Otter Badges

This can be done through a discussion, but there are also some great picture books that work well for teaching kids this age about otters. Some favorites:

• Pup the Sea Otter by Jonathan London
• Otto the Otter by Linda Hansen
• Oopsie Otter: A Tale of Playful Otters by Suzanne Tate

Friends of the Forest is a story that is found at the end of the Otter Field Guide. Using this as the story during your Otter story & snack time over the course of a few meetings (or just periodically) is a great way to introduce some scouting ideas to your otters and will fill this requirement. Motivated guides may also want to read it at home with their parents.

For this one, the kids should know a few basics, like who Robert Baden-Powell was (the man who started the scouting and guiding movement) and when and where it started (a hundred years ago in England). You can cover how there are other groups that are our siblings in scouting. It's also a good idea to talk about the main ideas of scouting: doing your best, helping your community, etc.

If you have a scout that joins throughout the year, it's a great opportunity to have a refresher discussion and allow the more senior scouts to share what they know.

This is easily accomplished by attending a meeting or two. Every group may have a slightly different opening and closing ceremony, but as long as the new Otter is participating, that counts!

Some kids will pick this one up faster than others. Suggesting a song or other mnemonic can be helpful as well.

Meeting agendas including learning your address:

For kids who have a tablet at home, one suggestion for parents is to make the pass code their phone number. It's amazing how quickly kids will pick it up.

Meeting agendas including safety with strangers:

Child ID Kits are available from Ready.gov

Meeting agendas including making a child id kit:

This is tied in with the phone number and address memorization above. We like to talk about what happens if you get lost and how you would get reunited with your family.

Meeting agendas including learning parent/guardian names:

Meeting agendas including safety with strangers:

The Prepare with Pedro program from FEMA and the Red Cross has a lot of good, age appropriate resources for teaching kids about emergency preparedness. You can also send the kids home with a family emergency plan checklist.

Meeting agendas including emergency preparedness:

Meeting agendas including safety at home:

Hug-A-Tree and Survive and Otter 10 Essentials are great options for learning about hiking safety. Using Kim's Game (from the Red Paw) to teach the 10 Essentials is a good way to accomplish two requirements at once.

It's also a good idea to always do a safety refresher at the beginning of every hike and campout.

Meeting agendas including camp and hiking safety:

Meeting agendas including road safety:

Meeting agendas including accident prevention:

Meeting agendas including health & hygiene:

Meeting agendas including cleaning and covering a cut:

Meeting agendas including tying your shoes:

Books are a great discussion starter for this topic–some favorites include Do Unto Otters, Change Sings, A Good Deed Can Grow, and The Invisible Boy. You can also bring in the idea of “doing a good turn” and how being kind to others makes the world a better place.

Meeting agendas including how to be kind:

Using the kids' scout packs is a great way to illustrate being responsible for their own things. One idea is to come with a poorly packed backpack and have the kids help repack it. This is also a good opportunity to reinforce the idea of the ten essentials. You can also teach them how to fold a t-shirt. This also combines well with having the kids brainstorm ways to be helpful at home.

You can also do this as part of a hiking meeting where you emphasize everyone being responsible for their own packs.

Meeting agendas including caring for your things:

This is a good brainstorming session to combine with learning how to care for your clothes and belongings. You can read a book about chores and point out some things the kids in the book or doing, then ask the kids what some ways they help their families are.

Meeting agendas including helping at home:

This is a good one to talk about at the start of a camp out.

Meeting agendas including helping at camp:

Teaching Otters to chop vegetables and help clean up after meal prep is a great opportunity for Otters to help on a campout. They can also help their families set up and pack up, although kids this age do tend to be easily swayed into going to play with their friends in the woods. If you can get more than one otter to work on a project together, sometimes that is more successful. They also do well with simple tasks like carrying something to a specified location.

Meeting agendas including helping at camp:

One option for this is to hold an “Otters Run The Meeting” meeting. Doing a game day where all the kids bring a game or activity to share works well for this because they each get a turn to teach an activity.

Meeting agendas including setting up/cleaning up a meeting:

You can tie this in with the safety badge using the Otter 10 Essentials to teach the kids about hiking safety.

Meeting agendas including Kim's game:

This is a variant of telephone with some distance built in. Come up with a message and whisper it to an otter. They have to run across a distance (or do a task) then pass it along to another otter, who has to run across the distance then pass it along to another otter, and so on until the last otter says the message out loud. If you have younger otters, keep the distance short and the phrase simple. For older otters, they may be able to remember more complicated phrases or do more complicated tasks before repeating the phrase. Also, the sillier phrases are often easier to remember.

