Cub Scouts

In our church, we are given "callings".  Basically, we are asked to fulfill a position of service in the church and it could be anything from the easiest hymn book coordinator to a leadership position.  It is interesting to have this opportunity to serve in positions I wouldn't dream I'd excel in or even necessarily want to do.  I can't say that I have always had the best attitude when I start out in a new service opportunity but I usually end up learning a lot.  I've never had to teach adults in church but I've had a lot of different opportunities to teach kids of a variety of ages and teenagers.  Right now I'm doing music with the young women.

In one of my last callings as a nursery leader (my second tour) I had a bit of a bad attitude.  I was tired of entertaining toddlers.  Our ward was trying to make nursery more than two hours of toys with a snack and a lesson.  We were encouraged to come up with projects for the kids.  The kids in the nursery are 18months-3years and I had Red Fish with me who was only a year old.  It completely stressed me out to come up with projects that could be done by a large group of toddlers dressed in their Sunday finery.  The interesting thing is that it really pushed me to think about art and little kids.  It was what initially got me into thinking up projects for Red Fish.  I'm sure I would have gotten into art with my kids on my own but being a nursery leader gave me a jump-start into thinking about how I wanted to deal with art and toddlers.

Two Fish and I were recently released from working with the cub scouts in our neighborhood.  We've had nine year old boys over for weekly activities for the last year and a half.  It has been a huge learning experience for me.  Everything I know about dealing with a group of little boys came from growing up with brothers.  I don't have any boys of my own or any kids that age.  I was never a scout,  obviously.  Two Fish has three brother and was a scout but claims to remember nothing.  Since Two Fish work outside our home much more than I do, it made sense that I planned most of the activities.

Cub scouts is an amazing program!  I'm so impressed with all of the learning opportunities it provides.  I learned a lot while preparing their lessons and activities. The biggest thing I learned was how to deal with boys. I learned how to get a large group of wild little boys to settle down and concentrate on an activity.  That was a huge feat for me.  I got to teach them about the ocean and fish and some of my other passions.  We did art projects and built bird houses.  We passed over dozens of goals. For the most part, I really enjoyed my time with them!

In the last few weeks we had several guests come speak.  We talked about science, food, marketing and communication.  Then last week we cooked salt dough and made dinosaurs and habitats.  It was a lot of fun.  I think I am going to miss scouts.

Red Fish's island, cave and dinosaur.

The best part was that my little girls adored the cub scouts.  The boys were very kind to them and really let them be a part of the group.  The girls are devastated that "our cub scouts" won't be coming around anymore.