Teaching Cub Scouts to Sharpen Knives

I don't believe you should endeavor in teaching advanced sharpening techniques to such young children, I would say 10-12 years is the good time to begin, with simple techniques, this will save you a lot of injuries to manage :D.
 
Whittling Chip Course is called out for Bears, 9, in Bear handbook, but your den is Wolf, second graders, 8. Is Whittling Chip in Wolf manual? As willintheweeds has said, Scout knife Safety and Soap / wax carving with plastic is age appropriate here. I agree with HeavyHanded that motor skills are not developed enough at 8.
https://meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php/Whittling_Chip_Course
 
Well, we survived. :D

I didn't really have them sharpen the knives. I demonstrated it and suggested that they have their parents help them if they need a knife sharpened.

I also take a little bit of umbrage with the Bear Scout book. It seems to think that a stone is the best way to sharpen a knife. While I guess if I can only have one thing to sharpen a knife, it would be a stone, I think a steel is probably what I use 90% of the time.

We spent most of the meeting going over the safety rules with knives (safety circle, handling, etc). It's pretty dry stuff but the kids seemed to be attentive.
 
When I was a Scout in the early 60s we never learned how to hone a blade even though we all carried pocketknives. I had to learn that from my Grandpa. But it IS something that boys NEED to learn. What a great idea. But you're going to want CLOSE supervision on them or you'll undoubtedly catch hell from the parents of the "clumsy" ones. I hope you can get some help with this project.
 
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