Earning the Tiger rank will likely be a Cub Scout’s first big accomplishment in Scouting! The rank of Tiger is the second rank a Cub can earn, and it’s typically achieved in the first grade. While Lion rank offers some fun adventures as a gentle introduction to Scouting, Tiger rank builds off of Lion to further immerse your Cub in outdoor programs.
To earn the rank of Tiger, a Cub Scout will be required to complete 6 core adventures, 1 optional adventure, and How to Protect Your Children From Child Abuse: A Parent’s Guide as well as the Protect Yourself Rules video for Tigers. Through this, they’ll demonstrate teamwork, explore the outdoors, learn about nutritious eating, and much more!
PS. This article is a collaboration between Arrow Of Light, Chandler M, and Cole 🙂
This guide will tell you and your Cub everything you’ll need to know to earn the Tiger rank, with a particular focus on explaining the 6 core adventures. Once finished, you’ll be prepared to complete every Tiger rank adventure with confidence! To begin, let’s read each requirement for Tiger rank. Then, it’ll be time to dive in!
What Are The Tiger Rank Requirements?
- Complete each of the six Tiger required adventures:
- Games Tigers Play
- My Tiger Jungle
- Team Tiger
- Tiger Bites
- Tiger Circles: Duty to God
- Tigers in the Wild
- In addition to the six required adventures, complete at least one elective adventure of your den’s or family’s choosing.
- Curiosity, Intrigue, and Magical Mysteries
- Floats and Boats
- Good Knights
- Rolling Tigers
- Sky is the Limit
- Stories in Shapes
- Tiger-iffic!
- Tiger: Safe and Smart
- Tiger Tag
- With your parent, guardian, or other caring adult, complete the exercises in the pamphlet entitled How to Protect Your Children From Child Abuse: A Parent’s Guide.
- Watch the Protect Yourself Rules video for 1st Grade, Tiger. OR Earn the Protect Yourself Rules Preview Adventure for Tiger.
Especially this early in the Cub Scouting program, your Cub will require a bit of help. Luckily, parental involvement is a huge part of Cub Scouts! This guide will not only serve as a resource helping Cubs to complete their rank but also a guide for parents to support them through the entire process! 😀
To start, we’ll look at each of the 6 required core adventures in detail. From just their names, you can’t really tell what each adventure is all about. However, I’ll be breaking down each requirement for you shortly! That way, you and your Cub will understand all the Tiger rank adventures and how best to complete them.
Completing the ‘Games Tigers Play’ Tiger Rank Adventure
This adventure is all about teamwork and cooperation! To complete Games Tigers Play, your Cub must play some teambuilding games, talk about staying healthy, and attend a sporting event. You must complete four requirements to finish the adventure, including the first two and two others of your choosing.
- (Required) Do the following:
- Play two initiative or team-building games with the members of your den.
- Listen carefully to your leader while the rules are being explained, and follow directions when playing.
- At the end of the game, talk with the leader about what you learned when you played the game. Tell how you helped the den by playing your part.
- (Required) Talk with your den or family about why good nutrition helps you to be strong and active. Bring a nutritious snack to a den meeting. Share why you picked it and what makes it a good snack choice.
- Make up a game with the members of your den, and play it with den members. After playing the game, talk with your den about the experience.
- Make up a new game, and play it with your family or members of your den or pack. Then talk with the group about the experience.
- Do the following:
- Attend a sporting event with your den or family.
- Before or after the event, talk with a coach or athlete about what it is like to participate in the sport. OR Find out more about the sport and share what you have learned with your den or family members before or after the event.
To complete this adventure, your Cub is going to work together with their den, especially for requirements 1 and 3. If their den is not available for every requirement, completing some of the requirements with your family at home will also work — and surely be a ton of fun!
1.1) Do the following:
— Play two initiative or team-building games with the members of your den.
— Listen carefully to your leader while the rules are being explained, and follow directions when playing.
— At the end of the game, talk with the leader about what you learned when you played the game. Tell how you helped the den by playing your part.
There are three major components of this requirement. First, your Cub must play two initiative or team-building games with their den. If you are helping to organize this part, I recommend checking out our article on Cub Scout games. This will provide you with some good ideas on activities to plan!
Next, your Cub just needs to pay attention to the rules. You still may need to explain the rules a few times for everyone to get a good grasp on how to play. Make sure they’re also listening to their leader during the game for any extra instructions they might be given!
Finally, your Cub needs to explain what they learned. This could be what they learned about teamwork, or something about a fellow Cub. If you think your Cub could struggle with this requirement, you might discuss some things to keep an eye out for ahead of time. That way, they’ll be prepared to observe and join in! 🙂
1.2) Talk with your den or family about why good nutrition helps you to be strong and active. Bring a nutritious snack to a den meeting. Share why you picked it and what makes it a good snack choice.
