Robeson County 4-H

The  December 2016 Issue of the NC 4-H Horse Program Newsletter  is now available.  Please share this link with all youth, parents, coaches and leaders that have an interest in 4-H Horse Program events, activities and contests.  Several important deadlines and event details are described in the newsletter! 

  Hard to believe it is already Wednesday here at Betsy Jeff Penn 4-H Center.  Our campers are having a ball and suddenly realizing it won't be long until we come home.  So they are trying to speed things up so they can do it all.  Can you blame them?   Our day started like the last few with a wake up call at 7 am and breakfast starting at 7:30.  On the menu today?  Bagels, eggs, and bacon.  Yummmmmmmmmmy!  Then it is out to the flag pole for flag raising, cabin cleanup and headed out to activities.  On the agenda for our younger youth today; bugs, pool, canoeing, and crafts.  Not all at the same time however.  Our Sun group started with archery and bolder wall climbing before jumping in the pool. Some folks have asked in the past what the difference is between the rock wall and the boulder wall, and there is actually a difference.  Both are man made climbing walls.  The rock wall you climb vertically while the b...

  Tuesdays are great days at Betsy Jeff Penn (BJP) 4-H Center because our campers are pretty confidant that they know what they are doing, where they are going, and they can let loose and have even more fun.   Our campers got up bright and early to get dressed and do their chores before heading to breakfast.  There they were greeted with pancakes and sausage.  We also have a cereal and fresh fruit buffets for those who are not into other breakfast foods.  After stomachs were fueled for a busy day our youth paused in the pits for flag raising then it was off to a day of fun.   Our younger youth hit the lake for canoeing and then ran up the hill to enjoy the pool.  Other campers enjoyed the boulder wall, archery, and the beaver hike all before lunch.  The older campers had a morning on the horses, rock wall climbed, fished, and even had time to get a little crafty.  All of this before lunch.   Lunch seemed to make everyone happy with...

  Our first full day at Betsy Jeff Penn 4-H Camp and we started the day by jumping up, cleaning up, and heading to breakfast.  Once our stomachs were full with biscuits, bacon, and eggs.  Then it was time for flag raising.  A very important part of our tradition at camp is raising the American, North Carolina, and 4-H flags.  Once that is done it is a signal to head a variety of directions for our daily activities.   First up, for our youngest campers there was crafts and pool.  Who doesn't want to jump into that refreshing water when your morning starts around 80 degrees?  Those crafting were using paper plates to make a very decorative flying saucers.  While our younger campers were enjoying those activities the older youth were at the horses and enjoying the boulder wall.  The adventurers and Trekkers were working on teams courses, ground initiatives and canoes.   Needless to say our campers worked up quite an appetite. ...

  All I can say is WOW!  It has been a fun and full day for our 4-H campers.  We started early this morning at the Robeson County Extension office and our campers gave hugs and waved goodbye as they loaded the bus and we ventured to Betsy Jeff Penn 4-H Education Center (BJP) in Reidsville, NC.  We made a brief stop in Richmond County and picked up a few more campers then headed straight to lunch in Asheboro.  We stopped at a crowd favorite, Golden Corral, where we knew even the pickiest of eaters would be able to find something to sooth a hungry stomach.  After several compliments on how well behaved our campers were, it was time to load the bus and head to BJP.  It only took about another hour and half before we arrived at our final destination.   The excitement of what was about to come could be felt in the air as our campers grabbed their personal belongings and headed toward the meeting zone under the flags.  As campers converged at...

  Monday may have been July 4th but that didn't stop us from having a great camp this week.  We did take Monday off for the holiday but started our our awesome camp on Tuesday.  We left the Robeson office bright and early to head to Millstone 4-H camp in Ellerbe, NC .  It is a bit of a drive but the camp experience is worth it.  To give you a better understanding there are more than 60 youth attending camp ranging in age from 9-13.  The youth come from Hoke, Anson, Montgomery, Richmond, Scotland, and Robeson Counties for this event.   After getting checked in and getting to know each other our groups were spilt up by age into the head, heart, hands, and health groups.   Each group rotated activities between swimming, nature hike, archery, and team building.  According to our youth their favorite activity was getting in the pool and cooling off.  We have to give our campers credit, it was over 100 degrees and they were having so muc...

