For more information, please contact:
McLean County Unit
402 North Hershey Road
Bloomington, IL 61704
Phone: 309-663-8306 / Fax: 309-663-8270
E-mail: mclean_co@extension.uiuc.edu
The Illinois 4-H Clover curriculum is available to you and your club. You might want to choose one of the areas as a club theme for the year.
General Cloverbud Curriculum I & II
Child Development I
New Leader Guide I & II
Gifts of Gold
Aerospace I
Health It's Your Choice
Palette of Fun
Wildlife I
Bicycle
Wild Over Work
Curriculum I & II - There are enough activities in these to keep your group going for a long time. The short 5-10 minute activities will keep youngsters interested while they are learning about themselves and the world around them. Don't be afraid to expand on some of the activities to help the youth apply what they are learning.
For example: In "Experimenting with the 5 Senses" when doing the Animal Ears activity, you can have the youth look at different pictures of horses and see if they can choose what the horse is experiencing. Talk about how horses can turn their ears a great distance. Discuss how dogs can hear things humans cannot.
Palette of Fun - This book is a must have for your Cloverbud program! Your Cloverbuds will love to do the fun activities in this book. Seven different units cover Cutting & Pasting, Drawing, Painting, Sculpting, Printing, Fiber and 3-D Construction. A number of the activities use recycled items and items that can easily be found in your home.
Theater Arts - In the first series of Theater Arts books, the youth will learn all about pretending. They will pretend their hand is a paint brush and paint different objects in the air. One activity has the Cloverbuds using stuffed animals as puppets. These pretending activities teach the youth how to communicate with others. As the activities progress, the Cloverbuds are dressing up in costumes, making puppetsand doing a little acting.
Yearly Planning
Have you taken the time to plan your Cloverbud meetings? A worksheet was enclosed in your Cloverbud leader packet and is to be turned in to the 4-H office. Spending 10-15 minutes now to complete this sheet will take pressure off of planning your meetings. You will have time to recruit parents for support and activity helpers.
Recruiting Members
Please keep the following in mind when recruiting new members.
Age: Cloverbuds must be at least 5 years old and not older than 7 on September 1st of the current 4-H year.
Minimum number of participants: Each Cloverbud group needs a minimum of (5) five members.
Group Meetings: Meetings should consist of activities that allow for immediate positive feedback for the member in a non-competitive environment.