The den meeting went OK, no fatalities or big disasters. Decorating the treasure boxes was a big hit, although figuring out the hidden objects did not work as well. The kids were much better at it than I had anticipated and too bouncy to have them all in one line. Next time I need to make sure I have enough to have them all do stuff in parallel.
There were only two rough spots. The first was after we did the hidden objects, I gave them out to the boys. I got to see first hand pack behaviour. At first there was just shouts of “me! me!” with regard to who wanted one, but then one boy said “I want the hammer!” and instantly every other boy shouted that he wanted the hammer too.
The same thing came up with snacks. Mom bought a six pack of blue drinks and a six pack of red drinks and one of blue drinks. As soon as I gave a blue drink to the first boy, everyone else wanted a blue drink as well and there weren’t enough to go around. Corwin demonstrated his independent streak by asking for a red drink since red is his favorite color. The lesson here is don’t have differentiated items for packs of young boys.