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.