75 Activities to earn your National Summertime Pack Award

The National Summertime Pack Award is given to packs that have at least one activity each month during the summer. It’s intended to help keep packs active during those months when they might not otherwise meet.

A few years ago, our pack decided that we wanted to be active during the summer, but we didn’t want to have formal meetings.  The plan was to host something fun that didn’t take lots of planning and preparation.

There aren’t any specific guidelines for the National Summertime Pack Award activities.  The application simply says that your pack qualifies by conducting a pack activity each month.

Note:  The application is a little confusing.  Some people thought that you must have a minimum percentage attendance in order to earn the award, but you don’t.  Read this post to see an email I received from BSA when I checked with them

The pack activities can be as simple or as elaborate as you want. Since people are busy during the summer, we try to keep them simple, but we’ll occasionally add something to “spice” it up.

For example, one of our leaders is a youth minister at a church that owns a snow cone machine, so we used it at one of our events.

Here are a few tips:

• Ask your local Scouts BSA troop for volunteers to help.
• If your event is outside, make sure you have plenty of water to keep the boys from getting dehydrated.
• Two words.  Freeze Pops.  They’re inexpensive and cold, so they’re perfect for kids on a hot summer evening.  When you’re freezing these, open up the box or bag and lay them out in your freezer.  They may not be totally frozen otherwise even if they’ve been in the freezer for several day

1. Meet at a park and just let the Scouts play – Our Cub Scouts often don’t get to just hang out and play.  Give them that opportunity.

2. Go on a pack camp out – A classic!

3. Have a pack picnic – You can grill out, bring sandwiches or even order pizza.

4. Go for a hike – Even if it’s just around your meeting place’s neighborhood.

5. Go for a bike ride – Have everyone meet at a park with your bikes.

6. Host a bicycle rodeo – Find links to helpful resources here.

7. Go on a scavenger hunt – Here are some great ideas for scavenger hunts.

8. Play baseball – What says summer more than baseball?

9. Have fun with sidewalk chalk – Here’s a list of 8 active games you can play with sidewalk chalk. Set up a station for each game, and let the kids rotate through them.

10. Have a campfire complete with s’mores, of course!

Read all 75 at Cub Scout Ideas – 75 Pack Activities for the Summertime Pack Award ~ Cub Scout Ideas