Open House Was A Buzzin’
If you happened to be at the Trails West Library today (Friday, August 28) between 10 am and 12 noon you might have thought there had been a hive of honey bees that swarmed in with all the buzzin’ that went on there! We were grateful to host over 65 people that came to our Home’s Cool 4-H Open House to find out more about us and 4-H in general. There were about 25 families represented there and it’s our hope that you all came away with at least some of your questions answered about the 4-H program and how you can incorporate it into your homeschool.
We also have a flyer available for our upcoming Fall Co-op Classes. We passed some of them out at the Open House. If you were unable to come, here’s a link to our 4-H fall co-op classes. There are 3 class periods and you have 2 selections in each period. Each child can choose one class from each period that they’d like to attend. To sign up for these classes, you do need to join 4-H and that can be easily accomplished at our Orientation meeting in two weeks on Friday, September 11. Please come at 9:45 am to the East Independence Church of Christ (directions here). We start promptly at 10am.
Please click on the links below for a pdf file you can print out and bring with you to the Orientation meeting on September 11.
Adult Volunteer application forms
4-H Filmmaking Studio
Do you have a budding George Lucas or Tim Burton in your home? Then you might want to join us for the 4-H Filmmaker’s Studio project that several of our older teens are just itching to get started on! If you can’t watch the videos online because of bandwidth issues, then you can order a copy of the videos on DVD here. If this is something your kids want to join us in this year, please feel free to leave a comment on below and plan on joining us on Friday Aug. 28th for our Open House!
Hunter Education Courses
For anyone that is interested in the Shooting Sports that 4-H offers, you either have to take the safety class from the 4-H project leader or you can take the Hunter Safety Training Course. George Owens Nature Park is offering these classes for free, but registration is required at least 3 days before the course date. Courses are offered Tuesday and Thursday from 6 to 9:30 p.m. on September 15 and 17 and again on October 6 and 8. For more information or to pre-register, call 816-325-7370.
National Public Lands Day
The nation’s largest volunteer effort to improve and enhance America’s public lands will be from 8 a.m. to 12 noon Saturday, September 26. Volunteers at George Owens Nature Park will do habitat restoration. Wear appropriate outdoor clothing and footwear if you choose to volunteer. This is a free event but pre-registration is required for groups by Wednesday, September 23rd at 816-325-7115.
Starry Night Hike
Explore the nocturnal world of George Owens Nature Park. The park comes alive at night with many sights, sounds, and smells. The hike from 9:30 to 10:30 p.m. Friday, August 28 will cover discussions on animal adaptations, human senses, games and Native American stories. Space is limited for this free event. Registration is required before Friday, August 21st at 816-325-7843. This is a great way to supplement the Conservation Frontiers project!
Fishing Sports
Is anyone interested in fishing in 4-H? There is free late night fishing offered at George Owens Park from 8:30 to 11 p.m. Saturday, August 29. The park is located east of 291 Hwy off 23rd Street by the middle school complex at 1601 S. Speck Rd. You will need your own fishing equipment for this event and all park rules apply during these extended hours. For those that aren’t familiar with the park, it has 2 stocked fishing lakes and one of them has an ADA approved dock.
Dog Show
Open invitation to all-
If you are considering or have shown a dog in 4-H then come have a fun filled morning and let’s go to an AKC dog show. The dog show will be at Hale Arena in Kansas City Mo August 20-23, 2009. If you want to go as a group or meet down at Hale Arena then drop me a line at hc4h-owner @ yahoogroups.com – be sure to remove the spaces before trying to send. You can also leave a comment here if you prefer.
My plan is to go either Friday Morning from 7:30am till about 1pm or Sunday from 7:30 till about 1 pm.
If you need to go on Saturday then you need to remember that generally all the activity at dog shows takes place from about 8 am till about noon after that they are just finishing up odds and ends therefore most exhibitors are leaving or have left. There will be a judging list posted about week before the shows so if there is a particular dog or class you’re interested in, then you can find out about it via the dog show superintendent listed on the AKC website under the events.
Angela
Arbor Day Poster Contest for 5th graders
I’m passing this along to you all in case you have a 5th grader that is also involved in Conservation Frontiers, which is the project I think this contest would best fit in. If you want to do this after one of the business meetings, please let me know and I’ll add it to the schedule.
******
Hello Missouri educators!
I am the contest coordinator for the 5th Grade Arbor Day Poster Contest in
Missouri and wanted to give you a brief update on the changes in store for
next year’s contest:
* We are going entirely electronic this year. Packets will not be
printed by the National Arbor Day Foundation. Instead we will send
postcards to 5th grade art teachers to announce the contest. The postcard
will direct teachers to the website to download the materials.
* We will mail the postcards in late September/early October.
Missouri’s deadline for next year will be February 11th. The theme will be
“Trees are Terrific….and Energy Wise!”
* I am building an email group for 5th grade teachers. If you have
email addresses for 5th grade teachers who would like to receive the email
notification, please send them to me so I can add them to my email group.
Thanks for all your help in making the contest a success. More information
will be coming this fall!
Sincerely,
Donna Baldwin
5th Grade Arbor Day Poster Contest Coordinator
Missouri Department of Conservation
Forestry Division
PO Box 180
Jefferson City, MO 65102
(573) 522-4115 x 3111
donna.baldwin@mdc.mo.gov<mailto:donna.baldwin@mdc.mo.gov>
For more information about the Arbor Day Poster Contest, please visit
http://www.arborday.org/kids/postercontest/
Open House Friday Aug. 28 10am
Click on the link below to see the entire flyer for our Open House. It is a pdf file, so everyone should be able to access it. Feel free to download it to your computer and make some copies to hand out to your neighbors and friends. Post in the libraries you frequent, anywhere you think that homeschoolers might go – grocery stores, coffee houses, etc!
Community Service Projects
We had a great time this year helping out with the Benefit Garage Sale for Mother’s Refuge. I talked with Robert Zornes, the director of Mother’s Refuge, and he was so please with our help. I don’t think he would have done it without us. In that 2 day sale, they sold over $2000 worth of items – and I didn’t even think they were as busy as some garage sales I’ve seen. He’s agreeable to let us help again next year. He’ll get back with us to let us know the date. I suggested the weekend after Memorial Day, like we had this year, but it depends what the church has going.
Doris sent this link to the list about 366 Community Service Ideas. Take a look and see what you find that we might be able to do here. We can apply for a “Building Our Communities Grant” as posted previously. The 2010 grants aren’t available yet, but I expect they will be ready sometime in September and the paperwork will be due in early December, judging by last year. We have until September of 2010 approximately to complete the work and then someone from the grant community comes out to check that it’s done.