February Cloverbud 4 H Meeting

Last night was our February Cloverbud 4 H meeting.  The topic I chose was Kitchen Science.  We had a lot of fun!  It was funny too because when I was planning the meeting I didn't think I had enough stuff to last a full hour, but we ended up going almost an hour and a half.

We had 14 children at the meeting.  Since it was mid winter break for our local schools, I figured there would be some children missing, but it was the only day the EH house was available that worked for me.

First (after the club business was taken care of) I showed the children rock candy crystals that we have been growing at home.  It is a simple, fun experiment but we couldn't do it during the meeting because they take about a week to grow.

Next we talked about yeast and did an experiment with yeast.  In 4 baggies we put 2 tsp of yeast.  Then one of the baggies got sugar, salt, and warm water, another got sugar and warm water, another got cold water, and the last salt and warm water.  We left the baggies sitting on the table to see which one would grow the fastest.

Next we mixed up the ingredients for homemade finger paints and let Chelsea cook it on the stove for us.

Our next experiment was called dancing raisins.  We put water in a cup and carbonated water in another cup to see which one would cause the raisins to dance and talked about what caused that to happen.

Next we did a density experiment called Sinking Marshmallows.  Each child was given a cup and a marshmallow that they had to try to sink.

Then we did fireworks in a jar.  Using a jar of warm water, vegetable oil, and food coloring we watched the colors explode in the jar.

Next we made our snack which was sorbet.  In a plastic bag we combined 2 cups ice, 1 cup salt, and 1 cup water.  Then we added 1 cup juice to a smaller baggie and put the small bag inside the big bag.  Then for added protection we put the big bag inside another big bag.  The children shook the bags until the juice froze.  Then we put it into cups and ate them.

The last thing we did was to spoon the finger paint mixture into little cups and let the children add food coloring to them so they could take their paints home with them and paint.

Since some of the children in the club are getting older, we decided we would try and see if anyone wanted to be officers.  We have a treasurer and last night we had 2 volunteers to be president (they are going to rotate every other month) and a volunteer to be club photographer.