Fun way to earn your Bowling Pin

We are going to have a pack meeting down at the Bowling Alley this month -- a perfect time to work on the Bowling Sports belt loop and pin. One of the requirements for the pin is to score a complete game. We wanted to do this in our den meeting, but how to do...?

One of our first ideas was to bowl with real pins, but we didn't think we would have enough time, and it would be difficult to have everyone participate. (My co-leader and I almost considered having them score us as we played each other!) It would be better if they could score their own game.

My lovely wife had the perfect idea: we made our own little pins out of polymer clay! We bought a 1.25 pound brick of white clay at the local Wal-mart for $5. A little work to roll it out, shape it, bake it, and put the famous red ring on the top with a marker, and we were in business! We grabbed some marble shooters from our daughter's marble collection for the bowling balls. We made 40 pins and still have more than half of the clay left!

We made four sets of pins, enough for our 8 boys. We had the boys sit across the table from their buddy, each with a score sheet and pencil. One boy would set the pins on one side of the table, and the other would "bowl" from the other side. They had fun learning how to keep score, and as Wolves, had pretty good practice at their math facts! (No calculators required!)

After we were done with a complete game, we learned the rules of courtesy and safety from the book. We talked through selecting a ball, and how to bowl using a four-step approach. The boys loved rolling their imaginary bowling balls at each other, knocking down the "Cub Scout pins"!

Resources online:

• Requirements for the Bowling belt loop and pin
  
• Special Olympics - Bowling Coaching Guide - Believe it or not, this site has some of the best info, especially on selecting the right bowling ball!
• American Bowling Congress - Official rules and great handout on How to Keep Score
• Excel score sheet you can print
  
• How to Bowl courtesy of Family Fun magazine
• Great Video Clips of real bowlers! I grabbed some these, slowed them down, and showed the boys on my PocketPC during the meeting. Cooooool!
• Sculpey is our clay of choice