Boys and Girls Club Round Two

Dylan teaching a group of students about healthy breakfast meals

I spent my morning at the Boys and Girls Club in Charlottesville helping out the FNP intern with his nutrition program again this morning. I jumped in a little more today and helped him teach the class this time. One group was a huge group so we ended up splitting the class in two sections and I got to teach my own section. We had groups of the children in the classes come over, six at a time, and make blueberry-banana smoothies. The children all enjoyed being involved in making the smoothies and were anxious to try the smoothies as soon as they were done. Children learned about the different food groups: protein, dairy, fruits, vegetables, and grains, they also reviewed safe food handling techniques, and added onto their knowledge by learning about breakfast and healthy breakfast meal ideas. It was fun to hear the variety of foods that students had eaten for breakfast. They ranged from Bojangle's fried chicken with hot sauce to hot dogs, chips, and eggs, bacon and sausage. Many children had eaten cereal, and I was a little surprised by the number of students who had skipped breakfast. Breakfast is such an important meal, and the main lesson today was to let the students know how important it is to eat breakfast and to try to include at least 2 food groups in each meal to make them healthier and make them more nutritious. We discussed alternatives to some sweet cereals and unhealthy fried foods and tried to think of healthy fruits and veggies to incorporate into our breakfasts. 

The Blueberry-Banana Smoothie Recipe is:

1 Cup Blueberries
1 Banana

1 Cup Yogurt (we used strawberry)

1 and 1/2 cups milk

1 Cup Ice

Put all ingredients in the blender, blend until all ingredients are well mixed and smooth (our blender took about 8-10 seconds). Pour and enjoy! 

This is a healthy, fruit and dairy filled snack or breakfast item!

4-H Camp Counselor Training (& Ice Cream Social!)

I headed back down to the office on Saturday for the last camp counselor training session before camp in a few weeks! We played some games to help the teens from Nelson County and Albemarle County to get to know each other a little better, practiced singing some camp songs, learned about campers in different age groups, and took the Readiness for Camp Test to see if the teens were ready for a week of fun, supervision, and role modeling. We had a good turnout and almost all the teens were able to make it to this training session. It was fun to see the teens I met last year and meet the new counselors too! I had to leave a little early to get to my other job, but as I was leaving, the teens were getting ready to dive into some delicious ice cream with lots of fun, tasty toppings! This made me excited to get to camp and see what it is like this year!

A Day at the Boys and Girls Club

I spent all morning yesterday at the Boys and Girls Club helping another intern with their Food and Nutrition class. I arrived a little early, after missing my turn and having to hope for the best as I made random turns and miraculously made it to the correct entrance. I pulled in, helped the other intern, Dylan, carry some supplies inside, then began chopping up watermelon, capping strawberries, peeling and slicing kiwi, opening cans of pineapple, and washing grapes. These were all supposed to be made into fruit kebobs for the kids to eat after Dylan had taught his lesson about food safety and cross contamination. We also had strawberry yogurt for the kids to dip the fruit in which sometimes happened and sometimes didn't. My hands were covered in fruit juice the whole morning and it was a sticky situation, but a successful one! The kids loved the fruit and kept asking for more, which is a good sign! It was awesome to help the kids learn and watch as they tried new fruit. Many of the children were convinced that they didn't like kiwi, but after trying it, they changed their minds. One child came up to me and asked if I was peeling a potato, so I rolled the kiwi over so he could see the green inside and I asked him if it looked like a potato...he said "well, no...what is it?" So I told him that it was a kiwi and that he would get to try it in a second, and he loved it! It was a fun morning, and although it was a little hectic with 25ish children in each class and a limited amount of time, we got everything done, and I left during lunch time when Courtney came to take over my spot. It was cool to do something different that I have never done before and spend the day with children at the Boys and Girls Club.

The way I spent my morning...chopping up delicious fruit!

Livestock Field Day Fun!

Saturday, we hosted our first Livestock Field Day where we had local 4-H members, supporters, and volunteers help 4-H members learn more about showing different livestock and what to expect in the show ring. We had a heifer, 2 lambs, a few chickens, and a rabbit all ready to demonstrate how to be shown. Children watched as some animals were led around and set up into show position, while some of the children got to have actual hands on experience and lead the animals and set them up. The children learned and practiced good showmanship skills, learned how to interact with buyers and write buyer letters, lead, show, and set up show animals. We had a good turnout and a successful day, we look forward to doing this again and having even more participation and fun!

Kim Mayo teaching the participants about showmanship

Learning about showing chickens!

Setting up a lamb

Rabbits are cute! 

When showing cattle.....

Both children and adults learned about showing at the Field Day! 

Albemarle Automobile Adventures

As Karrin, Courtney, and I prepared for our 4-H Livestock Field Day tomorrow, we decided to go check out the location of the event yesterday. We jumped into Karrin's car and headed to the farm that the livestock event will be held out. I had never been to that side of the county and was excited to see this farm. We plugged the address into our GPS and off we went! We arrived at the road we were supposed to be on, but after driving a few miles, never found the farm. The address we had put into the GPS didn't even exist! We turned around drove back to another farm and stopped to ask for directions. A guy told us to drive three miles down the curvy, gravel road and it would be on our right...so we did. The gas light lit up to tell us we were almost out of gas, but we kept driving!

