We Want to Celebrate Too

The Peay brothers made another appearance on the CBS Early Show this morning and did themselves and 4-H proud again. This is the final round of CBS's Singing Family Face-off competition and the Peays went head to head against J4 a singing family from Tennessee.

The Peays sang "We Just Want to Celebrate" by Rare Earth, while J4 went with the David Cassidy hit "I Think I Love You". Once again it is up to you to vote and help decide the winner. Click here to go directly to the voting link. We have until March 31 at 3 p.m. to vote and the winner will be announced April 1 on the Early Show.

Teen Time

It was a weekend to remember. About 100 youth and adults came together in Moore County at the Days Inn for the South Central District Teen Retreat. The District Officers; Nick Clegg President from Moore County, Kelli Hateley Vice President from Stanley County, Allen Monk Reporter from Bladen County, and Ashley Willams Secretary from Cumberland County, lead the meeting. They started with a business meeting and introduction of candidates for district and state office.

After a wonderful lunch break we the youth took part in the choice of two workshops. The workshop choices included scrapbooking, Introduction to the Ambassador program, Botanical Prints, Vermicomposting, and Breaking the Ice an introduction to Ice breakers. Most of the workshops were volunteer lead and hands on. The teens started working on our district scrapbook and even had the opportunity to make things to take back with them.

After checking into the rooms and changing we headed to Moore First Health's fitness center for some swimming and recreation. Everyone had a chance for fun, adventure, and activity before heading back to the hotel.

As soon as we got back we all sat down to work on thank you notes to our soldiers and their families as part of the Operation Military Kids (OMK) program. Everyone attending completed several cards as part of a district community service project.

After dinner the candidates started campaigning for office, setting up booths, answering questions and giving out campaign goodies. Robeson County's own, Cierra Buckman was running for district President campaigning against Dixie Acorn from Hoke County. It was a tough race with at least two people running for each office, except reporter. The candidates were trying to put their best foot forward and persuade counties for their votes on Sunday morning. As soon as the serious matter of campaigning was over everyone headed back into our meeting room to dance the night away.

Sunday morning started with breakfast and voting. As the competition started for the spirit stick the ballots were tabulated. When it was all said and done (and that includes chants and skits for the spirit stick) the new district officers were announced. Dixie Acorn from Hoke County will be President, Luke Hill from Bladen County will be Vice President, Courtney Miller from Richmond County will be Reporter and Ryan Fairley from Scotland County will be Secretary. After a great debate and incredibly tough competition Bladen County was awarded the District Spirit Stick for 2009.

Congratulations to everyone for an incredible 4-H teen weekend.

They Are In The Finals!!!!!!!

You helped them get there. On Friday the hosts of the CBS Early Show announced the two final families in their Singing Family Face-off Compeitition. The Peays, a Robeson County 4-H family made it to the semi's and people around the country waited with baited breath to see if they would make it to the next level.

Once again the voting was tight with just a few percentage points seperating the winning families. In the end it boiled down to J4 and the Peay Family. They will compete again March 25 on the morning show and on April 1 the winner will be announced. Stay tuned to Robeson County 4-H's blog for more updates and links to voting information and thank you for your support.

The Eggs Have Landed

The eggs have been laid and are now safely in incubators in second and third grade classrooms around Robeson County. If all goes right the chicks (possibly as many as 360 of them) will be hatching around the week of April 6. Students and teachers are making sure to regulate the temperature and turn the eggs during the day, just like a momma hen.
In the meantime the youth will get to build an eggs ray viewer and look inside the eggs to see if the eggs are fertile and growing. They will also have the chance to crack into the hands-on learning portion when they crack open grocery store eggs and learn the different parts, like that white stringy thing that hangs off the yolk.
The 4-H staff is busy checking into classrooms and conducting Glo-Germ. Glo-Germ is an activity that teaches youth proper hand washing techniques. The youth put a special gel on their hands that makes the germs on their hands glow when placed under a black light. After they wash their hands they place them back under the black light to make sure they got all the germs off. We visited Ms. Brewington's second grade classroom at East Robeson on Thursday and they had some of the best hand washers yet. The students were very excited and grossed out by the germs they had and promised to properly wash their hands before they turn they eggs and after, as well as before lunch and after other important activities.
We will keep you up to date on the eggs hatching process and our fight against germs, with our great second and third grade student.

