About Cub Scouts

Why join Cub Scouting? Your time is valuable and it can be hard to find time together as a family. Cub Scouting helps to support your family by providing ready-made opportunities for you and your child to do things together.

By belonging to a group of kids their own age, your child builds self-esteem and learns to get along with others. Scouting America (formerly Boy Scouts of America) has been weaving lifetime values, like good citizenship, character development, and physical fitness, into fun and educational activities since 1910. We know that kids do not join Cub Scouting just to get their character built. They join because it is fun!

Cub Scouting is unique in that you, as the family, join in on the program with your child, and help along the way. The family is the basis of Cub Scouting. In fact, your entire family is welcome to participate in most Scouting activities, including pack camp-outs!

The program takes place on two levels. Your child will be part of a den, a small group of youth in the same grade. All of the dens, from kindergarten through the fifth grade, make up the pack. Once a month the dens, with their families, are together at the pack meeting (or other special activity), where we recognize their accomplishments during the month and have fun.

After joining Pack 122, you will have access to Scoutbook using the email address and password you set up during the registration process. This is where you can track and log your Scout's advancement and activities, and where you can access the full official pack calendar.

Family Scouting: Pack 122 is happy to offer "Family Scouting" as we welcome all youth, regardless of gender. Pack 122 was invited to be one of the first units in the country to have Family Scouting, as an early adopter.

Ranks

Lion Cub (Kindergarten): This program is aimed at youth who will enter first grade the following year. The Lion program weaves traditional Scouting concepts like character development, leadership skills, and citizenship into activities that are age-appropriate and fun. Parents are most involved at this level. Lions wear a t-shirt and an optional cap and/or neckerchief as their uniform, and are invited to attend all pack functions. Each den has a den leader who helps coordinate their meetings.

Tiger Cub (1st grade): Parents remain heavily involved at the Tiger Cub level as they join as a parent-child team. Each den also has a den leader who helps coordinate their meetings. This level is all about having fun!

Wolf Cub (2nd grade), Bear Cub (3rd grade), & Webelos (4th grade): Each level gets more challenging, and that much more fun! The Scouts become more independent as they grow, but parents remain involved and the den leader becomes even more important.

Arrow of Light (5th grade): Arrow of Light (AOL) Scouts have more emphasis on learning to take leadership roles as they prepare to join a Scouts BSA troop. At this level, they become known as a "patrol" instead of a den. These Cubs are working on the highest rank in Cub Scouting, the only one that can be worn on their Scouts BSA uniform, and preparing to “cross the bridge” to a troop in March. The Scouts should be doing most of the work at camp: setting up their own tents, taking the lead with cooking, etc. They still have a den leader, and parents continue to participate, but the Scouts take the lead and make more decisions for the patrol. Independence is the focus for Arrow of Light Scouts!

What happens in each rank?

Every year, Scouts have a set of "adventures" for their rank: six required and two electives that they get to choose. There is a set of requirements for each adventure, which they work on with their den and at home. Lions through Bears earn a loop that is worn on their uniform belt for every adventure they complete, while Webelos and Arrow of Light Scouts earn pins. Each year's rank handbook contains the lists of requirements along with all sorts of other information that is used to complete the adventures and get the most out of Cub Scouting.

Once they have completed the adventures needed for their rank, a Cub Scout earns their rank badge, which is sewn on their uniform. Every year on June 1, Scouts move up to the next rank so that they can start a new set of adventures. While all Scouts are encouraged to complete their rank award each year, it is not a requirement for moving up to the next rank.