Some ideas for phrases:

• Section Motto, Law, or Promise
• Nursery Rhymes
• “Spy” Phrases
• Nature Trivia

Meeting agendas including the message game:

Many of our kids have done pet sitting for a neighbor to satisfy this requirement, but it can be anything that demonstrates being helpful.

Meeting agendas including doing a good turn:

You can do this in combination with some of the service projects built into other badges. For example, collecting or making something to donate from the handicraft badge, or tree planting or trail clean up for the nature badge. Doing service projects a couple of times a year is a great way to reinforce the importance of community.

Meeting agendas including participating in a raft good turn:

This is a good one to practice anytime you are playing a game, and for many Otters it takes a lot of reinforcement.

Meeting agendas including practicing being a good winner and loser:

This requirement tends to come naturally over time, but you can also do some name games in to help all the kids learn names as part of the opening.

Meeting agendas including learning the names of every Otter in your Den:

A sport game can make a great meeting all on its own, and you can think outside the box when it comes to which sports you can play: rock climbing and archery are good options that Otters tend to like, or you could try a sport from another culture.

Meeting agendas including participation in a sport game:

You can pair this up as part of the health and hygiene meeting that is part of the safety badge or do it on its own. One option that is a great group meeting across multiple age groups is doing a biking meeting. You can also do a physical fitness themed obstacle course and knock out two requirements with one activity.

Meeting agendas including participation in physical fitness:

Otters love games! This can be a great activity for a rainy day or at a campout. There are some game suggestions on the Otter Games page, or you can invite scouts to share their favorites.

Meeting agendas including participation in board/card games:

Obstacle courses are such a versatile teaching tool! You can use them to learn safety skills, do some physical fitness, or just have fun. They can be as simple or elaborate as you like. One idea is to use playground equipment at a park and have the kids come up with their own obstacle courses, then challenge each other to complete them.

Meeting agendas including participation in obstacle courses:

A hike can be a meeting or campout activity all on its own, or you can combine it with teaching other skills. Otters like to play along the trail, so thinking of things to keep them engaged while you're walking is helpful. One idea is to play a game like “I Spy” or do a Nature Scavenger Hunt. You could also sing songs or tell stories, or even just point out cool things as you walk.

Meeting ideas involving day hikes:

Night hikes can be a little scary for some Otters, so it's important to make the dark not something to be feared. Campouts are the perfect opportunity to do a night hike, or they make a great winter meeting when it gets dark early in the evening.

Meeting ideas involving night hikes:

If you do Otters on a Cedar Log at your opening, then sing a song like Scout Vespers or Make New Friends at your closing, you only have to fit one more song in the middle to complete this requirement! Campfires are another great opportunity to get all the kids involved with singing repeat after me songs.

Meeting ideas involving singing three songs:

Otters can have a wide variety of interest and ability when it comes to writing. Make sure to have some extra adults around to help the kids with this activity. You can also offer options based off of writing ability: drawing a picture, filling out an Otter Pen Pal Worksheet, or writing a full letter.

Meeting ideas involving pen pals:

Like being a good winner and loser, talking about inclusivity is one that is important to come back to whenever you're playing a game.

Meeting agendas including welcoming everyone into your Otter games:

Since COVID, a lot of nursing homes no longer encourage outside visitors. You could have a grandparent or other senior visit one of your meetings, make cards to be delivered to a nursing home, or write letters to seniors. One resource is https://loveforourelders.org/, which provides a rotating list of seniors who would like to receive letters. They ask for legible writing, but you could have an adult write what the kids want to say then have the kids decorate the letter or make artwork to include in the packet.

Meeting agendas including interacting with seniors:

This can be a picture of just about anything, as long as they can tell you what it's about. For kids who are not into drawing, they could create a collage or a painting. For kids with motor challenges, big dot markers or similar can be an option.

Meeting agendas including creating art showing a scene or event:

As with the art showing a scene or event, this can be done using any medium. This requirement is a good opportunity to talk about the different types of homes that people (or animals) live in.

Meeting agendas including creating art showing a scene or event:

You can make a thank you card any time you do a field trip or have a speaker come to a meeting. Kids can also do this one at home and send a photo of what they made.

Meeting agendas including making a thank you card:

This can be a map but could also be a labeled diagram. For kids with fine motor or writing challenges, you could even have a word bank that they cut out and paste in the appropriate places.

Meeting agendas including making a map or diagram:

Trail signs are something you can incorporate into any hike, especially when you are talking about wayfinding.

Meeting agendas including making trail signs:

This could be from a kit, or it could be as simple as bringing Lego bricks to a meeting and having the kids create something with them. As long as they are building something 3d, it counts.

Meeting agendas including making a model:

There are so many different craft ideas. Remember to keep them simple and accessible to Otter-age kids.

