Robeson County 4-H

  Many people think fairs and animals are synonymous with 4-H.  It is true for more than 110 years 4-H has been the prevalent youth organization that has been able to market their skills at fairs around the world.  With such a strong historic partnership the North Carolina State Fair offered 4-H and FFA organizations the opportunity to sew the past, present, and future together in a single project.   The North Carolina Fair asked 4-H and FFA programs to create an 8x8 quilt patch that represented their county program.  There were not many requirements except that it had to be a specific size with at least half inch borders all around and it had to be made of a heavy muslin cloth.  They asked that the squares represent your county program and be as colorful as you like.  The event is open to the first 100 counties that submitted a square.  During the state fair quilters will piece the quilt together and will be seen sewing in the Village of Yest...

  Once Upon A Time is more than the start to a great fairy tale with a happily ever after ending, it was our theme f or the last day for 4-H Cloverbud day camp.  Our 5-8 years olds had the opportunity to dress up today as their favorite character.  We had a princess and teenage mutant ninja turtle as well as a bunch of characters as we worked our magic on this last day.   After coloring and talking about what we had learned with Mrs Janice and Mrs Christy yesterday it was time to get down to the business of stories.  We started by playing a big game of telephone.  For those of you not familiar with this old fashioned sort of game it involves a verbal message being passed around in a circle by whispering in a person's ear.  Often by the time it gets to the other end it is a mangled and funny mess.  After game time we took a brief break for a snack then split into two groups to play with story cubes.  Story cubes have pictures on them the id...

It's Thursday also known as Chef Academy Day for our 4-H Cloverbud Day Campers.  We are so excited to get into the kitchen and get cooking but first we needed to take care of our daily business.  As always we started the day with coloring and then moved forward to talk about what we learned on Wednesday.  After completing all that hard work we talked about our upcoming schedule for the day.  Then with much anticipation we headed to the bathroom to wash our hands and hit the kitchen. We split into two groups for the day.  One worked with Mrs. Janice to start with the other with Mrs. Christy. For those of you not familiar with our Cooperative Extension Staff, Janice Fields and Christy Strickland are Family Consumer Science Extension Agents.  Both work with children on healthy eating, healthy habits, as well as families and adults.  One group hit the kitchen to start mashing strawberries, make flour, and learn about pectin (an important ingredient ...

  Today marks the halfway point of our 4-H Cloverbud Day camp and it was a much anticipated day for our campers.  We started our day like we do with all of them.  We do a little coloring and then its time to review what we learned the day before.  Our campers have had fun with their Candy Village city and earning Peyton Bucks that they will spend at the end of the week.  After reviewing the day before we talked about our schedule for today and then hit the ground running by tackling our first experiment of the day.   Did you know it is possible to make a rainbow in a jar?  Well our cloverbuds did it.  It was actually a lesson in liquid density.  We started with our homemade lava lamp that was made with cooking oil and water that has red food dye in it.  Since the water and oil don't ever really mix it didn't matter how hard we shook it up it all started separating.  Understanding that concept was pretty easy so we did it again...

Ages and Stages is the 4-H shorthand for a class that all volunteers and 4-H professionals take in relation to working with you.  It is also a class needed to obtain the bronze ACE Master Volunteer certification.  For our  fourth 4 County 4-H Volunteer Revolution  volunteers from Cumberland, Hoke, Moore, and Robeson Counties met in Hoke County to hold our last training workshop before meeting to put our notebooks together.   Hoke County 4-H Agent Cathy Brown taught the workshop which covered the different learning styles and capabilities of youth between the ages of 5-8, 9-13, and 14-18.  The training gave insights on how to create programs for youth that would best engage them in learning as well as help them gain life skills.   It was a great night of volunteer togetherness and learning.  The last workshop in this series will be held in Hoke County on October 22.  Please contact your 4-H Agent if you would like to attend.

Our second day of 4-H Cloverbud day camp got our creative juices flowing.  Our theme for Tuesday was arts and crafts day and its fair to say we got pretty crafty.  As will be our daily schedule we started the day by grabbing crayons, markers and coloring pencils and coloring away on coloring sheets.  When it was time we moved to the carpet and talked about what we learned yesterday.  Our plans then move to the schedule of the day and what we have to look forward to. Our first crafty activity involved rubbing alcohol, ink, tiles, and cotton swaps.  A project you can find on our 4-H Pinterest board, essentially you paint a ceramic tile with rubbing alcohol then drop ink on it and swirl a design together.  Let the tile dry then spray it with clear acrylic.  Makes great coasters and no two are exactly alike.   We took a quick snack break then worked on our next project which believe it or to involved food.  Not people food, but bird foo...

