Also, discuss your camping weekend agenda with the families. This way they know when to plan to arrive, when the most requirements will be covered, and any other special events scheduled during the camping trip.

If you plan to complete Baloo the Builder, discuss with your den which project they would like to build. Ours loved their toolboxes, but you really could do anything. Bat houses might be nice to help with the bat population. And if you would like to work towards Bear Claw, be sure to discuss pocketknives and some projects your scouts can do with them.

What Should I Bring for a Bear Scout Fall Campout?

Try to make this as easy for scouts and families as you can. If possible send out a master list of the materials to pack for each family. Then include a list that shows the specific group materials that each family should plan to bring, especially with regards to meals and advancement materials.

Scouts

Scouts will need to bring their own materials for camping. This includes their campsite materials and also their individual clothes and hygiene materials. Provide your scouts a packing list if you pack has one. The easier this is for families, the more change they will take on camping. Be sure to include your scouts Bear Cub Scout guide.

Scouts should have the Cub Scout 6 Essentials of hiking. We suggest the scouts get a hydration pack for ease of drinking water. Your scouts will consume more water with one than just a water bottle. Also, these hydration packs have a built in whistle, but we prefer to also have our own. Additionally, we love headlamps to use as our flashlight. Not only do these let your scouts be hands-free, they also make it a lot harder for scouts to shine the light in other’s eyes.

The other essentials that you scout needs are a first aid kit, sun protection, and trail food. We have each of our scouts prepare their own first aid kit to keep in their hydration packs. We suggest making this at the campout on either Friday night or Saturday morning. You can ask each family to help contribute materials to lessen the costs for leaders.

For example, we asked families for band-aids, antiseptic wipes, antibiotic ointment, gauze, medical tape, tissues, tweezers, and a Ziploc bag for our scouts beginner first aid kit. Get our labels for free. Sun protection is easy with the scouts wearing a hat and sun screen. Finally, trail food can be any snack the scouts prefer.

Cub Scout Leader

The leaders will need to bring a more complete first aid kit. Most packs will have one that the leaders can bring filled with everything you need. If they don’t, you can purchase one to keep and then just refill as you use items.

Next, you will need to think about food. We like to ask each family to bring something, whether they each bring a side dish or dessert. You can also ask families to bring something for each meal. Secondly, you will need coolers with ice (or ice packs) as well as a way to cook your food. We love grilling and find we can make just about anything on a grill.

For breakfast, think eggs, pancakes, or cinnamon rolls. Lunch could be grill cheese, mini pizzas, or walking tacos. Dinner we tend to grill chicken, sausages, hamburgers, don’t forget the buns and condiments. Don’t forget some snacks too! Your scouts will want to each about every 2 hours or so.

There are other items that you will need to bring for specific adventure requirements. Your scouts will need something with which to write and their pocket knife. We also bring an extra box of pencils along just in case. You will want to bring your wood or soap for whittling as well as magnifying glasses for the scouts. If you plan to complete Baloo the Building, plan to bring hand tools and supplies for the project.

Bear Cub Scout Fall Campout Agenda

We have plans from Friday night to Sunday morning for this Bear Scout beginning of the year campout since our pack often chooses to camp over the weekend. However, knowing that families are busy, we plan for most of our Bear Cub Scout rank requirements for Saturday afternoon and evening. This allows the majority of our scouts to attend when we focus on rank adventures. If you are wondering ‘what are typical scouting outdoor activities?’, we’ve got you covered.

Friday Night

When your scouts first arrive, you will want to plan some time to set up campsites. This allows families to run to the store if they have forgotten something as well as take as much time during daylight to get all set up. However, if your den will arrive together, it can be fun to have an activity planned for the scouts to get out their energy before dedicating time to campsite preparations. Be sure to ask your scouts to help pick their campsite spot and explain why it was a good choice. Then have the Bear Scout help set up the tent. Bear Necessities 4

Depending on when you will arrive, you will need to provide dinner (or a late night snack). This is the perfect time to set up a first aid station. First, have each family place out their supplies. Then hand each scout a Ziploc bag and let them place 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 string lights to help them find their way.

