Team Clover 4-H Club

Team Clover 4-H Club

4-H has been a great addition to the Bull family's life.  In the few years we have had our club going it has been so much fun.  I wish we still had all of our original members along with all of the new ones too as I feel we are very lucky to have each of the kids be part of our lives. We have done and learned so many things wand can only hope it last for many more years to come. 
So many accomplishments have come out of our first few years.  Many of the members now  get to experience 4-H camp for a week in the summer almost free of cost thanks to the club.  The club has done so many things for the local community.  We have raised money for food banks, yearly community services projects and even hosting a Halloween Party for the whole town.  I can only say its been the best time and the kids just have so much fun all while learning.  Can it get any better then that?  I don't think so.

Team Clover Learns To Fly Fish

Just because we are having a bug themed year in 4-H doesn't mean we have to miss out on all local fun.  Fishing Season has just recently opened in our area and we were lucky to have Ryan Fifield from Fifield Outfitters come give us a lesson on Fly Fishing.  See what we did right there?  "Fly" fishing, right back on our bug theme.  It was an amazing treat for the club and you can see all the fun here.

Earth Day Meeting

We like to think we do a little for the Earth everyday in the Team Clover 4-H Club but our April meeting was specifically themed around Earth Day in 2018.  We recycled to make decorative household holders and then recycled some more to make creative face planters.  We helped some of our buggy pollinators and still stuck with our bug themed year with our Mason Bee Houses and even planted some seeds to grow new food for them.

Corned Beef Diner

Its a March Tradition for many in our small town to attend the Legion's Corned Beef Dinner and in our 3 short years as a club it has too become our tradition host our Basket Party at the dinner in return the 4-H member help the legion member serve all that goodness to their guests.  Read on to see how we are learning more then just waitress/waiter skill in the process.

Leprechaun Traps

Can you can catch a Leprechaun?  Team Clover 4-H Club is going to give it a try on St. Patrick's Day are you going to try too?  See how we combined wood working, STEM engineering and gardening to celebrate the fun holiday tradition. 
Since we are on a bug themed year, with a little creativity we were still able to work in a "Bug" themed part to our projects.  We built and used Bug Houses that can still be used after we release our leprechauns as the locking part of our trap.

Love Bugs
So as most of you know we are in the middle of a Bug themed 4-H year and we are looking for projects that we can do in the winter.  It doesn't take much searching time to know there are lots of awesome ideas out there that the kids would love to do. However we are in the middle of winter here so after polling the members as to what they wanted to do and much searching on the internet I came up with a Stained Glass Bug sun catcher.   
I have to say it was quite a production set up teaching them step by step but they did amazing!  Were they perfect stained glass masterpieces?  Absolutely not they were actually better considering it was a first ever attempts at soldering stained glass for everyone but myself.  When you consider our youngest member is only 6 and she did it all on her own, perfect does not even come close to describing how amazing these kids did.  They just make me so proud to be their leader.
Think you might want to give it a try too check out my Stained Glass Bug's post for some step by step instructions.

Bugs in January

Finding bugs in below zero temps is not an easy task so we have been going into our creative side of bug study by making bug art.  Members were broken into groups and then they chose a bug to study and then create. Member first had to decide as a group which bug they were learning about.  Then they had to fill out a study form of their bug with at least 3 facts.  When they were done each member made a Paper Quilled image of their bug.  The bugs chosen to learn about by the members were Caterpillars, Butterflies, Flies, and Dragon Flies.  These bugs made for some pretty amazing bug art projects.

As I had mentioned above we did the Paper Quilling bugs but you will notice another art form in the photo.  When the group projects were completed members were able to make their own Word Bugs using their names to make a bug and personalize them as they wished.   
Looks like fun doesn't it?  Which project do you think you want to try?  

Flag Retiring Ceremony

Our 4-H Club joined forces with the local American Legion and Girl Scout Troop to present the community with a Flag Retiring Ceremony

Hummingbird Feeder

Team Clover 4-H has spent the last year learning lots of ways to care for wild birds and now that summer is here we have taken on the challenge of caring for summer feathered friends.  We made bird baths, bird house and at our last meeting we made Hummingbird feeders.

Bird Baths

Learning about Wild Birds had led us with lots of fun projects this year.  Now that the weather is warmer we moved on to what we could do to help attact birds in the summer.  One sure way is to have a bird bath.  Follow the link to find out how ours turned out so great.

4-H Pheasants

Team Clover 4-H Club finally has some "animals" all their own to raise....Pheasants!  and over 60 of them combined as a club....Wow  

Fairy/Gnome Gardens

The kids put a lot of work into making these adorable little gardens.  They made almost every part of the decorative items and them assembled some pretty amazing gardens too. To see what they made follow the link in the photo.  To see the updated gardens click here.

Fishing Fun

What Upstate NY kid who lives on a brook that leads into the Delaware River wouldn't want to go fishing?  So when one of our 4-H members listed fishing as a want to do in the beginning of the year we went fishing.   Find out more about a meeting full of fishing fun here.

Fishing next to our historic Downsville Covered Bridge

Sew Much Fun

3 Meetings of total chaos, lots of broken needles and thread, lots of patients and some pretty amazing end results is how I describe our first attempt at sewing in the Team Clover 4-H Club.  We may have struggled along the way but we ended up with a great finished product!  Congrats to all my mini seamstress!  See all our completed projects and see if you have what it take to get your License here.

Wild Bird Watching

Our first year as 4-H leaders.....where do we start?????
Well, where/what should we spend the year working on?  I know everyone thinks 4-H should be all about farming but that not really the case and with our group that definitely wasn't going to work as my kids are the only ones with any animals that don't consist of cats or dogs....Guess Wild Bird it is!

                                 

The birds loved them!  See all the fun we had making these and learning about Wild Bird here.

Why 4-H

So for anyone who didn't know this year we took on a new challenge for the Bull family and other families too in the form of the "Team Clover 4-H Club".  Find out why and follow us as we have new journeys every months here