Celebrate the BSA's 112th birthday with these 12 Scouting Wordles

It’s the BSA’s birthday, but we’re all getting a gift.

The Boy Scouts of America was founded at 11:03 a.m. on Feb. 8, 1910, meaning this great movement turns 112 today.

To celebrate, we’ve created 12 Scouting-themed Wordle puzzles just for you.

If you’re new to the world of Wordle, read on for a quick overview. If you’re a Wordle pro, skip the next two sections and start reading at “What are the rules for Scouting Wordle?”

What is Wordle?

Five-letter words are finally getting their day in the spotlight.

In October, the web-based word game Wordle appeared online — the creation of Brooklyn-based software engineer Josh Wardle. Within a few months, its popularity skyrocketed. Can you spell V-I-R-A-L?

Then, late last month, we learned The New York Times has purchased rights to the game “for a price in the low seven figures.” Can you spell D-O-U-G-H?

Quick sidebar: If the prospect of earning millions of dollars for inventing a game intrigues any of the Scouts in your troop, we have a merit badge for you.

How do you play Wordle?

The rules are simple:

Guess a five-letter word in six tries.
Every guess must be a valid word, meaning an all-vowel guess of A-E-I-O-U, which would tell you instantly which vowels are in the correct word, can’t be used.
After each guess, the letters in your submitted word will turn one of three colors:
- Gray: The letter is not in the word at all.
- Yellow: The letter is in the word but in the wrong position.
- Green: The letter is both in the word and in the correct position.
The letters in the keyboard at the bottom of the game will change to help you keep track of previous guesses.
Here’s a sample game to help teach you the rules. Open it in a new window and come back to this post.

Guess 1: For your first guess, let’s go with … THINK. OK, we see that only the T is in the word, but it’s yellow, so it’s in the wrong place. Add H, I, N and K to our list of letters to discard. The correct word doesn’t use any of them.

Guess 2: Let’s try something that uses the T but in a different place. How about SMART? Nice! The S and T are in the correct place. M, A and R aren’t in the word at all.

Guess 3: Now we need a word that starts with S and ends with T. What about SPOUT? OK, now we’re getting close. Everything is in the right place except that second letter.

Guess 4: OK, we’re close. We need a word that fits this puzzle: S _ O U T. Any ideas?

Excellent. Let’s continue.

What are the rules for Scouting Wordle?

Using this site that lets anyone make their own Wordle for free, we have created a dozen Scouting-themed Wordles to celebrate the BSA’s 112th birthday. Twelve puzzles, 112 years!

The game uses the Wordle rules listed above but with a Scouting twist:

Each word has something to do with Scouting. Think about all the various Scouting terms you know — words from Scouting sayings, gear used on campouts, things you’d hear at a meeting.
While the final word is a Scouting word, your guesses can be any valid word. Depending on your strategy, you might want to start with a more common word to help narrow down the possible vowels and consonants in the correct word. Many longtime Wordle players (aka anyone who has been playing for at least a few weeks) have a favorite starting word that incorporates vowels and frequently used consonants like R, S or T.

On to the puzzles …