Beavers Sleepover And A Collection Of New Badges

**Collaborative post**

Last weekend, Harry had his very first sleepover away from home which wasn’t with family members.

It was in the hall where he does Beavers with many of his Beavers group and their leaders. To say he was excited is an understatement, he was counting down the days for 2 weeks prior to the event, letting us know how many sleeps were left until he could go.

He started Beavers in February/March, at the same time Emmy started Brownies, and he really does love it so much – more than Emmy likes her group, in fact, she has asked if I can get her into Scouts as Harry does far more than she does and she is jealous (if it weren’t for so many of her friends going to Brownies, she would have stopped a long time ago).

Since joining Harry has gained lots more friends and also enjoyed learning lots more life skills such as building a fire, making a camp, and many other things which they have to complete in order to gain their badges.

The week before the sleepover the group leaders were asking for parent volunteers for one of the sessions (we all volunteer for a session a term – I am in tomorrow helping with Christmas decorations), I volunteered but found out it was to help towards their knot-tying badge, not something I am all that good at so I put Paul forward to help).

He was apprehensive and excited at the same time, he hadn’t helped at these sessions before so didn’t know what to expect. In preparation, he ordered up some rope and started practising his knots – what I neglected to tell him however was that the knots were the easy part, coping with the boys, their excitement and noise levels were the hard part.

10 minutes into the session he texts me to say the noise was deafening. I admit, myself and Emmy just giggled away and were still doing so when I went to pick them up after.

They all learnt to tie a reef knot and a figure 8 knot that evening, there are a few more they need to learn before gaining that badge.

Table of Contents

Beavers Sleepover

The evening before, Harry helped to pack up his bag. He needed:

Underwear
PJ’s, slippers and dressing gown if wanted
Clothes for the next day
Flannel, towel, toothbrush and toothpaste
Sleeping bag
Roll mat
Pillow
Torch
Teddy
Packed Lunch

We dropped him off at the local care home at 9.45 am and didn’t collect him until 11 am the following morning. After dropping him off with the leaders and his friends Emmy and I headed to the hall to drop his overnight things before having a girlie day together.

Harry and his Beavers troop went into the care home to spend time with the residence and to help them decorate their Christmas trees – they had a lovely morning, decorating, spending time talking to the Ladies and Gentlemen, making them laugh and giving cuddles. A fun morning was had by all.

They then hiked back to the hall to gain their hiking badge and had lunch.

The day was then spent earning even more badges while following a space theme – they made rockets, jet packs and lots of space-themed crafts. They played games, watched movies, played a game of bingo before bed, followed by more movies, hot chocolate and eventually a little sleep.

Harry coped very well, there were a few tears at bedtime for Mummy, I think more so because he was overtired, but he braved it out, snuggled his Bedtime Bear and was so very proud of himself for managing to sleep in the tent in the hall away from home.