Beaver Scouts

[tanukiton]

My daughter has just joined the local beaver scouts here in Japan but it is soooo small.

Beavers here is seen as mendokusai (a pain in the) by the parents, with too much hiking.
So I was wondering if I can help revive our group international style and tell me what a typical session is where you are?
I read on another thread about a biscuit and a snack so will try and introduce that too.

[MrsRuffdiamond]

Beavers is a little while back for us, as ds3 now in Cubs, but I'm sure there was very little (if any) hiking!

From memory, they tended to do quite a lot of 'craft-y' things, cooking, talks from interesting people (paramedics, with accompanying ambulance one week!), visits to e.g. the police station, a local city farm, a large pet store. Quite often the weekly activity was in connection with gaining one of the badges. They also played lots of group games.

[Poppiesway]

scouts site for uk have a look here for help..

[Poppiesway]

You can search through for beavers and cubs etc

[tanukiton]

They don't do badges here until cubs. Umm I was thinking of suggesting we do the badge work even though there isn't a badge at the end. Some of the uk badges look really interesting.

[jaynebxl]

We loved beavers. The badges were great ... They worked through them in the activities they did so DS left with lots, having done all kinds of things. All listed on the uk badges site. Is it not possible to get the uk badges?

[jaynebxl]

If not maybe the kids could earn equivalent certificates?

[tanukiton]

jaynebxl I think we might just have a fusion group HE HE HE. I had a look at the badges and they are really age appropriate learning goals. As a test I looked up morse code and my daughter has sat down and made a morse code bracelet and is really into the idea of a secret code.

[DeWee]

Ds does beavers. As far as I can tell the main idea is to be very active and be extremely loud.

It's only an hour and a quarter, so no snack generally, although if they're doing lots of sports they might have water available.

The sort of things they do are: Yes they have done a hike-at night, with torches and a bonfire at the end with hot dogs (longer session), they went to B&Q and made flower stands out of wood, football, basketball, first aid, lots of army museum type places, donutting, litter picking, pancake making... and lots of badges too.

Can't you order the bages from UK and use them? I think it's a pity if they don't get them when they've worked for them.
They also have Beaver of the week (gets a soft toy beaver to take home) and Beaver of the month (small trophy).

There are also extra things like family camp (Beavers plus family) and days out-some of them are going to trooping of the colour and that sort of thing.

I think the meeting generally are along the lines of: Basketball/fooball until they're ready to start. Sit down in circle, tell them what they're doing, activity, tidy up, back in circle to finish and give out any badges, Beaver Howl! (which you may want to avoid!)

[tanukiton]

Dewee i don't know if we can do that, would be nice.

[Seeline]

Couldn't you get your own badges made? My DD was Rainbow in the UK and they don't really have set badges the way Beavers do. But they did loads of different challenges based around different themes and got a badge at the end of it. Eg they did a campfire challenge where they had to learn new songs and do some cooking etc

[tanukiton]

Umm I am going to try and link up with the Uk beaver group from my old village and see if there is some way we can tweak the rules. I know in the past a girl from my old brownie group got her mum to just buy the badges without doing any of the work (found out years later) I remember thinking what was the point in that .

Maybe if we do the uk badge work and get an outside leader to validate it I wouldn't feel so uneasy about it. I know on the grand scheme of things it isn't that important but i do want my daughter to 'work for' her badges... Ummm lots to think about thanks guys!

[fridayfreedom]

Have a look on the uk scout shop website. They do a set of three books with all the beaver programme, badges, ideas etc. highly useful for planning the sessions, badges etc.
You can use anyone qualified to validate badges. Eg swim teacher for swim badges

[tanukiton]

Oh thanks friday... I am in the uk for summer so will order and mull over them. The cub group seems to be going strong but poor beavers. My son will be joining later on( if he wants) and I want to try and help make it a great exp.

[QueenofLouisiana]

If you don't get anywhere with your old villages Beaver group, I run one and would love an international partner!

We don't do any hiking, but we are putting up tents in the garden next week! We did emergency aid (wipes and plasters) last week.