Planning a nutritious snack is something that your Cub may already know how to do! When your Cub brings a snack, it should only contain a small amount of added sugar, and be low in saturated and trans fats. Look for foods high in protein, fiber, and vitamins where you can! Here are some good snack ideas:
- Beef jerky sticks
- Trail mix
- Fruits
- Veggies
- Yogurt
- Cheese
These should all be small portion sizes as well. Go over these main points with your Cub so they can explain their snack choice to their den. You can also check out my guide to the best Scouting trail snacks for more healthy and tasty snack ideas, along with the reasoning behind them!
1.3) Make up a game with the members of your den, and play it with den members. After playing the game, talk with your den about the experience.
This requirement will need some creativity from you and your Cub! They’ll be asked to make up a game with the help of their den and play it together. These games can be as simple as a variation of tag or hide and seek, but Cubs should add a new element that isn’t normally in the game. Another fun idea is trying to make each other laugh in wacky ways! 1 laugh = 1 point. 😉
After they complete their game, the den should talk about their experience. This mostly boils down to what they liked and what they would do differently in the future. For example, you could discuss any additions to the game that might make it even more fun next time!
1.4) Make up a new game, and play it with your family or members of your den or pack. Then talk with the group about the experience.
This requirement is pretty much the same as the last, except your Cub has the option to play it with their family. Which one they choose may come down to personal preference or whatever works better for your schedule. Just be sure to get creative and have fun!
1.5) Do the following:
— Attend a sporting event with your den or family.
— Before or after the event, talk with a coach or athlete about what it is like to participate in the sport. OR Find out more about the sport and share what you have learned with your den or family members before or after the event.
For the final requirement, you and your Cub need to attend a sporting event. This doesn’t need to be a professional sporting event; it can be something as simple as a kid’s soccer game! If you go to a local park on a Saturday, you’re bound to see teams competing in a handful of neat sports.
While at the game, they should ask a player or coach about what it takes to participate in that sport. Just mention you’re in Cub Scouting and it’s for a requirement and they’ll most likely be happy to share! If that option isn’t feasible though, your Cub can also look up more about the sport and explain it to their family or den.
Completing the ‘My Tiger Jungle‘ Tiger Rank Adventure
The second requirement for the Tiger rank, My Tiger Jungle, involves your Cub exploring the outdoors, as well as learning what animals live in your area and how to be helpful to the environment. Your Cub needs to complete three requirements in total, with requirement 1 being mandatory.
- (Required) With your parent, guardian, or other caring adult, go for a walk outside, and pick out two or more sights or sounds of “nature” around you. Discuss with your partner or den.
- Take a 1-foot hike. Make a list of the living things you find on your 1-foot hike. Discuss these plants or animals with your parent, guardian, other caring adult, or with your den.
- Point out two different kinds of birds that live in your area. With your parent, guardian, or other caring adult, or with your den, find out more about one of these birds.
- Be helpful to nature by planting a plant, shrub, or tree. Learn more about the needs and growth of the item you have planted.
- Build and hang a birdhouse.
Most of this adventure will require you and your Cub to explore the outdoors. You don’t need to go on a long hike though, just explore your surroundings and notice neat things! This requirement is a fun way to start fostering respect for nature, which will be a consistent theme throughout Scouting.
2.1) With your parent, guardian, or other caring adult, go for a walk outside, and pick out two or more sights or sounds of “nature” around you. Discuss with your partner or den.
This is another requirement that you can do with your Cub at home. All you’ll need to do is take your Cub for a walk! During that walk, your Cub needs to pick out two things they saw or heard. At their next meeting, have your Cub share what they saw or heard with a partner (which may be assigned by your den).
2.2) Take a 1-foot hike. Make a list of the living things you find on your 1-foot hike. Discuss these plants or animals with your parent, guardian, other caring adult, or with your den.
This requirement may be best done with the den, but can still be completed at home with family. A 1-foot hike may sound odd when initially reading these requirements, but it’s not too complicated. They won’t just be walking for a single foot though! 😂
To do a 1-foot hike, your Cub needs to select 1 square foot outdoors (like an area of grass) and look closely at what’s there. A bug magnifying glass/catcher can help your cub to closely observe bugs or plants in this area! After looking closely, have them tell you their highlights and share their findings with the den.
2.3) Point out two different kinds of birds that live in your area. With your parent, guardian, or other caring adult, or with your den, find out more about one of these birds.
This requirement can also be done at home. Your Cub might already know some birds living in your area, like pigeons or cardinals, which will make this requirement easy. If your Cub doesn’t know any birds by name, or if it’s too cold for birds to be out, I suggest visiting the Audubon bird guide website!
2.4) Be helpful to nature by planting a plant, shrub, or tree. Learn more about the needs and growth of the item you have planted.
