Cub doumenting 1

Wednesday March 10

Today I went to the first cub meeting. I met with the Pack leader, his name is Rob. Rob has a son, Sebastien, in the cub pack. Rob was basically the only one running the show, if you can say that there was any sort of order to the night. Those kids have a lot of energy. It was rather intimidating to see.

They began with the grand howl, a recital of the cub motto, and inspection of the uniforms. The uniforms, the mottos and laws, they are all ways of instilling a sense of belonging among the kids, because really, the uniforms are unnecessary and the laws are common sense, good manners, or derivations of the ‘golden rule’. At this age though, it would help them to feel like they are really a part of something special, or that they are fulfilling some greater calling by tucking in the tacky brown shirts.

They played a game that involved a fair bit of running and not any strategy whatsoever. This game didn’t really target any sort of developmental needs of the children. It was sheer fun, and an excuse to get them to blow off some energy. The Leader did a good job of incorporating this game into the night’s topic. They play this game all the time, but tonight Rob decided to adapt the rules a bit, then afterwards brought up how even in simple games rules have to be constant and understood and followed by everyone in order for games to work.

This was a well executed transition to the next activity. They broke into 3 teams and invented their own games. Each group was given an assorted bag of objects, balls, hula hoops, bells, cups and other assorted random things. Given only 5 minutes to design a game, the rules were full of holes. The children spent a fair amount of time creatively experimenting with the game’s equipment, but when it came to the flow of the game, specifics were left out. This was a great example of their developmental stage. They were able to follow the instructions, and throw together a ramshackle list of rules, but finer details and higher logic were not evident. The final group to share their game, also the only group with a girl, did a better job of explaining the background elements of the game, and their game actually worked.

Then they had a talk about the importance of rules and a bit about the blue star. The blue star encompasses all badges relating to community and hegemony.

For this first visit, I was just a spectator. I did not introduce myself to the kids nor did I participate in their games. I watched from the kitchen, observed and took notes. I tried to come up with ideas that could link to the themes they were working with, and I think that I came up with a fairly relevant and effective plan.

The kids were named, Kody, Arianna, Brandon, Alexander, Damien, Sebastien, Max, Diamond,

The other leader was named Ryan. Ryan has a moustache and very hairy ears, He has a kind of mullet, and a pot belly, not terribly unlike my father. Very much unlike my father however, Ryan did not say much, but he could sign, which allowed him to interact with the deaf cub. Which was cool.