We drove past the place again and had to turn around and go back. Finally we found the farm and looked around. We left the car running because the one time we turned it off, it barely started again because it was so low on gas.

When we left the farm, I remembered that we had passed a tiny, old, overpriced gas station at some point on our journey, so if it was in service we could stop there on the way back! We drove into a tiny town and found the post office and the small gas station. We got excited because we finally would have gas and knew we would make it home! However....
This tiny gas station did not take credit or debit cards...only cash. Courtney and I had left our wallets at the office, but Karrin had hers! And inside was...four $1 bills. We had $4. Gas was $3.03/gallon. So this was good. Karrin went in and paid for $4.01 of gas and we were on our way once again, with the gas light still on and the car still beeping at us to fill up the tank. Eventually we made it on to Rt. 29, then I-64, then we saw the Exxon station and zipped in to fill up the tank before heading back to the office.

None of us had ever had the pleasure of breaking down on the side of the road because we had run out of gas, and none of us wanted yesterday to be the day to try it out. But after our visit to Exxon, Karrin's little car was happy and full of gas once again; and ready for our next adventure!

But wait...that's not all! Little did I know............

On my way home after work, my car started overheating and I had to pull off the road twice and turn the heat on high to let it cool down a little bit before attempting to head a little farther up the road. After pulling off the road for the third time, I called my dad and a tow truck came to the rescue! I got to ride in the nice air conditioned cab of the truck and have good conversation with the driver before dropping my car off at the repair shop and riding home with my mom. I'm driving my family's super cool minivan today. (ha!)

So many fun-filled car events that keep your adrenaline rushing! 

Finally made it home. :)

The Interns' Incubator Adventure

Yesterday, the other intern, Courtney, and I took a bunch of incubators back to the storage shed. These incubators had been used to hatch chicks in different classrooms around the city and county this Spring. We had quite a stack of them waiting in our office to be put back in the shed, so yesterday we took our second trip to the shed with all of incubators in the back of my car. (Of course we picked the hottest day ever to do this!)
We put the address into the GPS's on our phones and had to make one stop to pick up one final incubator before heading to the shed. The address we put in our GPS's was the address Google gave us for the location, however, technology failed us and we ended up in the middle of nowhere, at the wrong place. We ended up "arriving at our destination" which was the sketchiest apartments ever with the smallest parking lot imaginable. Luckily, I had heard Karrin say something about a school near the location we were supposed to go to, so we quickly typed in the school's name and headed off in the complete opposite direction we had been going.
Eventually we arrived at our destination, got the incubator, and headed on our way to the shed, where we safely deposited all of the incubators. We made it through construction sites, 4 different (wrong) parking lots, a VERY abrupt right turn that almost ended with the car up on the curb, and a 30 minute detour. But! All of the incubators are safe....and so are we. :)

Reading Makes Cents Workshop

Yesterday was our first workshop! It was a success! We read a few books that related to money, talked about money, played Bingo and Wheel of Fortune, painted piggy banks, made our own credit cards, and much more! We had a good time laughing together, discussing all kinds of facts about money, and learning more information about something people in our society use every day!

A few fun facts about money that we learned are:

1) Money is printed at 12 different locations across America. (ex. Philadelphia, Atlanta, New York...)
2) The number 13 is incorporated all over the dollar bill in different places - this represents the original 13 colonies.
3) The average life span of a dollar bill is 18 months, larger bills have different life spans.

After everyone made their own Bingo cards, we played bingo and learned about the people who are on the front of bills and coins, learned the name of some important locations and buildings that relate to money, and the winners got candy! (Everyone won) :)

We even watched part of The Emperor's New Groove during lunch! (The Emperor in this movie loses his kingdom and all of his money and has to live with the peasants and see how much money affects society.)

We had a busy day, but everyone was very excited and involved for the whole day! Can't wait for the next workshop! :)

During an intense round of Wheel of Fortune!

 Our wonderful Wheel of Fortune Contestants!

Making our own money and Credit Cards!

PieDay Friday

This week has been full of fun events! We started Monday with a tour of the office and meeting everyone (re-meeting some people for me), then jumped right in and got to work. Even though the building's lights were off, it didn't stop us from getting work done! We copied almost 100 camp packets so that we would be prepared for tonight's camp class sign-up night, then had to put them all together. We did some planning for workshops, blog stuff, and I began to plan for my camp class. Although the weather has been quite dreary with it raining every day this week, we were busy having a good time in the office! Tonight should be exciting as many adults and families come in to sign up for camp classes and fill out forms!
Today Karrin took Courtney and me to the downtown mall to check out the new Pie Chest. We got pie for everyone back here at the office and enjoyed our PieDay Friday lunch! :)

Chicken Bacon Garlic Pie and Chocolate Hazelnut Pie from The Pie Chest

Hello Again!

Hello!
I'm back for my second 4-H internship with Albemarle/Charlottesville 4-H! I'm excited to see what activities we will be doing this summer and who I will meet! It looks like we have some pretty awesome workshops planned and I'm sure summer camp will be just as exciting as it usually is! I do know that we have some sweet camp classes classes planned! This summer is going to be great and I am really excited to be here in Albemarle County again! :)