Learning in Boy Scouts (Homeschool Hints)
Explore how integrating Boy Scouts into your homeschool plans can foster a well-rounded education. From earning merit badges to developing essential leadership skills, this post highlights the invaluable learning opportunities that Boy Scouts offer.
In a previous Homeschool Hints post, I shared about learning through Cub Scouting.
Can you guess where I’m headed this week???
Yep! Boy Scouting offers an abundance of learning opportunities that can tie in with homeschooling.
Bordering the Christmas break in 2011 (or winter if you are being all PC), P attended a merit badge university to work on three different merit badges: Emergency Preparedness (needed for Eagle Scout), Electricity and Communications (also an Eagle Scout one, I believe.)
P had already done some of the legwork for the Emergency Preparedness Merit Badge with his Troop while the weather was good.
Learning in Boy Scouts
There are many ways that a boy will gain both knowledge and experience in Boy Scouts.
The whole basis of the program is to help develop well-rounded men who will be pillars of their community.
Boy Scouts incorporate skills to advance in rank.
One aspect of rank advancement is earning merit badges.
What Is a Merit Badge?
Don’t have a Boy Scout and have no idea what a merit badge is?
To my ‘homeschool eye’, Boy Scout merit badges look an awful lot like unit studies to me.
They take a topic (e.g. electronics) and learn a bunch of the basics while adding in different activities that reinforce the learning.
The only thing P has not done with them is a bunch of reading or video viewing of the associated content.
The Boy Scouts of America sell small merit badge books with all the background information you need as well as the requirements outlined in those worksheets.
If you are lucky, the local library might have some merit badge books in their collection for you to browse or borrow. At least one library in the Akron, Ohio area had them on the shelf, but we have not spied any here in the Alaskan libraries.
You can find worksheets for several of the merit badges on Merit Badge.org.
My dream is to have the boys work on merit badges during the week after completing core work to keep progressing on a regular basis.
Incorporating Merit Badges into Your Homeschool
Some of the merit badges can easily become part of their school work.
Doing this streamlines my time for any supervision and helps the boys be more motivated to get them done.
The merit badge booklets serve as your framework and main ‘textbook’ for the work.
Where you put the merit badge for homeschool work depends upon the topic.
Many of them fit into science while others may be woven into general subjects like English or used for a specialty class.
The electricity one P worked on is being counted as part of his science schoolwork.
It was a topic already on the ‘agenda’ for schooling this Spring. So, we’ll refresh his mind while R and D are learning for the first time.
The boys can count time spent on the physical fitness and swimming merit badges towards physical education.
One way to help pull these merit badge studies into our school is using lapbooking or notebooking pages to record the information.
This post contains affiliate links that may generate a commission for purchases made through them. There is no additional charge to you for using them.
There are some sites online, like Homeschool Share, where you can get free templates for mini-books.
I also have a membership over at Notebooking Pages where there are quite a few template options.
Gaining Leadership Skills in Boy Scouts
The other thing about Boy Scouting that carries over for learning is that the BOYS are supposed to take the lead on things.
While leadership skills are always great to acquire, what I appreciate more is that they have to do the footwork if they want to advance in rank.
I can leave all guilt behind over not reminding them to do things, etc.
It took P a while longer to achieve First Class than I would have expected. But, it was all on his time schedule.
I refused to do his work for him and only asked him a few times how things were going.
It was a good learning experience for him to see that you have to put forth effort if you want to get the reward.
I’ll be curious to see how R does for advancing after he crosses over this Spring. Given his propensity for being a little scatterbrained at times, I might expect it to take a while for him to advance in rank. But, you never know when a child will surprise you.
Do you have ways that learning with Boy Scouts has helped in your homeschool?
More Boy Scout Related Content
This post was linked up to the Homeschool Hints weekly link up in 2011.
Such a great tip! We are using 4-H in much the same way. It's actually my hope that we'll work on our projects for the last month of the school year, plus math and a little grammar, maybe. The kids and I are really looking forward to it.I would be interested in looking into that Emergency Preparedness book. I'll need to look into that.
The Boy Scout Emergency Preparedness badge book is one of the best resources I've ever seen for a thorough introduction to the subject. I totally recommend it for everybody–even if you don't have Boy Scouts in the family.