Day two of 4-H Cloverbud Day camp and we saw some growth in our youngest 4-H members between yesterday and today. After working on team building skills and getting to know each other today was a little easier as we settled into a familiar territory with familiar faces.
Today we had some extra special help from one of our Master Gardeners, Shae Davis and a Jr. Master Gardener Kennedi Lyons as we dug into a day about gardening. We started our day by learning the difference between soil and dirt. Our cloverbuds are so smart that they used big words like soil has nutrients while dirt is stuff you track in on the floor.
So we thought we would start with something we all love (and we were having for lunch) a hamburger. Did you know you can grow all parts of a hamburger? So we had our day campers draw a hamburger plant and stand up and present their thoughts on what a hamburger plant would look like. All of them were different, fun, and invoked a great deal of imagination. Kennedi drew her plant and showed them how a presentation is done and they all got up and spoke. Job well done!
Mrs. Shae showed our young folks how to make cloud identifiers. This is really cool becuase it has photos of clouds on it as well as their names. When you go outside you hold it up and look through the center then identify the cloud you are seeing by the photos. Cool huh? Not a lot of clouds outside today but we are going to try them out the rest of the week to see what we can identify.
Then we found out you can grow plants in something other than the ground or in pots. Our 4-H members made plant people. Essentially they are nylon knee highs that have grass seed (the hair) and soil. The soil was shaped to form a head and a knot was tided in the stocking to hold everything in place. Our campers glued eyes on their plant people and made facial features. When it is all said and done their people will sit on top of a vase of water and will be able to wick the water up the tail to keep the soil moist and help the hair sprout. Oh what fun it will be for them.
Our next project was very similar. We made a garden in a glove. Our youth got a glove, 5 wet cotton balls, and five seeds of different sizes. Their largest seed (the lima bean) was placed in the cotton ball and slid down to the thumb. The smallest seed was lettuce and it was placed in a cotton ball in the pinky. When the glove goes home parents can tape it in the window and when the seeds sprouts they can cut the tip of the glove off and plant the sprout in a pot and nurture it until it grows into food. Oh what fun this will be. Speaking of oh what fun...Kennedi finished off this activity by reading our cloverbuds a Dr. Seuss story all about seeds. That seemed like quite the thing to do.
One of the other things we talked about were pollinators. Pollinators are so important in making plants grow. We actually learned how pollinators use other senses to find pollen other than their eyesight. We used straws and looked through them to see what it looks like to see things through a bee's eye and it is tough to see. Put they have other senses they use to find pollen and get it back to their hives. That is really neat.
After lunch Ms. Joanna joined us. We got animalistic with her after talking about grains. We talked about grains this morning with our hamburger plants and how hamburger buns are made so this was an awesome follow-up for us. Then we got a chance to use our new yoga mats and Mrs. JoJo let us pick our poses. Oh we made up some fun stuff that made us exercise our abdominal muscles because we laughed so hard.
Before the end of the day we also planted a sunflower seed for the sunflower contest that is being held at the Robeson Regional Agricultural Fair. We are really excited that they have a contest that we can enter. How much fun is that?
One last thing we said goodbye to Kalani today. She was an intern that helped with Cloverbud camp. She signed our coloring books for us. Today was her last day at the office. She goes back to college soon and we will miss her.
If you would like to check out all the fun we had please click this link to see our day in photos. Stay tuned for tomorrow becuase our STEMS might get STEAMmy near the STREAM.
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