Author: Wanda Paris
Major Program: Communications and Expressive Arts 4-H Core Curriculum
Over 150 Lyon County 4th and 5th graders wrote and presented 4-H speeches in the classroom with 4-H judges critiquing each of them. Classroom time was designated to help the students research their chosen topics and compose their presentations. Students were given time in the classroom and as homework to practice public speaking skills that were taught by the 4-H Agent. Volunteers judged students' speeches in the classroom using 4-H Speech Score Sheets. As is to be ex
Author: Virginia Harper
In January 2017, Calloway County 4-H started a new family experience for Hispanic families called "!La Diversion Familiar!." The group uses the Hispanic Cultural Curriculum from National 4-H Council. Other topics of interest to the group are also explored. Each time the group meets at the Extension Office. During the summer the group has met for two hours classes. During the school year the meeting were an hour to an hour and one half in length. Each time the group practices some Engli
Author: Stacey Potts
Providing youth with the ability to enhance and develop communication skills is of great importance in Kentucky. The development of communications skills is one of the preeminent skills necessary to grow as an individual, a community member and a leader. Using age appropriate activities selected from the approved Kentucky 4-H Communications & Expressive Arts Curriculum, educators can maximize the ability of youth to develop their writing, reading and personal communication capaci
Author: Anna Meador
Allen County 4-H'er, Daphnica Wood, finishes her owl ornament by detailing feather patterns onto her owl.New this 2018: Allen, Warren, and Logan counties hosted an Arts & Crafts Day Camp to encourage arts education and participation within the arts field. As a result, all 21 spaces provided during this day camp were completely filled by youth desiring to participate in creativity & imagination, critical thinking, and emotional expression through experiential application on art
Author: Ola Donahue
Facebook, Twitter, texting are how today’s youth communicate. Social media has become an important form of communication for all of us. Communication is essential to youth success and social media can certainly enhance youth communication skills. However, it is effecting verbal communication among our youth and can affect their future success. Verbal communication skills, like anything else, must be taught. The proper ways to speak, make eye contact and use body language are all a part of
Author: Meagan Klee
Sedita Whited, an Art Instructor from Jones Park Elementary, expressed interest in working together to provide art workshops for our youth following guidelines for Kentucky State Fair exhibits. A series of 6 workshops over several months were offered. Funding for all art supplies and materials was covered under the Memorandum of Agreement with the Casey County Board of Education. Throughout the workshops participants obtained skills in using color pencils, watercolor pencils, water color paints,
Author: Amanda Sublett
Positive youth development researchers theorize that youth who are confident and who have strong communication skills are more likely to make substantial contributions to their family, their community, and society. One way that youth can develop confidence and their communication skills is by completing a speech or demonstration project. In the 2017/2018 program year, approximately Seven hundred and nineteen youth from Taylor County completed a speech and/or demonstration project with seventy ad
Author: Lora Stewart
Why is music important? Music is academic. According to an UCLA research, music participation provides a unique opportunity for literacy preparation. Plato once said that music “is a more potent instrument than any other for education”. Recent research has found that music uses both sides of the brain; a fact that makes it valuable in all areas of development. Music is physical as it develops rhythm coordination. Music is emotional and provides an artistic outlet. M
Author: Lawrence Caudle
The communications program in Kentucky 4-H is based around the concept of helping youth to explore, develop, and define their communication abilities in regards to such areas as public speaking, personal expression, interaction with others, and professional correspondence. The communication programs presented take a variety of approaches and techniques to improving youth skills, including but not limited to project books that involved personal evaluation and reflection of skills, competitive spe
Author: Laken Campbell
Communication skills and public speaking have been proven to be one of the most important skills necessary for people to obtain a job in the workforce. However, public speaking is a common fear among children and adults. The Lee County Extension Council saw this as a need for Lee County. The Lee County Cooperative Extension Office partnered with both the Lee County Elementary School and the Lee County Middle/High School to help students improve their public speaking ability. Multiple lessons edu
Author: Jan Gibson
October has become the traditional month for the annual 4-H Talk Meet. Grateful for the facilities at Hazard Community and Technical College as this program attracted 245 youth for speech competition. This program fosters matery by teaching youth how to effectively communicate, belonging by giving they the opportunity to work with others, independence by allowing them to present a speech in front of the their peers and genoristy by fostering a love of community. And the communi
Author: Kaitlyne Metsker
In Christian County, the 4-H program is fortunate to have great relationships with many organizations throughout the county. These organizations will partner with the 4-H program to host a variety of events, including the 4-H Communications Contest. In years’ past the 4-H team has worked with one of the local schools to host the Christian County 4-H Communications Contest. While this has been a great partnership, another facility was needed to meet the needs of a growing program. Chr
Author: Rebecca Konopka
Kentucky 4-H believes that all youth should have opportunities for positive youth development in the four guiding concepts of mastery, belonging, independence, and generosity. 4-H Visual Arts programs foster mastery by teaching youth the basic principles of art, belonging by giving them the opportunity to work with others, independence by allowing them to use their skills to create their own works of art, and generosity by identifying ways they can use their art to make a difference. The C
Author: Laura Huffman
For the past five years a fourth grade teacher from Cub Run Elementary has contacted the Cooperative Extension Service interested in offering 4-H Demonstrations to 4th grade classroom students to use as a writing portfolio piece as well as a public speaking opportunity. The 4-H Youth Development Agent delivered a six day program to 28 students this spring. The lessons included how to select and research a topic, how to write your demonstration, how to make an effective presentation, and how
Author: Dora Centers
4-H Patriotivity ClubExpressive arts are a huge niche in our area. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts, our high school recently lost their art department. Because of this the youth in our county no longer have an outlet to express their artistic abilities.Statics show that art provides a type of therapy that helps children and adults improve self-esteem, cope with depression and anxiety, relieve stress, and manage addictions.According to Kristin Wilson, MA, LPC, Director of Clinical Research at N
Author: Thays Flores
In 2017, it was reported that there were 1.1% Hispanics or Latinos living in Estill County, Kentucky. There are 55,199,107 Hispanic people in the United States and of the English-speaking Hispanics in the USA; an estimated 57.5% are bilingual. Being bilingual is something that many jobs are asking for, it allows you to communicate with a greater part of the population, and it is something that schools want their students to become. The Estill County students do not start to learn a different lan
Author: James Cecil
Clinton County had another successful year with Speeches and Demonstrations. We had a total of 616 kids participate in the speeches or demonstrations this year. We had a total of 4 students make it to the state competition this year. We are blessed to have a community and school system that supports 4-H and Extension so that we are able to make this important program a success. We have wonderful volunteers that come from five different counties and two different states to
Author: Jessica Morris
Having the ability to effectively communicate is something that is important for our youth today. The Wolfe County High School Volleyball Coach knows this to be important on and off the court. He wants his kids to be employable after their volleyball careers are over which is why he sought the help of the Wolfe County 4-H program to develop those skills that will take them farther than the court. For our second year I have worked with the entire volleyball team (25 youth). The skills we wor
