Cloverbud Day Camp

  

  Below is the summary of events from our weeklong 4-H day camp for Cloverbuds (5-8 year olds).  Each day has a theme and a link to photos from that day.  Our goal is to help get our youth ready for a school schedule and some of those things they need to remember in school, like times when you need to be in a chair and listen, times when you get to play games, and start getting used to a schedule.  We hope that the schedule and fun of this camp makes the transition to school a little easier.

Monday-The Treasures of 4-H:  Today was learning about our schedules, getting comfortable with each other, and learning about some of the basic principles of 4-H.  We played a name game to learn each other names and a little about each other.  We also learned how to introduce ourselves, shake hands and meet new people (and hopefully friends).   While we were on that tract we met Ms Shea Ann's friend Emily and learned about her magic words; please, thank you, you're welcome, I'm sorry, hello, goodbye and the friendliest magic phrase of all, I Love You.  After we made 4-H bracelets to help us learn the 4-H pledge and we worked on the pledge of allegiance.  After snack we had a little lesson in table manners and setting the table lead by one of our teen leaders, Kennedi Lyons.  After getting a handle of what we should do at meals we headed back to the auditorium to learn more about ourselves.  We drew ourselves and filled the drawings with a collage of things we like.  It was so much fun.  After lunch (chicken nuggets and mac&cheese cooked by Ms, Margaret) we finished up our projects and shared them with everyone.  Public speaking was not an issue for anyone in our group, they were all happy to share.  Then Mr. Mack Johnson, our Extension Horticulture Agent stopped in with some friends of his, worms! Our worms are part of a vermicomposting system in our office and our youth had the chance to feed their new friends.  In the afternoon we made our snack.  Today we made fresh fruit parfaits and could chose from grapes, apples, oranges, strawberries, and bananas.  We used vanilla yogurt and granola on the top.  Our parfaits were yummy!  At the end of the day we played games and had a meeting about what we will do tomorrow.  We can't wait!  If you would like to see all the fun we had today, please click this link.  

Tuesday-Arts & Crafts Day:  Today was all about being busy being creative.  After our morning settle
in time we got busy with our creative work.  We talked about colors and fall and colored our wooden leaves that we can use in all sorts of ways.  After our leaves we settled in to Shrinky Dinks.  This is always a fun art project coloring plastic and then putting it in the oven for about 5 minutes and watching it shrink to a quarter of its size.  Our youth had their noses as close as they could to the ovens to watch their Shrinky Dinks crinkle, shrivel, and lat flat again in a much smaller form.  They can use these as key rings, charms, zipper pulls, art inspiration, or whatever their imaginations determine.  Everyone had been so good we decided after lunch to go outside and visit our garden.  Our youth learned about the different plants and enjoyed seeing all that it had to offer.  When we came back in we did something unusually neat.  Our campers made designs with glue on canvas boards.  We then covered the designs with table salt and our campers used their new water colors to personalize their art and make it bright.  After that project we worked on a negative space project.  Our youth got wooden apples with a sticker that had the first initial of their first name on it.  We gave them red and green paints to paint their apple and told them they could paint over their stickers all they wanted and we would still be able to see their initial when it was dry.  I am pretty sure they didn't believe us but they followed the directions and left their apples on the table to dry.  As they could smell lunch cooking they took on one last project and colored in their animal masks.  Some of the animals ended up with so much personality that they growled, purred, or made other interesting noises when they were done being created.  We took a break for lunch.  Today, thanks to Ms. Margaret and Mr. Larry we had hot dogs and hamburger, french fries, and popsicles for dessert.  It was a yummy yummy in the tummy lunch.  After lunch and our rest time, we headed back to the tables to see if we could see the letters on our apples.  We instructed our cloverbuds to peel off the stickers and they were left with a beautiful letter on their apples.  We added hangers and told them they could put it on a tree, on a bulletin board, wherever they wanted to get ready to celebrate school.  Our next project was probably their favorite, slime.  We split into two groups and made two batches of slime.  Our youth had so much fun and were so excited to take some home with them (sorry Mom and Dad).  After slime time Mr. Mack came back to visit and helped our artists determine what type of leaves they had and helped them learn how to identify leaves.  Then it was time to make our snack.  Today we made fruit pizzas with sugar cookie crust, a cream cheese whipped cream spread, and lots of fresh fruit to top it with.  Our youth had so much fun creating theses individual fruit pizzas, they almost didn't have time to eat them.  As we always do we ended our day with a meeting about tomorrow and playing a few games until everyone was picked up.  If you would like to see all the fun from today please click this link.   

