Carnival Ideas for Grin and Bear It

A Question about Carnival Ideas

This information is related to the Grin and Bear It Adventure. BSA retired this adventure on June 1, 2024. This information remains here for historical purposes.

Jason sent this question:

Curious as to what others had done for putting on a carnival (Bear Requirement for Grin & Bear It). Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Carnival Ideas for Grin and Bear It

Good question! Here are a few simple ideas:

Ring toss – Use glass soda bottles and shower curtain rings. Try to get the rings on the bottles.
Ball toss – Use ping pong balls and glass jars. Try to throw the ball in the jar.
Target shooting – Foam finger rockets and 1 liter plastic bottles with some sort of target glued on. Try to knock down the target with the finger rocket.
Bean bag toss – You can make your own bean bags and throw them through a board with some holes cut out.
Bowling – Use a playground ball and 2 liter plastic bottles. Add some sand to the bottles to weigh them down a bit.
Tower knock down – Make a pyramid of plastic cups and try to knock all of them down with a ball.
Duck pond – Put a bunch of identical ducks in a pool and mark a couple of them on the bottom. If they pull out the marked duck they get a prize.
Lollipop pull – Get a bunch of suckers and mark the ends of a few of them with a marker. Put them all in a block of styrofoam. If they pull out one of the marked ones they get a prize. And they get to keep the sucker no matter what.
Pie toss – Toss whipped cream pies at the Cubmaster.

You can serve popcorn, soda, hot dogs, and cotton candy. Give them carnival tickets when they win a game and have a prize booth with some inexpensive items they can purchase with their tickets.

Readers, what are your carnival ideas for Grin and Bear It? Add them too the comments below.

Video Summary

Related Resources for Carnival Ideas for Grin and Bear It

Grin and Bear It Adventure

Grin and Bear It is one of the Bear elective adventures. For this adventure, Bears play a game and hold a Cub Scout Carnival at a pack meeting. See more ideas and resources for this Bear adventure.

Comments

8 responses to “Carnival Ideas for Grin and Bear It”

Donna Ganas

November 16, 2015

Place two large rectangular disposable aluminum pans on a table and fill them with water. Place a rubber ducky in each one. Two players each have a straw, and on their mark, they each blow through the straw to “push” their duck to the “finish line” (end of the pan). They could even run around the table and push their ducks back to the start line. First won there wins.

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Erica

January 2, 2016

Our Pack has a lock-in each year at our park district location with an indoor pool. There have been different themes over the years but this year has a carnival theme. This is a pack event. In addition, my Webelos I’s will be working on their filmmaking elective by filming then editing their footage after. In addition, there will be a leader or two helping Webelos I and II earn aquanaut. So there is a little for everyone-try incorporating the carnival theme into something that your pack already does.

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Janell

January 23, 2016

Our bear leader had each of his boys create a “homemade” carnival game and bring it. He asked each of the other dens to bring one as well. Each den was split into two groups. One group played the games while the other ran the games. Then they switched places so everyone got a turn running their game and playing all the games. There were Ping-Pong-ball-cup games, a box “aquarium” with magnetic fish, there was bean bag bowling.

Reply
Renay

March 13, 2016

In addition to several of the homemade games referenced above, we had a den parent do face painting and a few of our Bear Scouts chose to be entertainers (magician, clown, palm reader).

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Debra Warner

June 22, 2016

Our church has an indoor Halloween event with soup and bread, and then the children walk around the gym with their bags and the parents fill them up. We joined with them by having our carnival games in another room. We made balloon animals, had a fishing pond, and each of the boys made and ran their own games. Football throw (similar to a bean bag throw), etc…

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Aimee M

June 29, 2016

On a side note, our Pack used the carnival requirement as entertainment for a recruitment night. Visiting boys got to see how much fun Scouting can be while the parents gathered information about the Pack and Scouting in general. It was a win-win for all!

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Angela B.

December 19, 2017

To add to the ideas:

We did a tattoo parlor where the boys could put on a temporary tattoo. They loved that and it was very inexpensive. (Just remember a bucket for water and plenty of paper towels tto.

We did the “kissing booth” where you have to guess how many Hershey’s kisses are in a jar.

The boys chose to do a “cupcake walk.” They were adamant about doing it, but it was easy to give out packaged snack cakes as prizes.

The boys did a shoot the alien game using finger rockets from the dollar store. I then taped silly alien faces onto empty plastic bottles for targets. (You could use 20 oz, 1 liter, or 2 liter for this.) To play the boys tried to shoot he bottles down and off the table.

Lastly, my husband and I made a wooden bear cutout with its mouth gaping open to eat and a cute, silly face. A den volunteer sewed us bean bag fish and we used them for a bean bag toss game we called “feed the bear.”

If you are looking for cheap prizes, ask volunteers in your den to bring in freshly laundered and gently-used stuffed animals. The boys loved winning them and I know one of the moms in our den was more than happy to get rid of some toys that were cluttering up her house.

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1. Suzannah
  
  December 21, 2018
  
  @Angie – great ideas. Thank you for sparking my imagination!
  
  Reply