Making Noise, We Mean Music, the 4-H Way

It may seem like long days for our Cloverbuds from 8:30 a.m until 3 p.m. but after finishing a coloring page or two, they are raring to go, ready to do their part for a colorful day, and today was no different. It may be day four of Cloverbud day camp but with all the fun we are having we are starting to lose count. Of course we started our day with our traditional schedule of stating our favorite things from the day before and then settled into a great game of "Mother May I".

After our game and our snack we broke into our groups. One went with Mrs. Janice and worked on special cookies. "My Pyramid" cookies use something from each of the food groups. We got to practice our measuring skills, hand washing, and general cooking skills while we made these yummy cookies. After making the cookies the day campers got to play a My Pyramid game with Mrs. Janice teaching her all they have learned about what belongs in each food group.

If we weren't with Mrs. Janice we were with Mrs. Jane and Megan Hurst. Mrs. Jane is a 4-H volunteer with the Horsin' Around 4-H Horse Club and Megan is her daughter. Megan is a member of the Horsin' Around 4-H Horse Club and the "Dirty Rascals" Junior Master Gardener 4-H Club. Megan has volunteered to work with the cloverbuds for several years. This year Megan had two projects for our youth to work on. First they made thumb print beehives and bees. They were only allowed to use their thumbs to make these one of a kind paintings with two colors of paint. After washing up Megan had another fun project for our cloverbuds. They got a chance to practice their spelling their names by making foam nameplates. These cloverbuds got creative decorating these unique nameplates. Some of them even worked at making 3-D designs.

After all of this cooking and crafting it was time for our youth to take a break and eat. Thanks to our 4-H Volunteer Mr. Larry we had grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch with a side of baked french fries. After our stomachs were full it was time for more fun and noise than we had ever been allowed to make before.

Ms. Margaret and Ms. Jessica stopped by for some serious fun. We started by being musical characters in a barnyard story. We were split up into four groups, the roster, hound dog, donkey, and cat. When we were cued it was our job to be as loud as we could (in our character voice) to add to the really cool story. After that we became full fledged musicians. We were able to decorate paper towel tubes with markers and stickers (so it represented our personality) and then the magic happened. With wax paper over one end, held in place with a clear hairband, we had our very own kazoos. Once we figured out that we have to hum, and not yell, into one end we were able to create our own band. This was really fun!

After working with Ms. Margaret and Ms. Jessica we were ready to have fun with Mrs. Tameka. We talked about different foods and colors then we got to play a really cool game involving a mat, sort of like twister, and dice. However unlike twister we did not move a hand or a foot to a dot instead we did different kinds of exercises which were a whole lot of fun. Then Mrs. Tameka made us the best ever treat, a yogurt parfait with fresh fruit. It was yummy. hard to believe that it is time to go home, after we packed this much fun into one day. Can't wait to see what our last day holds.

Stay tuned to the 4-H blog for updates as we finish up 4-H Cloverbud Day Camp for 2010.