Wednesday-Wacky Science Day:  Our cloverbuds were ready to see things explode, fly, and do
amazing science today as we proclaimed Wednesday as Wacky Science Day!  We started out the morning in typical fashion, settling in with coloring, lego, and games.  Then we broke out some really cool stuff.  We started with the plasma ball and then our magnetic tornado maker.  We learned what happens when you add colors together and played with Orbis.  We did a long experiment with paper towels and colored water to learn what wicking is.  We made magic milk and made a volcano out of baking soda, vinegar, and food coloring.  That was the most awesome fun ever!  So much fun that we probably forgot that we learned that it was a chemical reaction.  After a really good lunch of spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread (thank you Ms. Margaret and Kennedi) and rest time we made the most impressive science feature yet, personal solar ovens.  Inside our ovens we placed the fixings for s'mores and took them outside to see if the sun could cooke them.  When we came back in we learned about wind power and checked on our other experiments then played a game or two.  At snack time we retrieved our ovens and you could tell it had worked the chocolate was very melty and we had the best time eating our s'mores.  We had our meeting and played games until it was time to go home.  Can't wait for tomorrow!  If you would like to see the fun from today please click this link. 

Thursday-Technology:  Today it was all about the gadgets.   We set up stations for our cloverbuds with
different learning technology like snap circuits, coding mice, and robotic arms.  They had a chance to be hands on and explore the world of technology with all the devices to see what they can do.  They made an alarm, helicopter, and car.  They had a chance to work with two robotic arms to move and build things, and they learned how to code to not only make our mouse move but to get it through a maze to find the cheese.  During snack Mr. Mack came back and brought grapes from his own yard and let our cloverbuds try them.  They thought the two sizes were amazing but most of them polity stated that muscadines are not their favorite.  At lunch our 4-H members hosted a very special guest, Tate Johnson, the Director of Lumber River United Way.   He came by for the famous grilled cheese and to talk to our cloverbuds about camp and how much fun they were having.  He even stayed and took a photo with them. After our rest time we played with Robots and arms and just had the most fun before we made our very own version of Chick-fil-A's fruit salad for snack.  It was amazingly good.  To see all of our Thursday adventures click this link.

Friday-Game Day:  Today was all about learning to take turns, and be gracious winners and losers.  We played all sorts of games all day long allowing everyone to have a shot at winning and loosing.  For many of the games we had to learn new skills like our right from our left to play Twister, we had to have a steady hand for operation, and we needed to be able to know our colors for Candy Land, and count for some of the other games.  Everyone had a chance to play every game and they had fun learning how to do it.  They also had a chance to practice their manners and good sportsmanship practices.  We also had a surprise visitor.  Our Dinosaur came by to play, eat, and entertain our youth.  It was a big hit.  Lunch today was a crowd favorite of pizza.  After lunch Kennedi made an escape room challenge for our cloverbuds.  They had a series of puzzles to solve to escape.  Each group that escaped got a 4-H bag they could color and have for their personal belongings.  For snack today we learned the science of popcorn and had some before we watched our end of camp slide show.  Oh how much fun we had.  We hope that everyone enjoyed their time with us and will come back next year.  To see today's photos click this link.

We would like to thank our volunteers, Shae, Margaret, Larry, Kennedi and Shep for your tireless work this week keeping our cloverbuds entertained, fed, and in a place where they could accidentally learn while having fun.