Camping Out Ideas - Any ideas for fun Cub Scout activities for a camp out?

Any ideas for fun Cub Scout activities for a camp out?

We will be having an overnighter in a couple weeks. I need some fresh ideas games, campfire songs etcetera for our pack ! Thanks in advance for any help, resources or links. I have been in Scouting five years and need some fresh ideas (not the same old same old) ! Now, I am Cub Master and relied on big time.. Please help!

Public Comments

try putting mentos in diet coke...
cobbler made in a dutch oven was always my favorite.
How about survival training, ie, how to survive in the woods if you were ever lost and had to find food, water, shelter etc.
Capture the flag! When I was a cub scout, they didn't make us do those dumb campfire songs. We ran out in the woods and played capture the flag. And then when the lights went out, we all snuck over to the girls camp and threw marshmellows at them and pulled their tent pegs out.
Why don't you explain to the little kids why the mormon church turned the boy scouts into a pack of homophobic theists! Oop sorry I should watch my temper. My favorite scouting activity was anything that had to do with acting. Improv, reading scripts, singing and stuff like that. Anything that can make one laugh! I'd start there :-/ have fun ~Zach
New gear is always fun. Maybe teach them to light a fire with only a spark tool and birch bark. Let them earn rewards like the LightMyFire SporkKnife by who lights it the quickest. Etc. Tape Survivorman episodes on Science channel to watch with them. Hike at night with headlamps and watch the stars - or better yet plan an overnight during a meteor storm.
If someone has a telescope you can do some amateur astronomy. Try to find some planets, perhaps gaze at the moon. Two years ago I was supposed to help the Boy Scouts earn a merit badge in astronomy, but we were on a 50 mile hike, and only camped in the same location twice. Although there was a very nice telescope where we started from, no one packed one. We could not do any of the astronomy merit badge activities. But still, peering through a telescope at the Pleides, the Orion Nebula, any planet, (especially Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn--Mars is a bit boring), and of course our moon--is always good. The lunar craters are visible through regular binoculars. Short day hikes are also good. One thing I did in Cub Scouts I will always remember was making a home made kite. Another fun activity would be basic electronics. Simple motors, switches, circuits with speakers or lights resistors, etc.
You could do a scavenger hunt. Look for things like a feather, animal tracks, moss, flowers, snails, kindling, and other things found in the woods. Look up your local night sky and do some star gazing at night. Make a game of who can find the most constellations. http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/
Capture the flag I remember that too and pulling the tent pole stakes out funny. but I also remember our master was a veteran and a father. he is past away now and I will pass his knowledge on to you. Have a contest to see who can polish there boots the best. then explain to the rest of us how he did it. the winner I mean we all learn and he gets to teach. pretty cool .also ty the scarf on correctly don't laugh a lot of them don't know how and when they do its passed on to others. Have a board showing the badges they earn by doing exactly what!! if possible and this is important during the camp fire sit and relax time have a full eagle scout or some one up in ranks not an old guy like me or you but a teen that is full honor or close to it so they will see for them self's that it gets better every year they get to ask him and learn. that is what this Army Ranger 82nd Air Born remembers most.
show them how to make a simple lighting system from carparts. a charged 12 storage battery/a SPST 20 amp switch / 12vlamps/sockets (NAPA) wirenuts odd lengths of 18-2 zipcord and you have a lighting system for camping out. add a 12VDC operated TV set and you got entertainment. add hot choclate from the campfire. a;so find a radioshack shortwave receiver, there is a model that runs on ac or 12 VDC. add a antenna and the wonders of world wide radio can be demonstrated . look into that , and you got a winner. find a friend thats a ham. the radio shack sales people usually have never built anything and made it work....i got started at 12 years old by a ex radar tech from the USS Enterprise WW2. its worth it.
My mother was a den mother, my dad was a scout master, then a scout executive and camp director of the summer camp for over 8 YEARS--my mother was the camp nurse for those same 8 years... I spent all my summers at the camp as the (omg) only girl.... but I learned a LOT....everyone did the campfire songs and S'mores over the campfire thing... if the kids won't freak out, ghost stories around the campfire are always a good one. Games---have a scavinger hunt....have the boys go out and look for different things around the campsite----make them go in PAIRS so no one will get lost but don't let them TOO far out of your site...have them look for different leaves, or signs that an animal has been present, or pine cones... or PLANT stuff for them to find....give them a list of all the items and give the ones who find the most stuff in a set amt of time some sort of prize. Another game would be guess the animal---it's kind of like Cherades but the kids get a picture of an animal and then verbally and with ACTIONS have to make the kids guess what animal they are imitating.....another thing you can do is have an OUTDOOR cooking class ----teach the kids how to cook over a fire without burning themselves or whatever they are cooking.... make a stew over the fire---have the kids help peel the potatoes and cut the carrots....WATCHING them all the time so no little fingers get cut... the kids at camp when I was a kid made wallets and those laneards not sure that is spelled correctly but they were thin plastic strips or RAWHIDE strips that were kind of braided together and you could hook keys on to them or whatever.... another game could be to have the kids go around the perimeter of the camp and see if they can spot edible plants or berries... have them bring back what they find and see if they know or everyone in the group knows... DON'T let them eat them of course until you've checked them out... and I DO hope you know what can and cannot be eaten in the woods or else that's not a good game for the kids.
Scareiest story contest. whittle wood like small canoes or boats I see whos floats out farthest. Scavanger hunts. Maps of hiodden treasures. Have groups bury something, draw mapas of their location & have others find it. Collect bugs for a collection. Collect diff. rocks & leaves & have them name them.