Leaders like badges too

It's not just Beavers, Cubs and Scouts that like to get badges...Last weekend some of the Cub and Beaver leaders went to learn a lot more about hillwalking and navigation...then they were tested. As you can see, the conditions were particularly tricky for navigating. 

Luckily they all passed with flying colours so we're now able to go on hikes up bigger hills. 

Commonwealth Games Mascots

This week at Beavers we designed our own Commonwealth Games Mascots. Here's a few of them...

Polly Penny

Stompy the Dinosaur

Mandalock the Black Lion

Beavis the Beaver

Scote the Beaver

Bob

Pizza the Pizza

Jeebe

Killearn walk

Last weekend the Cubs (and a few stray Beavers) went on the first walk of the year. We were very lucky that it was a lovely sunny day and we went from Killearn to Glengoyne and back again. The views were great, we did a lot of map reading and even found a old abandoned quarry along the way.

Here's a map of where we went, the whole walk was six and a half miles. 

View Killearn - Dumgoyne in a larger map

Explorer badge

Last term the Beavers completed the Explorer badge. We learned all about maps, about how to use the map key and we each led our parents on an exploration around Balfron.

We had a map to follow and each made a journey stick, with things we collected along the route.   



Our explorer map...

...and some of the things we collected...

Birds of Prey

Last week Graeme came to show the Beavers (and later the Cubs) his birds of prey. We saw a couple of owls, a huge buzzard and a kestrel. It might have had something to do with Graeme telling everyone that the birds were a little peckish but this was the quietest session ever.

Experiments

Last week the Beavers did a lot of experiments. We tested how much energy batteries have and even how fruit and vegetables have electrical energy in them.

We also made our own Lego elastic band cars and experimented with how much energy is stored in the elastic bands.

Just like real scientists we wrote down all our findings.

The Lego car kit...

...and the final car...

...our fruit battery testing kit...

Commonwealth challenge: medals table

This term the Beavers are doing a lot of activities around the Commonwealth Games that come to Glasgow this year.

Scouts Scotland has a new special badge and we're telling them about all the activities we do. These activities count towards our "medals" and we can have a look at how we're doing on a medals table.

So far we've had a go at netball (with leaders standing on chairs instead of nets) and we even had team coaches and a half-time team talk. There will be lots of other sports after half term but we're already on the medal table in 4th place!

We'll be posting an updated medals table as we do more activities.

Pizza

A couple of weeks ago the Beavers learned a lot about health eating. We tried fruits and vegetables from around the world, many were from the commonwealth countries we are learning about this term. We also made pizzas. Now , we know that pizzas are not always very healthy but we learned about the healthy and the not-so healthy parts of the pizza, and with lots of tomato, pineapple, olives and mushrooms, with only a bit of cheese, we think this is a very tasty and healthy pizza.

We should also thank the Cubs and Scouts that came a long to help..although they may have had their own reasons to come along. They were certainly very eager to help with the eating.

Art

Last term, for one week, the McLintock Hall was transformed into an art gallery, with three gallery rooms: portraits, still life and landscapes. There were examples of some of the paintings in the National Gallery in Scotland and the Beavers also had a go at their own works of art.

The still life produced lots of different styles. Some were very realistic, even with reflections in the glass jar...

...while others were much more abstract.

Commonwealth Games

This term the Beavers will be working towards their Fitness Challenge badge and, because the Commonwealth Games are in Glasgow this year, we'll be trying out a lot of new activities and some of us are even going to the games as part of the Scouts Scotland Commonwealth Challenge.  

We also get the extra new badge above, to put on our uniforms, and each week we'll be doing activities which will earn us Bronze Medals (the Silver and Gold are for Cubs and Scouts) which will go on a national leader board.