What's Goin' On

It is round three and the Peay brothers showed us "What's Goin' On?" on the CBS Early Show's Singing Family Face -Off competition. As part of round three they put their unique twist on the classic Marvin Gaye Song, singing, dancing, and taking the judges by storm.
The Peay's are one of three families in the semi-finals of a competition that awards the winners a year long recording contract with CBS records. They traveled back to New York and performed head to head against the two other competing families. Click here to vote for your favorite. On line voting goes on until 6 p.m. Thursday Night, and the two winning families will be announced on Friday. The two winning families will then go head to head on the 22nd of March with the winner being crowned on April 1. Let's show our 4-H spirit and support the members of our 4-H family as they continue in this endeavor that highlights many of the skills that they honed in our county program.

Creative History Lesson

St. Patrick's Day. We all know to wear green or we will be pinched. We know St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, which is a land of leprechauns and rolling lush green hills and the blarney stone. Do you know the real story of St. Patrick's day? If not you can ask any of the students in the Communities in Schools (CIS) after school program at Red Springs Middle and they can tell you all about St.Patrick.

The youth learned the legend about St. Patrick and the true story behind the man before getting creative and making St. Patrick's day cards to celebrate the day. Although they liked the legend about the man who drove snakes the covered Ireland into the sea they liked the true story even better. The one of the Brit (yes St. Patrick was actually British) who was kidnapped on a trip to Ireland at the age of 16 and was enslaved for 6 years before his escape. He went home to his family but returned to Ireland later as a missionary and is credited with starting more than 300 churches in the country.

While the youth talked about his adventure they had fun finding secret leprechaun messages, completing traditional Irish word searches and making shamrocks. Every last one of them knew the difference between a shamrock and the 4-H Clover (three leaves versus four), and some could even tell me what all four of the H's stand for.

Getting Warmed Up

Spring is in the air. Plants are starting to bloom, as young people's fancy turns to thoughts of baseball and other outdoor activities in 4-H; we're getting ready for Embryology. For those of you not familiar with embryology it is better known as that thing we do in the classroom where they hatch chicks from eggs.

Actually, we have two Embryology curricula, one is for second and third grades while the other works for sixth through eighth grades. It is research based hands-on material that follows the states standard course of study. For the next two months we will work with 45 classrooms as teachers implement this curriculum.

On Monday first time teachers, as well as those looking for a refresher, came to the O. P. Owens Agriculture Center for Embryology training. They had the opportunity to learn about how to run the incubators, how to make an eggs-ray viewer, and how to motivate their students by turning and learning about eggs.

The teachers left with incubators to get them warmed up and introduce the project to their students. On Wednesday they will pick up their eggs and the fun will begin. Stay tuned for our eggs-celent adventure.

On to Round 3!

They did it and you helped make it happen! The Peays will go on to round three in the CBS Early Show's "Singing Family Face Off!" They will be competing against the two other winning families on March 18. On March 22 two families will emerge from that competition to compete for the recording contract. The final announcement of the winning family on April 1.

The winning announcement this morning came as a welcome surprise to the Peays who gathered in Greensboro, NC. The competition was really tight as was the vote, they won by a 2% margin.

Last week after the competition Solomon stopped by our 4-H office and received handshakes, hugs and lots of questions from our Robeson County Center of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Staff. What struck all of us was how well he is handling his new found fame. Solomon said if they did not go any further it was alright. They did their best, enjoyed their time in New York and that is was the experience of a lifetime. He did seem a little sad that their competition took place during spring break, so he did not get to miss classes, but I do believe that is all about to change.
We will keep you updated on the 4-H blog as the Peays continue their quest toward the CBS recording contract.

