Weeks 5 & 6

On Monday June 16, Miss Ashley and I went to Blake Elementary. There they had their kaleidoscope summer camp with kids from grades second to fifth. While we were there we taught them out of our Health Rocks curriculum. We went over a lot with the kids, and I was really surprised that the younger ones caught on as quickly as they did. We taught the kids a plethora of things from the importance of making good decisions, to the consequences that come along with them. We played different games with the kids everyday which they seemed to love. I think their favorite activity we did was the balloon game. In this activity we wrote the names of things the kids loved on one color balloon, and on another one we wrote all the bad things that negatively affect and influence kids (drugs, peer pressure, alcohol, and tobacco). Their goal was to keep all the balloons up in the air and not allow them to touch the ground. This symbolized how hard it is to balance friends, family, school work, sports and other activities that kids are involved in once they get involved with drugs and tobacco. We also played other games like jeopardy and the molasses game. We went there every day, Monday to Thursday. When we returned on Tuesday to pass out evaluations for the kids to fill out, one of the parents who was dropping their child off asked us if we were the ladies that taught her child that smoking cigarettes paralyzes the cilia in your lungs and that they can’t clean and move around your lungs. We hesitantly said yes, unsure if she was upset or happy. Then she said her daughter came home telling her that she HAD to quit smoking so her cilia can clean her lungs out and it was apparent that her daughter loved the Health Rocks curriculum. She wasn’t upset at all and told us that she thrilled that her daughter was learning to make healthy choices. I was filled with joy that the information we were teaching these kids was actually being retained. I loved the kids from Blake Elementary.

That weekend we had a camp training at Farnsley Middle School for the CITs (Counselors in training), teens, and adult leaders who are participating in our 4-H Summer Camps. We started the training with some ice breakers, and although there were hundreds of people there it worked out well. There were four different classes that were each taught by a different assistant, and I was able to teach one myself. We went over tons of things at the training, from dress code to different scenarios we may run into at the camps. I was able to meet a lot of people who would be going to the same came as me and after the training, and learning a lot more about the camp myself, I was even more excited to go.

                The following Monday, I went to a country ham workshop. All of this was new to me because I wasn’t apart of 4-H growing up. Miss Ashley and I met up with other agents and students to clean hams to send to the fair. I had never done anything like it, and let me just tell you, it was a messy job! We cleaned hams for about four hours and our livestock volunteer, Cathy Snyder, was the person who inspected them and told us whether ours was clean or not. First we had to get all of the seasoning salt off of the hams and then we put them in a large tub of water and scrubbed them with a brush and then hung them again to go to fair.

           The next day we had a Fair Project Day at Uptown Art Studio with Franklin County and Jefferson County. I had never been there, but it was an awesome place that I recommend to people of all ages. We had it set up for the girls to paint clovers for 4-H. I thought it was going to be a difficult task, especially with me lacking much artistic ability, but it turned out great and it turned out to be an awesome experience for the girls too. 

                That weekend we had our first summer camp, which was actually my first time going to a real camp. Growing up I’ve only ever gone to basketball camps, which is definitely not the same, so this was another whole new 4-H experience for me. It was Cloverbud Camp which was in Carlisle, KY, for kids ages 5-8. We stayed in a cabin with girls from Jefferson, Fayette and Franklin County along with one of the Franklin County interns and the Fayette County mothers who had to come along. We also had a teen 4-Her by the name of Brittney Yates who was there and helped out a lot with the girls and with different activities. We did a lot of different activities from crafts, to tie-dye, to archery to free swim. We even made homemade ice cream and went canoeing. There were different cabins responsible for helping with breakfast, lunch and dinner each day which I thought was great because it taught a valuable lesson to the kids about responsibility. At first, the camp just seemed like a big fun place for the kids. But after the first day I realized that this camp also helped to develop a lot of different characteristics like communication, team work, leadership, independence among many other things for the kids. Although the camp was for the kids, you can tell from my pictures that I had a lot of fun myself!