Sunday, June 21, 2009

The 4H ladybugs

I organized a 4H group for my ward. I was planning on just a few girls from our neighborhood, but felt later to open it up to the girls that were old enough, in our ward. So we have a group of 11. Another mother in the ward offered to help and I asked her if she would teach the cooking lessons, and I would focus on the sewing. So far so good. We are learning as we go. The first meeting we had the girls decided what projects they wanted to do (an apron and a bag) and the group name (the Ladybugs)

The next meeting we learned about how the sewing machine works and sewed thread-less on paper. The assignment was to go home and finish sewing on the lines. We also had chosen our "jobs" assignments. President, Vice President, Secretary, etc. The cooking lesson was on sanitation- keeping our hand washed.

The lesson we just had was sewing on fabric and learning of seam allowances. We may have bitten off more than we could chew when I had them sew "chill ties" for their dads for father's day. The class went much later than I had planned, but everyone had the Chance to nearly finish their project. The cooking lesson was from the workbook "6 easy bites" and they made pizza pockets.

Next week we are planning a field trip to Walmart. I plan on teaching them about different fabrics and choosing fabrics for their projects. I am also going to talk to them about Warp and weft and why straight of grain is important. For the cooking segment she is going to talk about food labels and then the girls can look at various products and compare.

Wish us luck- I think we may need it.

Let the Summer Games Begin!

Two weeks into the summer vacation and we have swimming lessons behind us now. Jason was very concerned about being in level 2. I woke up that first morning to hear him crying in the living room. It was stressing him out! He was dreading the lessons. So the first day of lessons it was decided to have him repeat level 1. It was the best choice for everyone. He did great, he warmed up to swimming lessons and is comfortable in the water again. Sarah has a few things to improve on before she moves on to level 3 and Samantha needs to practice her strokes before she moves on from level 4. Jordan doesn't like to get his face wet normally, but after the swimming lessons he's a little fish. We went to the pool a couple of times as a family and the only thing that got us out of the water was Jared who would get chilled.