Learn about the Scout Promise with Aesop's Fables

Before you begin

Planning and setting up this activity

• You may want to use this activity as part of an Investiture or as a Promise renewal.

Running this activity

Talk about stories and fables

1. Gather everyone together and ask people to think about their favourite story.
2. Going round the circle, ask anyone who wants to to share their favourite story and tell everyone a bit about it, such as what happens, where it’s set, how it made them feel or the characters. These could also be folk tales, myths and legends, such as Robin Hood, as well as books.
3. Tell everyone that stories often have a purpose. Ask them to think about the purpose of their story. There might not be one and that’s OK. The purpose could be to make us laugh, feel happy, feel sad, be inspired, or teach us something.
4. Ask if anyone knows what a ‘fable’ is. Explain that a ‘fable’ is a type of short story. The characters are often animals. The most famous fable writer was called Aesop. He lived in ancient Greece over 2,000 years ago and his most famous fable was ‘The tortoise and the hare’.
5. Lots of fables have the purpose to teach us about morals. Morals means a lesson or message that you can take from a story or experience, such as to not be greedy, to tell the truth and to never judge someone by how they look.
6. Ask if anyone knows what the moral of the story might be ‘The tortoise and the hare’ is. The moral lesson of the story is that you can be more successful by doing things slowly and steadily, than by acting quickly and carelessly. You may have heard of the phrase that ‘slow and steady wins the race’. This fable can also teach us that patience, hard-work and never giving up can lead to success.

Practise the fables

1. Everyone should choose the version of the Promise that’s right for them, then everyone should say, sign or think about their Promise at the same time. It doesn’t matter if different versions overlap.
2. Either in small groups or as one big group, depending on what works best, read out a fable. If you’re in small groups, each group could use a different fable. 
3. You could also act it out. One person could read the story, while others perform it. You could also use puppets and toys to act it out. 
4. When the story's been read, the group should talk about its meaning. Some questions could be:

• • What do the characters do?
  • The purpose of fables is to teach us something. What do you think this story teaches us? What is the moral (message or lesson) of the story?

Your Scout Promise

1. Ask everyone what they think the message of our Scout Promise is. It’s to be kind, to help others, to always try hard and do our best, and to take care of the world around us. 
2. Now, ask everyone to think about the fables. Which part of the Scout Promise could the story link to? Did the story show us to be kind, be helpful, love our world and do our best?
3. See if anyone can think of any ways they’ve kept their Scout Promise this week by being kind, helpful or doing their best.
4. Now, ask everyone to create something, such as a poem, or a piece artwork of their favourite fable that will help them to remember their Scout Promise.