CyndiLJ Posted June 19, 2012 Share Posted June 19, 2012 Our kids are not at all interested in participating formally in Scouts, but we are all interested in looking at using the merit badge books for supplementing and exploring other subjects. I was wondering who else has done this without participating in Scouts, and what exactly you have done. Thanks! Cindy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frugalmama Posted June 19, 2012 Share Posted June 19, 2012 We plan on it, but using BSA badge requirements to complete GS badges :D ANd I second the Lone Scout program - FYI they have it for Girl Scouts too - it's normally called either Independently registered Girl Scout or a Juliette depending on your council. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swellmomma Posted June 19, 2012 Share Posted June 19, 2012 My boys (and now my girls) do the boy scouts program here as part of school BUT they are in the program. Last year dd was in girl guides so she did the guide program at home. NExt year both girls will be lones (dd12 with pathfinders and dd4 with sparks) so they will have their programs as part of our school time too just not have participation in a set troop. Is there something about the socuting program that turns them off from participating? If you are already looking at doing the merit badge program, the parts they are turning away from is the fun stuff imo, meetings, camps, service projects etc. The badge program is the hard work of the program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Granny_Weatherwax Posted June 19, 2012 Share Posted June 19, 2012 I think it's a great idea. I am glad to see that you want to use the books as supplements; they are definitely not meaty enough to stand alone. If you read the books and do the reqs, including the hands-on projects, your children will have a lot of fun. I would suggest looking through the list of merit badges and letting your children choose which ones they would like to explore. There are over 120 merit badges to choose from so there are plenty of choices. Some fun ones for Colorado in the summer would be insect study (no collection involved, just taking pics), hiking, canoing, kayaking, cycling, Indian Lore, mammal study, nature, reptile and amphibian... If you want other activities look into the historical trails. There are two registered trails in CO: http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Applications/trails.aspx Here is the list of BSA award that are currently available: http://www.boyscouttrail.com/boy-scouts/boy-scout-awards.asp Your family can have a ball participating in the activities and gaining new experiences. They don't need to be scouts in order to have fun, learn and gain new skills. And in the long run, that's what it's all about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CyndiLJ Posted June 22, 2012 Author Share Posted June 22, 2012 My boys (and now my girls) do the boy scouts program here as part of school BUT they are in the program. Last year dd was in girl guides so she did the guide program at home. NExt year both girls will be lones (dd12 with pathfinders and dd4 with sparks) so they will have their programs as part of our school time too just not have participation in a set troop. Is there something about the socuting program that turns them off from participating? If you are already looking at doing the merit badge program, the parts they are turning away from is the fun stuff imo, meetings, camps, service projects etc. The badge program is the hard work of the program. I don't really know why. We were in Scouts during the Cub years for 4 years, but ended up being leaders of a group with 38+ boys and only my husband and I, so we gave up because we couldn't keep up. It wasn't fun anymore, it was a chore...but that was only for us. What I have seen, which has grown since homeschooling began for us 3 years ago, is that our kids simply do not need or desire "awards" or recognition for things they do. They just do it because it is interesting and find all the rest of the stuff to be kind of cheesy and unnecessary. My daughters are totally not interested in Girl Scouts, saying they think the boy activities are more interesting and they don't care about selling cookies :-) I've actually tried to encourage them toward Scouts but not a single one of the five of them cares about it...but they do think the idea of exploring the activities for merit badges could be very cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CyndiLJ Posted June 22, 2012 Author Share Posted June 22, 2012 I think it's a great idea. I am glad to see that you want to use the books as supplements; they are definitely not meaty enough to stand alone. If you read the books and do the reqs, including the hands-on projects, your children will have a lot of fun. I would suggest looking through the list of merit badges and letting your children choose which ones they would like to explore. There are over 120 merit badges to choose from so there are plenty of choices. Some fun ones for Colorado in the summer would be insect study (no collection involved, just taking pics), hiking, canoing, kayaking, cycling, Indian Lore, mammal study, nature, reptile and amphibian... If you want other activities look into the historical trails. There are two registered trails in CO: http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Applications/trails.aspx Here is the list of BSA award that are currently available: http://www.boyscouttrail.com/boy-scouts/boy-scout-awards.asp Your family can have a ball participating in the activities and gaining new experiences. They don't need to be scouts in order to have fun, learn and gain new skills. And in the long run, that's what it's all about. I mainly want to use them to explore areas of interest, to discover if there is something they might want to dig deeper into. The Scout books seem like there is a nice variety of things with more than a quick glance at a subject without killing us with too much work either. So glad to hear your perspective on this, I was thinking maybe it was a dumb idea! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs.Gregg Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 We participate in a Girl Scout troop (mixed ages) of homeschooled girls. This year was our first year and I really didn't include much badge work as part of our schedule. This coming school year we have a "wonky" Tuesday with both kids taking lessons from Noon-1pm and the we have girl scouts at 4pm. I've decided that we will come home, have lunch and then work on badge work on Tuesdays until scouts. I think it's a really interesting idea to include boy scout badge work as that tends to be a lot of skill based and I think I'll take a look at what we can do to add some other fun activities at home. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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