4H Champions!!

I thought I'd take a quick minute and brag on my boys. They did so well on their 4H projects this year! 

Yap received champion electric project. 

and he was chosen to go to the State Fair! Unfortunately he's not old enough, you have to be 9, but this shows that his photo is high quality! 

Yap also received reserve on his painting and a champion on his Lego model (I didn't get a pic of that!)

The boys had woodworking projects too. The judge said they were blue quality but they received reds because we didn't include building plans. Oops! 

I received a couple of ribbons too. A champion on my painting and a reserve on my colored pencil drawing. 

The most exciting award though was definitely Yip's champion on his Ironman! What was even cooler that the judge just LOVED it! She even encouraged him to learn how to weld and carve when he gets older! 

A friend of mine asked me if I had finally recuperated from the week of Fair/Bible School. 

NO!! I haven't! Monday we took off to Wichita for a day at the museum and to visit a friend. Yesterday I spent over an hour in the garden picking veggies that should have been picked last week! Then today I gave a drawing lesson at the town library. 

I'm sure life will eventually slow down....maybe. But I sure couldn't give you an idea when that might be! 

We are ELECTRIFYING!

I am sooo proud of myself. Last week I, Prairie Mother, all by myself helped the boys finish their 4-H Electric projects. AND they actually worked when we were finished with them! I was so proud of myself. Ok, ok, some of you may not think that's a big deal but I had to brush up (a lot) on my knowledge of electricity and I had to teach myself to solder. I'd chip soldered years ago....in a college jewelry class which is a lot different than using a soldering iron let me tell ya! 

Yap being the good 4-Her and reading directions first! 

All the parts laid out in a box so we can't lose any. Oh, it also helps if you can get rid of your 4 year old sister on the day you put this together...cuts WAY down on the chaos. 

My mom sent out the boys magnetic flashlight kit that I'm pretty sure can be bought in any extension office in Indiana through Purdue Extension.  You are probably wondering why I had grandma send them from Indiana rather than get something from the Kansas Extension Office. I've blogged previously about how different Indiana 4-H and Kansas 4-H are, and well, they just don't have anything at the extension office. A lot of 4-Hers will buy some electricity kit from a hobby store and use that for a 4-H project. We're sticking with the Purdue kits though. I think that the kits, along with the books, do a better job explaining electricity and have a logical sequence of skills from year to year. 

Stripping the wires.

They figured that a pocket knife worked a lot better than those wire strippers. 

They had a tiny little circuit board they had to solder 6, or was it 8, different wires onto. 

A pair of pliers and a rubber band make a great third hand while you are soldering! 

Taping down the wires and the coil to the outside of the tube. 

The blue thing right up there is the capacitor and that had to be soldered onto the circuit board along with the two red wires, and the light bulb. I learned that the capacitor stores the energy to light the bulb. 

Then all that the boys soldered together had to be put down into the plastic tube, give it a shake and the light bulb lights up!! Now I know how Edison must have felt...LOL 

Yip and Yap had a lot of wires to cut. They learned quickly that they had to do a neat job or that whole section wouldn't fit down into the tube. 

I know, those solders above aren't very pretty.....

...but they did the job! 

How are you all doing on 4-H projects? After helping my boys with 4-H projects, I think I'd take electricity and woodworking over a clothing project any day! 

4H Projects are done :)

We finished up the last of the 4H projects Saturday night (granola bars...yum!) and we are headed off today to put them into the fair. Yip and Yap graciously (yeah right) agreed to let me take photos of them with their projects. 


Without further ado.....

Dang, they did so well in the kitchen that I'll have to put them to work cooking more often! Granola bars...mmmm, chocolate and s'more! 

We have two art projects to put in this year. The boys made paper mache masks. Yap's is a knight's helmet and Yip's is Batman which is just the beginning of Halloween costumes. 

Clay piranhas they made at school. 

I was sooo proud of their sewing projects! First they painted some fabric and then sewed it up. Yap's is a simple pillow and he's holding a knitted belt over it that he also made. While Yip, well, he went all out and made a Captain America stuffed doll! He was super patient with sewing around every little corner and curve! 

Finally their circuit boards, thanks Grandma for sending the kits. 

4H Fair here we come! 

4H Electricity

With the winter months here we've been slowly working on 4H projects. We've done some sewing and art projects but last weekend DR and the boys sat down to tackle their very first electric project. 

I've posted before on the differences between Indiana 4H and Kansas 4H. There are no guidelines about what is expected for their projects so we decided to do what is a first year project in Indiana; an circuit board. (Thanks Grandma for buying the kits for us!) 

See, I never took electricity but I always saw all these pretty little boards with batteries, wires and lit light bulbs and just assumed it couldn't be that hard right? Right? 

As it turns out it was hard and poor DR did most of the work. The boys helped where they could; measuring and cutting wires, and deciding where everything went but it was probably still too advanced for 7 year olds. There were just too many very small parts that was hard for the boys to manipulate and DR wouldn't even let them close to the soldering gun. 

They do understand the concept of the path of electricity which is the point. 

And we've talked a lot about electrical safety, conductors and insulators. 

They sure were proud of their circuit boards that actually lit up.

I loved 4H and I'll be more than happy to help my kids out with any project they have in mind but man, I never realized that being the 4H parent is a whole different ballgame than being the 4H kid. It's a lot of work! But thank goodness for DR because if I had to have helped with a circuit board we STILL wouldn't be done!