Revolution of Responsibility is more than the 4-H slogan it is the theme for the first day of our 4-H Cloverbud day camp.  4-H volunteer, Jessica Drake has joined us for a week of fun and excitement as we have theme days and get our youth back into a school type schedule.  For those of you not familiar with the terminology in the world of 4-H Cloverbuds are our 5-8 year old youth.  On our first day of Cloverbud camp we did something really special with this group we created our own town that will carry through to the end of the week.   The first thing we did was learn about a really big word, democracy.  Our youth learned that they would all equally have a say in every thing we did by voting.  Our first task for the day was to come up with a name for our town.  Suggestions ranged from Holly Springs to Robotonicsville and even 4-H is Awesomeville.  When it was all said and done the majority went with Candy Village.   Our next order of bu...

The reason our 4-H day camp program is called Summer Fun is because it is in the Summer and its lots o fun!  A call went out for an unscheduled day of summer fun to take place at the 4-H office.  Everyone met for the first time and set the tone for the day.  After a few team working games and name games it was time to have fun. Some friends from Campbell Soup working with different United Way organizations joined us for the experiential activities and together we had a ball!  We had several stations set up and let our guests pick any station they wanted.  We had robotics, health and fitness (Twister was involved), science, plant science, and a community service section making bookmarks.  Every 10 minutes we switched stations and had a ball!   When our special guests left we settled in for a snack then headed back out to the activities.  About 4 o'clock we settled in for a few more games like the Hershey's personality test and two truths an...

  The second Tuesday of the each month marks the monthly meeting for the Dirty Rascals Junior Master Gardener 4-H Club.  This one was one to put in print.  The group called their meeting to order and then shared all of their summer experiences.  Boy did this group have a lot of fun!   When it came time for the activity Mrs. Tanya, the club leader worked with the group on really cool Butterfly facts.  Do you know if butterflies eat?  How fast do they fly?  Well our JMG's are just about experts.   After learning the facts it was time to get down to the messy business of fun.  Using handkerchiefs, paint, fabric markers, and our thumbs we created our own, one of a kind bandannas.  Using different color paints. Used our thumbs to leave paint prints that would make bees, flowers, hearts, ants, ladybugs and other cool stuff.  Using the fabric markers. Filled in the details and no two bandannas were alike.  The club members...

  It might be our last day of Biotech day camp but don't think we slacked off.  Friday was probably the busiest day with the most hands on learning opportunities, so it's probably a good thing we had some extra hands and arms on hand.   All the counties met at the Robeson County Extension office today to have some fun learning.  We started the day with some team building and listening exercises to set the stage for what was coming up.  After a brief snack break we broke into five groups to start a rotation at nine different stations.  Each group had youth from each of the three counties, of different ages, and different science backgrounds.  Before the day was over everyone was able to determine each others strengths and found a way to use them during the day.    The first station was a robot arm.  There each team member got a chance to operate the arm and move dice and place them in a cup as well as stack (and destack which migh...

  Thursday marked the monthly meeting of the All Around All Stars 4-H Arts and Crafts Club.  Although I would love to tell you that this is one of our more relaxed clubs, I must say this meeting had a whole lot of resistance going on.  That's becuase they were working on resistance paintings.  Using doilies the members made an arrangement then sprayed it with clear gloss coating.  When it had dried the doilies were picked up, and all the holes in the doilies were preserved on the paper.  Using water paints they did a decorative painting and the paint would not stick where the gloss coat was left behind creating a new and interesting texture to their work.   The club will meet again on September 5, at the 4-H office.  If you would like more information about this or any other club please contact the 4-H staff at (910) 671-3276.

It felt like we were on Hollywood time as we jumped in the van early today to head on our fourth day of adventures .  Today were were headed to Raleigh to meet up with our Bladen and Hoke County cohorts.  We started the day at IMAX where were got to enjoy a double feature of "Flight of the Butterflies 3-D" and "Born to be Wild 3-D" .  Both movies gave us incredible insights into the importance of preserving our environment as well as butterflies, orangutans, and elephants.  According to one of our campers the movies were both "equally as awesome!"   After a wonderful lunch at the Pogo cafe housed at the IMAX theater we loaded up and headed to the Natural Science Research Center housed at the North Carolina Natural Science Museum .  There we saw the latest research up close and personal.  We had a chance to examine items in the lab, see an examination of a snake by a vet, and do our own research using touch screen computers.  It was lot...