Saturday Morning

You will want a plan for breakfast and lunch on Saturday. This includes the food you will prepare, the materials needed, as well as a plan for preparing the food. It can be difficult to occupy the scouts while leaders are making meals.

This is a great time for the scouts to play catch, reading quietly in the outdoors or draw. 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. We also love to work in Duty to God time here as well. This is perfect since scouts work on these requirements with their families.

Just like you made your first aid kits on Friday night, you could plan to make a Trail food trail mix. If each family plans to bring one trail mix food, you would end up with a great mix of foods for the scouts to fill their bags. Don’t forget containers or bags for each scout. For example, we love nuts, banana chips, m&ms, dried pineapple (or other fruit), sunflower seeds (without the shell), chocolate chips, raisins or craisins, popcorn, cereal, and chips.

Saturday Afternoon/Evening

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.

Bear Necessities Requirements

If you had a meeting prior to the fall campout, your scouts should have completed these requirements. They helped to plan the materials needed both personally and for their den. Then they assisted with deciding where to set up camp. Finally, they helped set up their tent.

If your scouts won’t be camping, plan to bring a tent for families to practice setting up. Just take it down for each family to get a turn. Bear Necessities Adventure requirements is completed by attending an outdoor activity with your den or pack.

Bear Claw Requirements

We like to move on to Bear Claw Adventure next. This is an amazing adventure to start with since your scouts earn their first pocketknife. What a monumental moment for your scouts!

Before presenting the scouts their pocketknife, we begin with showing scouts pictures of the 3 types of pocketknives. These are found on pages 53-54 in your Bear Scout handbook.

Next, discuss the safety rules on pages 55-56 in the Bear Scout handbook. We went into further detail about how knives are not toys.

We finished by asking our scouts to recite the pocketknife pledge on page 56 of the Bear Scout handbook. Make a copy of this page for each scout just in case someone forgets their handbook. You can cut out the pledge and then laminate it so each scout always has a copy.

Pocketknife Projects

Now it’s time to present the pocketknives to the scouts. We had each family give their scout the pocketknife and any family rules they wanted to provide. Then we reviewed opening and closing the pocketknives as well as safe handling while the scouts practiced with their knife.

We asked each scout to practice by sharpening a pencil. Then we let them use their knives to carve in Ivory soap. We also provided some balsa wood for the scouts to try to carve out their initials. Save these initials for your Baloo the Builder project; they especially look nice on the toolboxes.

Fur, Feather and Ferns Requirements

After pocketknife work, our scouts definitely needed some movement. We stored our pocketknives in the special pocket in their hydration packs. Double check that all knives are closed correctly and remind scouts that carrying your own pocketknife is an honor.

For Fur, feather, and ferns, take the scouts on a 1-mile hike. While on your hike, identify 6 signs of nature. These can include footprints, nibbles on plants, scat, fur or feathers left behind, homes, and marks or rubbings on trees. Remind the scouts to stay quiet so you can observe wildlife. This includes birds and squirrels.

End your hike with a plant investigation. Provide each scout a magnifying glass. Ask them to observe a plant more closely and share what the magnifying glass allows them to see.

To complete this adventure, you will need to complete one more additional step. If you want to earn rank sooner, you can learn about composting and practice it with dinner or discuss extinct and endangered animals. If you would like to schedule additional field trips, plan a trip to a zoo or other wildlife nature center. And if you scouts would like to help their community, plant a vegetable or herb garden.

Baloo the Builder

After the hike, our scouts were ready for another building adventure. We set out a variety of hand tools and encouraged the scouts to look with their eyes. We brought along safety glass, hammer, screwdriver, hand saw, vise or clamp, tape measure, and sandpaper. First aid kits are great too!

