Amazing Animals
Many Otters love animals! If you can get a vet tech or trainer to come to a meeting for the pet care portion and bring a well behaved animal or two to share with the kids, it's generally a huge hit.
- Opening Ceremony
- Steam Off Game
- Pets
- Do you have any pets? What kinds?
- What kinds of pets can you think of?
- What do you do to help care for your pets (or what would you do if you had one?)
- Touch on safe interactions with pets: paying attention to their body language
- What kind of games can you play with pets?
- Rewarding positive behavior
- If you have animals at the meeting, this is a good time to let the kids meet them.
- Snack and Story Time
- Wild Animals
- What makes wild animals different from pets?
- Compare domestic to wild animals within different types of animals: birds, fish, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, invertebrates. Can you think of a pet and a wild animal from each category?
- How do you interact with wild animals? Give space, don't approach, don't feed them.
- Don't leave food out when you are camping–if wild animals get a taste for human food it can be dangerous for them.
- What is your favorite animal?
- What do you know about them?
- Make Animal Scrapbooks
- Bring magazines that the kids can cut out pictures from
- You can also bring books with animal facts
- One big hit with Otters is talking about scat and the role poop plays in the animal kingdom
- They can also draw their animal and come up with a few facts about it.
- Have the otters share their scrapbooks with each other.
- Closing Ceremony
Items Needed:
- Paper
- Glue
- Magazines
- Scissors
- Colored Pencils
Badge Requirements Covered:
Green Nature Paw
- Learn about pet care
- Make a scrapbook about an animal you like