Congratulations to our Junior Master Gardener Day Campers who are now officially certified as Junior Master Gardeners.  Each got their own certificate today as they graduated from this intensive program each saying they knew a whole lot more than they knew before they came.   Our day started with our what we liked and learned over the last few days .  then it was time to start our activities.  We checked on our worms (they were very happy) and our biodegradable pots.  We checked our soil layers and then worked on planting things.  We used our pots to plant seeds, and made salad in a glove.  It was lots of fun.  We got to start a pineapple plant from the top of a pineapple that had rooted (yes we learned about that too).  Most fun was learning about succulents and playing with a ginormous aloe plant.  We had a chance to plant leaves, and disassemble leaves, we scraped out the aloe gel and made our very own aloe lotion which is very he...

  Day 4 four our 4-H Jr. Master Gardener Day Camp and you could say it went to the animals.  I know that sounds a little fishy, especially when we are training our youth about gardening but the NC Zoo has some of the largest variety of plant life from other countries in one place.  Where else can you see plants native to rain forests, desserts, the plains of Africa, and even North Carolina.  Its really neat and so are the animals.   We started our day early and when we got to the zoo we split up into smaller groups to tour the mile and a half of pathways between exhibits.  We had the chance in the morning to visit Cypress Swamp, the Arctic, and even the dessert.  Along the way we learned about the importance of bees, how grizzlies stay cool, and that many animals are herbivores not carnivores.   After lunch at the halfway point, Junction Plaza, our group was energized and ready to hit the trail.  With a promise of giraffes and gorillas o...

  Today the topic for our 4-H Junior Master Gardener's was one they all could take a bite out of...food .  We started our day working on a scavenger hunt at the Robeson County Farmer's Market located in downtown Lumberton.  We had a lot of fun talking with farmer's and learning about what it takes to grow the items they do and bring them to the market.  After a brief photo op we headed back to the Extension office to compare lists and learn more about that delicious topic of the day.   After a brief snack we headed back to work and learned about food measurements.  Not cups or quarts, but bushels and pecks.  We also learned how to make a profit, and why prices at farmer's markets tend to be better than grocery store prices.  Then we made a plant web and talked about the different plant parts that are edible and the types of food they encompass.  After all of that it was time to concentrate on the seeds.  We created a garden in a glove...

Day two of 4-H Jr. Master Gardener (JMG) Day Camp and these campers didn't cloud up and rain about the early hour for our field trip, however Mother Nature was not as kind.  We left early this morning to head up to the Life and Science Museum in Durham .  It is an awesome place that allows us to have all sorts of hands on, and up close and personal experiences that are part of our JMG curriculum.   The rain started on our drive up and we did our best to adjust when we got to the museum.  Our first stop, the Butterfly Pavilion.  There we saw plants that we had never seen before, saw the largest fruit tree, and the largest seed in the world.  All of that before the most magnificent release of butterflies into the pavilion that contains between 800-1,000 various species of the winged creatures.  After holding, watching, and just being in awe of the beautiful creatures it was time to explore more creatures at the Museum.   Our campers had a blast ...

Summer is officially here for Robeson County 4-H.  This is our first week long day camp and the subject this week, Junior Master Gardeners .  For those of you unfamiliar with this program it is a curriculum from Texas A&M University.  The hands on curriculum allows youth to learn about soils, plants, insects, growing and preparing foods, team building and much more.  Our goal when we are done is to have every day camper certified as Junior Master Gardeners. Today our theme was "Getting Down and Dirty" and we did just that studying everything about soil.  We started the day learning to protect ourselves from the sun making our own recyclable sombreros.  We decorated them and had a fashion show, and it was tough to determine who had made the best chapeau.  Then we learned that newspaper is a very versatile recyclable and is biodegradable (will dissolve back into the soil).  Our youth used wet newspaper to make pots.  Currently their crea...