Don't Assume

Does your child know how you feel about them? Have you expressed your feelings not only that you love them but why you love them. A lot of times we forget or assume that they know but it can never hurt to remind them.
This was just one of the topics parents talked about as part of this week's Strengthening Families Program. Parents also continued to practice using tools to help them talk with their children about difficult topics like, shoplifting, drugs, and sex. They also brainstormed positive ways for youth to stay busy but stay out of trouble.
The youth continued working on positive ways to distance themselves from difficult peer pressure situations. They learned about asking questions, identifying the issue, how to stay calm and walk away from a bad situation. They also learned about good qualities for friends, and how to determine how to chose who they want to hang out with.
During family time, the youth showed off their new skills while parents gave them a very touching letter on how much they care about them and want to work with them so they can achieve the best in life and reach all the goals they set for themselves. They also played a game showing how parent and youth teamwork really makes a difference in day to day life as well as achieving long term goals.
This was the last in the continuous 6-week series of the program. The families will have a few weeks off and reconvene in April for a little booster of information and feedback. Every family will also receive a certificate and we will celebrate the successes of the program.
For more information about this program, please contact Christy Strickland, Family and Consumer Sciences Extension agent at (910) 671-3276 or Christy_Strickland@ncsu.edu.

4-H Family Makes it Big

They are a famous Robeson County 4-H family that is even more famous thanks to their recent appearances on the CBS Early Morning show and you now have the opportunity to be a part of the magic.
The Peay family is well known in our 4-H world. Joyce is the organizational leader for "Voices in Praise" 4-H club in Rowland. She has been a 4-H volunteer for almost 14 years, and she is recognized by one and all for her hard work in 4-H and at the Lumberton Post Office. Joyce is also a member of the Advisory Board with the Robeson County Center of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service. Her sons, Majid, Taimine, Katif and Solomon have all been involved in 4-H in one way or another. Katif sang as part of a 4-H group on the State 4-H Centennial song. Solomon, the youngest of the boys, even hosted our 2008 4-H Youth Achievement Night. During 4-H Entertains, our talent competition, Solomon would often back up youth on the piano, playing by ear and even performing his own songs. Talk about a family affair, Majid's 20 month old daughter Naomi even plays a role in their video "We Can make A Change" a song written by Solomon which references Mom cooking cornbread and collards in the kitchen.
All four brothers, who are living in Greensboro, N.C. right now are talented, which is how they landed on the Early Morning Show's Family Face Off Competition. After being announced they flew to New York and were pitted against another family this week singing a show tune (the type of music they sang was selected during a spin of the wheel). You now have the opportunity to select the winner. Click here and you can see their performance and vote. The family with the most votes will be announced next week and go up against the other four winners for a chance for a record contract with CBS Records. We will keep you up to date as we follow one of our own families and stand behind them in this competition.

Talking about Subjects You Don't Want to Talk About

There are subjects out there that we hope we never have to address. You know the ones I am talking about; they are uncomfortable, controversial, and often become argumentative. However, they are the topics that parents need to talk about with their children. During our sixth week of Strengthening Families program that's exactly what we worked on.
During this week's Strengthening Families program parents worked on listening while youth worked on communicating. Parents learned about what to listen for when talking to their youth and how to bring up the tough subjects like shoplifting and sex. They also learned some of the causes for negative behaviors and how to address issues in positive ways.
The youth worked on peer pressure and how to handle the person who tries to pull them into a bad situation. They learned the road map of skills to handle awkward situations like what kind of questions to ask, naming the wrong behavior, listing the consequences of that bad behavior, and then offering an alternative activity.
When the families came back together during the family session we had a family meeting and solved a family issue. Each family identified one thing, such as doing dishes that is a family issues. Each member of the family gave their view on the issue and together they came up with a solution to try at home. We will let you know how it goes in our update on our sixth meeting.
If you would like more information about our Strengthening Families program, please contact Christy Strickland at (910) 671-3276 or Christy_Strickland@ncsu.edu.