This requirement may need a bit more effort than others: your Cub will be planting something! If your Cub is interested in doing this requirement, I suggest either having them help out in a home landscaping project or participate in a local service project that is doing landscaping. Your Cub will surely enjoy watching their plant grow alongside them!
2.5) Build and hang a birdhouse.
Building and hanging a birdhouse could be a really fun project for your Cub! Using a birdhouse kit from a hardware store or Amazon to help with this project is an enjoyable and easy option. But, if your Cub is up for it, designing and building their own birdhouse will be a challenging experience that they’ll remember forever!
Completing the ‘Team Tiger‘ Tiger Rank Adventure
Just like Games Tigers Play, Team Tiger is all about teamwork. This adventure will help your Cub understand why teamwork is so important and give them a good foundation of service to their community. Your Cub needs to complete a total of four requirements. Of these, requirements 1 and 2 are required.
- (Required) With your parent, guardian, or other caring adult, or with your den, talk about what it means to be part of a team. List some of the teams you are on (den, pack, family, class, etc.), and explain how you can help each one.
- (Required) With your den, talk about your Tiger team. Then make a chart showing all the different ways team members can help the den. Volunteer to take your turn doing at least two different jobs, one of which is leading the Pledge of Allegiance.
- With your family, talk about how family members each have a role in the family team. Then pick a job that you will do to help the team. Follow through by doing that job at least three times during the next three weeks.
- With your den or family, participate as a team in a service project that helps our country or your community.
- With your den, make a chart or picture showing how you and your teammates make a better team because you are alike in some ways but different in others.
This adventure will require a lot of cooperation with the den, so it is important to coordinate with other den members. Luckily, this is a great adventure to complete at meetings, so your Cub likely won’t need to go out of their way to work on this on their own! Warning though, requirements 3 and 4 are a bit tricker! 😉
3.1) With your parent, guardian, or other caring adult, or with your den, talk about what it means to be part of a team. List some of the teams you are on (den, pack, family, class, etc.), and explain how you can help each one.
This requirement can be completed at home or at a den meeting. Your Cub needs to explain what it means to be part of a team and what teams they’re on. For each team they’re on, have them explain what they do to help each team. Talking about their den should be easy if they have a particular role!
3.2) With your den, talk about your Tiger team. Then make a chart showing all the different ways team members can help the den. Volunteer to take your turn doing at least two different jobs, one of which is leading the Pledge of Allegiance.
As mentioned above, one of the teams that your Cub is a part of is their den. Part of being a Cub Scout is helping out the den, pack, and the community. For this requirement, your Cub will be helping out the den by volunteering for two jobs; one of those must be leading the Pledge of Allegiance.
The best way to do this requirement is to make a duty chart. Using a duty chart, your den can rotate these duties and finish this requirement. Duty charts are used a lot in Scouting, so this is a perfect opportunity for your Cub to get some practice in! Here’s an easy template:
| Duty | Cub |
|---|---|
| Lead the Pledge | |
| Take Attendance | |
| Lead a Prayer | |
| Etc. |
3.3) With your family, talk about how family members each have a role in the family team. Then pick a job that you will do to help the team. Follow through by doing that job at least three times during the next three weeks.
This is your golden chance to explain how everyone in the household does something to make it run smoothly! I recommend getting the family together to do this requirement together. Once everyone has explained what they do around the house, have your Cub pick a chore they can do three times across three weeks to help out.
3.4) With your den or family, participate as a team in a service project that helps our country or your community.
This is pretty self-explanatory: all you need to do is participate in a service project with your Cub. The project doesn’t need to be Scout-affiliated, just approved by your den leader! If you’re part of a church or community org, I’m sure they could use a few extra helping hands during their next act of service. 🙂
3.5) With your den, make a chart or picture showing how you and your teammates make a better team because you are alike in some ways but different in others.
If your Cub hasn’t already, this is a great time to get to more closely meet the other Cubs in your den. For this, I recommend making a T-chart with a similarities column and a differences column. Your Cub can then interview other Cubs to find out similarities and differences. Once you find common interests, those are like the seeds of friendship that can bloom!
Ready to move on to Adventure 4 of the Tiger rank? (sorry, article is in progress!)
Congrats on Finishing The First Half of The Tiger Rank!
Wow, we just covered a ton of useful info. Amazing work! So far, we’ve covered three out of the six core adventures your Cub Scout will have to complete, touching on the crucial themes of sportsmanship, nutrition, nature, and teamwork. Even more fun activities are on the horizon, so stay tuned!
Once you’re ready to continue on to part 2 of my guide to the Tiger rank, click here!
Also, if you’re interested in getting help with every other Cub Scout rank (along with an explanation of what your Cub will learn through each one), make sure to check out my full guide to Cub Scout advancement. PS: The article also links to my best resources for Cub Scouting success! 😀