Last night was my opportunity to lead the Cub Scout meeting. I was more than a little nervous, but I'm happy to report that it went well, and there were no nooses involved.
My topic was What Makes America Special, which I thought would be a fairly easy lesson. However, I read through the book last week, and found there were actual achievements the boys had to complete, which limited me a bit. But hey, I always love a good challenge.
Since it was dark and rainy, I immediately eliminated the flag-raising ceremony (plus I didn't have access to a flag pole). I was a little worried because my final activities included a lot of talking and some writing, which I know from experience (with Mark) aren't the most appealing activities for 9-year-olds after a whole day of school.
But the kids were great!! They sat in a U around me, and answered all my questions about famous Americans (George Washington and Abraham Lincoln). They already knew my Presidential trivia (George Washington was the only President who never lived in the White House) and taught me some new trivia (Abe Lincoln carried notes around in his stovepipe hat).
Next, we moved on to being a good citizen. Each boy told me one thing he'd done that week to be a good citizen. They also named people who serve America. The first answer was Army guys, and the next three answers were "That's what I was gonna say." With a little coaxing, I got some other answers, including Army guys ("Somebody already mentioned that"), OK then NAVY guys!, National Guard guys, and even Army nurses. (The Army was a very popular theme.)
We talked about what would happen if people were not good citizens, and the discussion turned a little dark.
"If there were no firemen, then the whole Earth would burn up."
"If there were no Army men, the bad guys would kill us."
"If there were no trashmen, we would live in houses filled to the very top with trash, and it would stink, and then we would get crushed to death and die."
"Good examples," I said. "Maybe we can think or some things that aren't quite as...destructive."
Next we moved onto identifying state trees, flowers, birds and flags. Upon mentioning the states, one boy told me he could sing the names of all 50 states in alphabetical order. Now this I had to hear! So he sang it, while the other boys followed along with their lists of states. It was pretty impressive!
The last activity was the writing one, where the boys had to write three things that makes America special to them. I kinda lost them here, which I knew would happen. There were some more great answers -- national parks, the people, freedom. And there were some kind of random answers -- again, the National Guard ("You really like the National Guard, huh?" I asked the little guy who'd answered all the previous questions with that), video games, even a story about a cousin's belly button. Oh, and one kid wrote down "violence" which I'm pretty sure wasn't so special, but then he drew lines all through it, and wrote "NO violence!'
But in the end, it went surprisingly well! I survived unharmed, and the boys weren't completely bored to death. Even my own kid participated and behaved, which doesn't always happen (he was repeatedly threatened on the way there!). I was sweating it for a bit in the beginning -- but in the end, we all survived.
And I'm just grateful the activity didn't involve knives, power tools, nooses or rope whips!
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