Badge support Our Skills Challenge Award

For requirement one, Cubs try out two new sports or physical activities. For requirement two, Cubs take part in three activities to show they know how to be healthy more generally. Here are some fun educational activities to try together as a section, to improve Cubs understanding of health and why it matters.

To teach Cubs about the importance of exercise and healthy eating, you could adapt these Beaver activity resources from Jaffa. You could also adapt these mindfulness activities to teach young people about mental wellbeing and how it relates to physical wellbeing, or run your very own story yoga lesson for the Cubs to try out. Cub-specific activities for this badge will be released by Jaffa later this year, so it’s worth keeping an eye on our partnerships page for updates.

When completing this part of the badge, a visit from an expert can be really valuable. It not only brings the topic to life, but also allows Cubs to ask their own questions and understand the broader context of any activities they have already tried. See if any parents/carers are working within health and fitness. Are any of them doctors or dentists? Are any of them involved in sports or nutrition? Encouraging parents to take an active role will strengthen your Group’s network, and could potentially help you to recruit more adult volunteers.

For requirement three, Cubs take part in two creative activities of their choosing. If they opt to write a short story, you could play a word game to get everyone’s creativity flowing. Simply write down a different word on several pieces of paper and hide them around the room. Then, get each Six to collect a selection of words, and challenge them to work together to create a poem or song using each of the words they’ve found. Can they connect all of the words together?

If your Cubs are more visual, they might prefer to use images instead of words. If they opt to take photos and use them to tell a story, why not try out googly eye photography as a section first?

For requirement four, Cubs select at least four practical skills to learn, ranging from sewing a button to setting an alarm in the morning. Taking responsibility for things, whether that’s a household task or a fraction of their own timetable, gives Cubs a sense of autonomy, and equips them with some useful skills.  It’s a great requirement for Cubs to work towards at home. They could simply take home a list of the skills to choose from with their parent/carer, or work in small groups to decide which four skills they would like to challenge themselves to do.

To introduce this part of the award, you could ask Cubs if they currently do anything to help at home or at school. How do they feel when they have finished? Do they feel happy or proud? Are there any responsibilities they already have, like getting themselves up for school? To show their new skills, they could use them on their next camp, or bring in photos to show that they were completed. 

To complete the problem-solving element of the badge, you could challenge your Cubs to build a small bridge across a stream, or to design and make a model with at least two moving parts, or to create a model raft. You could also challenge them to make and solve a code or riddle. These are just a few examples; flexibility is key. Just remember to let your Cubs run with their imaginations throughout. The badge is a great opportunity to encourage independent thought, rather than relying too heavily on instructions, and it may even unveil some hidden talents within the section.