Tag Archives: boy scouts

Could You Help with the Genealogy Merit Badge?

One of the merit badges for Boy Scouts focuses on genealogy. This can be an interesting badge to work towards. It can also be a fun merit badge to teach. If you are a Scout leader you may choose to look for a local family history center or research center at your library to have a genealogist teach your troop. In fact contacting a genealogist or local center is one of the steps to achieve the merit badge. One of the requirements of the merit badge is to keep a journal for six weeks or to create a timeline of … Continue reading →

Boys’ Life Magazine

Boys’ Life Magazine is specifically published for the Boy Scouts of America, but you don’t have to be a Boy Scout to receive it. You can subscribe for a year (12 issues) for the price of $24.00. However, if you are a Scout, you get a discounted subscription rate through your local chapter. This magazine is a lot of fun. Using the February 2007 issue as a model, let’s take a look at what features you can expect to receive. The first thing that catches my eye is a sidebar recommending different books to supplement Black History Month, as well … Continue reading →

Homeschooling and Scouting: An Unfair Advantage?

At the Eagle Ceremony we recently attended, I got into a discussion with another parent about the merit badges my boys are working on. One of them is Citizenship in the Nation. It’s a fairly involved badge with a lot of requirements. I’m blessed that my mom has agreed to be their merit badge counselor and is giving them a weekly class that incorporates the BSA required study. The other parent, whom I’ll call Michael, gave me a lecture on how that was unfair to the boys in the troop who were government-schooled. His main point was that to use … Continue reading →

Homeschooling and Scouting: Using Scouting to Fulfill Academic Requirements

It’s Friday. That means my boys have no schoolwork. What? Let me rephrase that. They have no schoolwork from their regular textbooks. Instead, Fridays at our house have become Boy Scout days. They work on their badges and advancement. Before we got involved in Scouting, I thought Boy Scouts meant camping, tying knots, and Indian folklore. Yes, those are included, but Scouting is so much more! I was amazed at the amount of scholarly requirements. Science, reading, artwork, social studies, history, civics, home arts, language, and even math are covered to some degree. We live in Washington where the homeschool … Continue reading →

Homeschooling and Scouting: David Finds a Troop

We’d been trying to Lone Scout for two years, with some success. Part of the reason we’d chosen to go it alone was that David had superior math skills, but was struggling in reading and self-conscious about it. By the time Elisha was old enough to begin Scouting, I was firmly convinced that the benefits of being in a troop were far outweighed by the negative socialization. Then came Paula’s little note on our online homeschool list. It was just a small blurb, really. Letting people know that her son had joined a Boy Scout Troop that was homeschool-friendly and … Continue reading →

Homeschooling and Scouting: Our Story

If you’ve been following my posts, you know I can be a bit on the protective side with my children. We are careful with what they read, what they watch, and with whom they associate. It’s out of a desire to protect their innocence, and thus far it’s working. After hearing too many horror stories, we reluctantly went to check out the local Scouting troops in our area. Each of them had something that I couldn’t reconcile with our parenting and homeschooling style. Some conflicted with our faith, some were boy-led, and another simply had too many undisciplined children. It … Continue reading →

Young Men: The Road to Eagle Scout

If you have a Boy Scout who is pursuing the course to achieving Eagle Scout, it can be a long road. Eagle Scout is a rank of distinction and it requires a lot of work by the boy who achieves it. There are several requirements that each scout must make before he can achieve Eagle Scout. 1) Your son will need to complete the merit badge requirements for Eagle Scout rank. There are twelve required badges that each boy will need to complete. In addition to those twelve he needs to complete enough badges to receive twenty-one total badges. Some … Continue reading →

Young Men: Advice For Parents of New Scouts

I decided to ask my husband, who is a former Scoutmaster, for one piece of advice that he would give to parents that have a new Boy Scout in their family. He told me to tell you to go and buy the “Boy Scout Requirements” book that is available at a Boy Scout distribution center. He said this book was great, because it allows you to see the requirements that are needed to complete each merit badge. This is a wonderful tool to help parents help their boys to achieve Eagle. Many times your Boy Scout may have partially completed … Continue reading →

The Importance of Boy Scouts

Today I am going to talk a little bit about the Scouting program. It is a program that Young Men in our church participate in. Boys are encouraged to become Eagle Scouts, as well as fulfilling their Aaronic Priesthood: Fulfilling Our Duty to God Awards. The scouting program is a great program that helps to teach values and leadership to the boys who attend. In most areas each ward has its own troop and the boys attend activities with their own ward. President Hinckley said this about the scouting program: “”I love the Scouting movement. The promise of the Scout … Continue reading →

Scrapbooking Your Boy Scout Experience

With all the Scouting activities you participate in as a Boy Scout, it’s hard to come up with new page layout ideas. Boy Scouts start with Tiger Cubs and can go all the way until Eagle Scout and beyond. You might want to preserve every memory by creating a mini album and making page layouts for each individual activity. Since Boy Scouts do all types of activities from earning badges to helping with the community, an individual album for all of your memories would be perfect. In addition, other’s might enjoy making one or two layouts per year and include … Continue reading →