Here’s How to Help Your Scout Advance!
To earn the Webelos badge (“Webelos” stands for “WE’ll BE LOyal Scouts”), a youth must complete five required adventures, plus one elective adventure, and complete the Cyber Chip award for their age.
Fourth Grade – Webelos Requirements
1. Be an active member of your Webelos den for three months.
2. Complete each of the five required adventures:
- Cast Iron Chef is great for weekend events because of the fire building activity. Nutritional goals and plan a menu can be done at home, as can prepare a meal and show food safety practices.
- Duty to God and You will often be an at-home because faith beliefs in Scouting are determined by the family and everyone’s duty is different.
- First Responder covers basic first aid and emergency preparedness. This isn’t one to “short cut”, but it is one to “seek help” on, by finding a family member in the medical world and/or seeking out a school nurse or someone who can assist with this.
- Stronger, Faster, Higher covers fitness, and exercise. It involves running and jumping and sports and has lots of activity, so it won’t be a test to keep the Scout’s attention. But it could also be done as a weekend activity, especially because part of it involves leading younger Scouts in fitness games.
- Webelos Walkabout is all about taking a 3-mile hike safely and with fun. Do all your sessions as hikes, even if just around your meeting location, and get out and about, because there are so many places to hike around town.
3. In addition to the five required adventures, complete at least one elective adventure of your den’s or family’s choosing.
4. With your parent, guardian, or other caring adult, complete the exercises in the pamphlet entitled How to Protect Your Children From Child Abuse: A Parent’s Guide.
5. Watch the Protect Yourself Rules video for 4th Grade, Webelos. (The video is located at https://vimeo.com/325064315 and can be watched on-line or downloaded and viewed off-line.) OR Earn the Protect Yourself Rules Preview Adventure for Webelos.
After finishing the requirements for an adventure, the den leader, rather than a parent, approves most of the adventures, unless the den leader delegates that role (and during this pandemic period, parents and other adults in the Cub Scout’s family may sign off on Webelos and Arrow of Light requirements). On completing each adventure completed, Scouts receive a pin to wear on the Webelos colors or on their hat.
More information about doing the Webelos adventures at home with your Scout is found on the Scouting on Demand “Webelos on Demand” resource page – even more resources are available at this Webelos adventure resource page, which has both fun den group activity ideas plus family-led adventure resources (simple plans, videos, tips and more, like those in the adventure by adventure links above) for parents to do on their own schedules.
(P.S.: In the image below, don’t worry about that “no blue shirt” image and “tan uniform only” message. This is a “rolling change” and blue shirts are OK – especially if they still fit! Certainly, through 2021 a blue shirt is perfectly fine (despite the earlier announcement), and after that, “A Scout is Kind” (and Thrifty), so if your Scout hasn’t had a growth spurt out of that blue shirt yet, it should be OK to wait a bit to buy a khaki shirt that might fit for years.)