Meeting agendas including making a craft:

Bird feeders can be as simple as a pinecone covered in peanut butter and rolled in bird seed or something more complex with decoration.

Meeting agendas including making a bird feeder:

Kids should learn how to tie a reef knot and sheet bend. You could also teach a clove hitch, but that may be harder for otters to grasp. Sheet bends are great for learning how to make blanket forts (or even hammocks!)

Meeting agendas including tying knots:

This is one that the kids will have to do at home, then present at a meeting. The collection can be anything the kids are interested in: matchbox cars, Pokemon cards, rocks, even junior ranger badges. It's easy to incorporate into your opening or closing, or you can have them present during story time.

It's important to make sure that you choose a project that the kids can help with. Otters are great at assembling, so if you have a line of items and need one of each in a bag, that's a perfect project. We've also had them help sort clothing for a donation, and had them help tie the edges of fleece blanket donations (which has the added benefit of helping them practice their reef knot).

Meeting agendas including participation in a service project making or collecting things to donate:

It's a good idea to talk about leave no trace and caring for the environment whenever you are on a hike. Not picking plants and staying on the trail are important to reinforce with Otters. This is also a good one to cover on a camping trip.

Meeting agendas including learning about caring for the environment and leave no trace:

You can combine this with a trip to the animal shelter, or it's a good idea to have a dog trainer or vet tech come to your meeting. If you can have a well-behaved pet or two as a demonstration, that's also fun.

Meeting agendas including learning about caring for pets:

For this, the kids can draw pictures, use photos, cut images out of magazines, etc. If you had a kid who was motivated to make a digital presentation, that would also work, although it would be difficult to do that at a meeting. One other idea is to combine this with a field trip to the library where the kids could research an animal of their choice.

Meeting agendas including making an animal scrapbook:

This pairs well with going on a nature walk and having the kids collect the items along the way, but you could also do it in a single location. Rocks, shells, leaves, pinecones, flowers, etc. are all good choices. Remind the kids to follow leave no trace principles (could they point out 10 flowers rather than picking them for example?). Also remember that in most cases it is illegal to take feathers.

Meeting agendas including collecting or showing 10 nature items:

At the otter level, it can be hard to differentiate between a “hike” and a “nature walk”. A nature walk can be more focused on exploring and discovering all the little wonders along the way, as opposed to doing a longer distance on a trail. Something like tidepooling or exploring a creek may also cover this requirement.

Meeting agendas including taking a nature walk:

This is a great project to do at a meeting then send kids home to observe over the next week or two. You can use these Otter Observation Sheets to keep track of observations that they make.

Meeting agendas including growing a seed in a paper towel:

This is a requirement that will require doing it at home due to the length of the experiment. Instructions are here: Regrow Carrot Tops in Water. You can sprout carrot seeds in a paper towel at the same time to explore the differences in how things grow.

Meeting agendas including regrowing a carrot top in water:

This is a great meeting to do as a service project, whether it's on your own or in partnership with another organization. Ideas and resources can be found on the Tree Planting service project page.

This meeting relies on having a zoo or wildlife rescue nearby. Zoos can be quite expensive to visit, although many offer group rates. Some of the families in your group may already be members, which can also save money on admissions. If it is not a possibility for your group, consider visiting a wildlife refuge or other place where there's a good variety of wildlife.

Doing a trail clean up of your local park is a great way to teach environmentalism and get the kids excited about helping the earth! If garbage isn't an issue where you are, you could also do invasive plant removal.

Meeting agendas including regrowing a carrot top in water:

This one can be tricky depending on the relationship between police and the community in your area. Keep in mind that not everyone may feel comfortable or safe around police officers. You could consider hosting a community safety officer or someone who works with the houseless population in your area come to a meeting instead.

Meeting agendas including visiting a police station:

Fire station visits make a great meeting for Otters! They lend themselves well to discussions about emergency preparedness as well.

Meeting agendas including visiting a fire station:

Ambulance tours are also a good companion for talking about emergency preparedness, or you could do an otter first aid activity after your tour.

Meeting agendas including visiting a fire station:

Talking to civic leaders is a great way to learn about activism in your community. You could also substitute a community organizer or activist in place of a government official.

Meeting agendas including meeting with a government official:

This can be a great combination with some of the art activities from the handicraft badge.

Depending on your community, Otter-age kids may not be allowed to visit sanitation/recycling facilities. Some alternatives include creative reuse centers and architectural reuse centers.

Depending on where you visit, this may be an opportunity to learn about seeds and plants for the nature badge as well.

You could combine this with researching animals for your animal scrapbook project, or doing a handicraft activity.

Think about how to get kids engaged–is there a craft you could do that would help them connect to the culture? What about learning a song?

This is a great field trip to combine with learning about pet care.