Teach the scouts about each tool. What the tool is called? What it is used for? How to use it safely? And of course, any special tips the leaders and families can think to share.

Then allow your scouts the opportunity to learn about the project. If your den picked toolboxes, page 43-44 in the Bear Scout Handbook is extremely helpful! Afterwards, we turned each family loose and let the scouts get to work. They will need some help but wood glue really does solve so many problems.

The toolboxes do need some time to dry, so you may want to plan a different time for applying the finish. If your scouts are camping tonight, you could apply finish in the morning before scouts head for home to complete this requirement.

Bear Goes Fishing Requirements

We finished out requirements part of the day with A Bear Goes Fishing. We brought all the scouts to a pond. Once there, we began by discussing the different types of fish the scouts could catch. Scouts can draw the different fish and describe their habitat and favorite foods on page 123 of the Bear Scout Handbook.

Next, we taught our scouts about the local fishing regulations. Be sure to discuss catch and release policies, leave no trace with regards to fishing, and respecting private property. This is a great time to introduce fishing licenses too!

Afterwards, let your scouts fish for one hour. This is a great time for families to get involved and fish with their children. We would that a leader or a few parents could sneak away during fishing to prepare for dinner. And of course, fish tend to be more cooperative for our scouts early in the morning or closer to dusk.

Campout Program

Don’t forget to plan for your campfire program. Your scouts will most likely want to prepare a skit or song to share with their pack. You will also need supplies for any treat (like s’mores) you wish to share with your scouts.

Sunday Morning

You will need a plan for breakfast. This is a great time to let the scouts practice knot tying, especially a half hitch. Scouts could also work on whittling a little more to earn their whittling chip if not complete yesterday.

After breakfast, you could provide this time for clean up and breaking down tents. But if you really want to complete Baloo the Builder, go ahead an let your scouts apply the finish to their toolboxes. Ensure that you have plenty of adults nearby. And prepare for the mess by bringing along a few tarps and wash buckets.

Bear Cub Scout Requirements Covered and Those Left to Do!

This Bear Scout beginning of the year campout covers so many adventures, we thought you could use a list. If your families find time for Fellowship and Duty to God, be sure to record this too! Your scouts will be so close to earning Bear Scout Rank with just one meeting and one campout. What an amazing accomplishment.

Bear Claw 1 – 3 planned during the campout. DONE!

Bear Necessities 2 -3 planned during the first meeting, 1 & 4 completed during the campout. DONE!

Fellowship and Duty to God could possibly be completed. Ask families to do during a down time Friday night, Saturday morning, or even Sunday morning.

Fur, Feathers, and Ferns completed parts 1, 4, and 5. Possibly completed parts 3 (extinct animals) or 6 (composting). Or possibly need to finish just one part. POSSIBLY DONE!

Baloo the Builder parts 1 – 3 completed Saturday, possibly completed part 4 (apply finish) on Sunday. POSSIBLY DONE!

Paws for Action – NEED TO COMPLETE!

A Bear Goes Fishing parts 1, 2, & 4 completed during campout. DONE!

In order to earn Bear Scout Rank, your scouts will possibly need to finish up Fur, Feathers, and Ferns & Baloo the Builder depending on if you plan to complete these or do them at a later meeting. Then your scouts will only need to complete Paws for Action to earn Bear Scout Rank! Your Cub Scout den is well on it’s way to webelos. Don’t miss our Webelos Cub Scout Fall Campout plan to make rank.

We’d Love to Connect with You

Good luck on your campout and remember HAVE FUN! Be sure to read more about Bear Scout Nova Awards. For more done for you meetings, check out Bear Scout Forensics Advancement. Leave a comment below if you find this campout plan helpful or see something else we could add. Have other tips for scout leaders, we’d love for you to drop them in the comments too. Looking for more fun scouting done for you agendas and outdoor activities for your family? Subscribe to our newsletter for families for more practical solutions to real-life parenting problems and a few freebies too!