The Sun is Kind of a Big Deal by Nick Seluk is a new Cloverbud Reading Adventure that you can use with your Cloverbuds to help them understand the solar system and the importance of the sun. This adventure can be used anytime but is great paired with education about the upcoming solar eclipse.
This lesson teaches Cloverbuds about the solar system and the planets and other items it includes. You will explore why the sun is a big deal through a variety of hands-on activities designed to reinforce key science concepts. It will help your Cloverbuds to understand that the sun sits in the center of our solar system and holds it together. Without the sun, life on planet Earth would not exist.
The book does a great job of explaining why we have four seasons, the sun’s role in the water cycle, and how plants need the sun for photosynthesis. Plus, it gives us light and keeps us warm!
Check out this new Reading Adventure and discover why The Sun is Kind of a Big Deal!
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4-H Conference is the largest gathering of 4-H volunteers in the State of Ohio. As a Cloverbud volunteer, you have the opportunity to attend the conference and participate in numerous educational sessions that will enhance your skills as you work with 4-H Cloverbud youth. The conference will be held Saturday, March 11, beginning at 9:00am, at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. More than 1,000 Ohio 4-H volunteers, teens and adults, will come together to celebrate Ohio 4-H and gather new ideas to take back to their clubs and their counties.
start school, it’s natural for adults to begin asking, What do you want to be when you grow up? Their answers are often not surprising. They typically respond with teacher, doctor, astronaut, a professional athlete, just to name a few. Just by those responses, we know that youth naturally are thinking about their future careers through imagination, exploration, and role-playing. However, as adults, we know there are so many more careers in the world!
s (red, yellow, or orange); different tree fruit such as apples, acorns, hickory nuts, or walnuts; check off/write down the animals they see such a ladybug, wooly worm, squirrel, rabbit, bird, or deer. If youth are able, have them take a gallon size bag on their hunt to bring back a few items from their adventure. This will give you the opportunity to help them match the leaves and fruit from the same tree or compare the sizes of each object the members found. For a little extra fun, tell them to find the smallest and the largest leaf they can find. It will be fun for them to compare what they found with what others found.
n watch the birds. There are multiple ways to make homemade bird feeders. A simple and clean option is to use pipe cleaners and cereal. To complete the activity, you will need pipe cleaners, cereal, string or ribbon, and scissors. Select a cereal with a loophole that can be strung on the pipe cleaner. Members can bend their pipe cleaner into a shape, such as a heart, star, or circle. Be sure the two ends come back to meet each other. Connect two pipe cleaners together to make a bigger feeder. Members can string cereal on the pipe cleaner, leaving about a half inch on each end. Twist the ends of the pipe cleaner together to secure the cereal in place. Use a piece of string or ribbon to hang the feeder outside.
s. Tie a loop of string or ribbon to the top of the pine cone to hang your feeder with once it is complete. Use your dinner knife to spread peanut butter on the open pine cone layers. Hold the pine cone at each end and roll it through a bowl of bird seed until all peanut butter is covered in bird seed. Members are now ready to hand their completed bird feeder outside. Encourage Cloverbuds to hang their bird feeders where they can watch the birds from inside. As the weather gets colder, members can refill their bird feeders or make new ones and continue watching the birds through the winter months.
own yards. Help the Cloverbuds to identify the leaves they find by using a leaf identification book from your local library. Talk to your Cloverbuds about the different kinds of leaves and the trees that each leaf comes from. Why are leaves important? Why do some trees lose their leaves in the fall and others don’t? Give each child a piece of paper and some crayons and have them make leaf rubbings. Place a leaf on the table with the veins up. Put the paper over the leaf and gently color over the leaf with the side of the crayon. It may be helpful to tape the paper to the table. Have your Cloverbuds use different leaves and colors to make their picture.
ill need a one pumpkin, one, one-gallon plastic freezer bag, the “guts” of a pumpkin, and a few small items to put in the bag with the pumpkin guts. Small items such as plastic spiders, googly eyes, small fall themed erasers, etc., work well for this activity. If you decide to have each Cloverbud carve their own pumpkin to retrieve the guts, be sure to have plenty of adult help. Have an adult cut the pumpkin open and then ask the Cloverbuds to scoop out the guts. Place the pumpkin guts and small items in the plastic bag and be sure it is tightly sealed. Lay the bag on the table and have the Cloverbud squish the bag and look for the items inside.