Animals/Kratt Brothers
This is for our younger members and based on the TV show. It will be about learning about wild animals.
Archery
“Learn the lore and basics of Archery and practice shooting with a bow and arrow (provided) at Bowman Archery Range up in the Oakland Hills. Topics include the fundamentals, including equipment, nomenclature, target shooting basics and safety, the DASH system (Draw=Aim=Shoot-Hold), compensation for wind and distance, range shooting rules and procedures and sometimes the actual physics behind shooting an arrow!
This year, the first meeting will be on October 1st (1st Tuesday) at Redwood Bowmen practice field (park in the structure near Chabot Space and Science up on Skyline, and exit at back to reach the range).When we hit winter/rain, one meeting will probably take place at a library (physics of Archery, other topics) but all other meetings will be at Bowman where members will get plenty of time to shoot arrows and practice their aim.
Banned Books
This is a book club project where we’ll focus on books that have been banned or challenged over the years. What does it mean to ban a book? The American Library Association considers books to be “banned” any time they’re removed from a library shelf. Hundreds of reports are made in the U.S. each year about efforts to get books banned.Each month we’ll read a book and then meet to discuss what we thought, why it was banned, censorship, and how time has a way of changing our perspective on literature in general. If you’d like to see the book list before deciding, just let us know and it can be sent to you.
Creative Math
This is the 3rd year of the Creative Math project and while we have explored many topics in discrete and recreational mathematics, we aren’t finished yet! This year’s focus will be Martin Gardner’s book “The Colossal Book of Mathematics” which includes math topics like curves of constant width, Rep-tiles & Penrose tiling, rotations and reflections, Scott Kim’s inversions, Klein bottles and knots (topology), and fractals. I’d also like to sneak in some logic puzzles from Raymond Smullyan to open meetings and get our brains working. We try to make our explorations hands-on, with lots of puzzling, drawing, figuring and manipulating, but for older kids, there can be some formulas and more formal math as appropriate. Math is not a competitive subject, and we approach our problems and puzzles with a spirit of cooperation and having fun, and fun is exactly what happens!
Digital Art
The Digital Art project is about using iPad apps to draw, paint, sketch or watercolor pictures. In our 5th year of this project, we will be using Scott McCloud’s two books, “Understanding Comics” and “Making Comics” to provide inspiration and techniques to learn and imitate. We’ll pick a comic artist to provide a theme for each meeting, and using their work to explore basic tenets of art: line, form, depth, color, mood, story-telling and much more.
Possible artists include: Ferris, Eisner, Tezuka, Staples McKean, and others. Our working applications include Paper 53 (easy to use and good to start with), Procreate, Sketches and Adobe apps, and we keep searching for more. No iPad? No problem, you can borrow one for meetings from the project leader.
Aside from the Artist of the Day and a little bit of fundamental art theory, members will have plenty of time to work on their own projects. Members can make art pieces for the Alameda County Fair), but we’re always looking for more opportunities to display our art, so let the leader know about any ideas or contests that would apply.
Digital Makerspace & More
Digital Makerspace is a member-driven Maker project where members “make” in the digital world, including programming, making games, working on videos or other digital presentations, and working on websites. The “More” in the description can refer to Arduino, Raspberry Pis and a 3-D printer, all of which requires programming and other digital skills, or it can refer to non-digital parts of a project, like cutting and gluing parts together. We will provide hands-on introductions to: McCreator, CodePen, Arduino, and more. Members who have a project in mind can work on that; others can work on the above projects to get started. Our leader is well versed in CS and programming, and the other is knowledgeable in basic website design, digital apps, so members can get help with a variety of projects. We will have an East Hills 4-H booth at the East Bay Mini-Maker Faire on Sunday, October 20th, 2019. We’ll spend a little time at our September meeting brainstorming ideas and getting ready.
Entomology
This project will focus on understanding in more depth the insects we find in our own backyards and even houses: pill bugs, spiders, earthworms, ants and bees. We’ll make traps to catch insects, we’ll study a colony of Dubia roaches, mealworms and dermestid beetles, and we’ll make a home for our own native bees, who are solitary and need dead wood for laying eggs. Some Big Questions we’ll explore: What do they eat? How do they make babies? How do they protect themselves from predators and Mother Nature? How long do they live? What is a beneficial insect? And lots more of course! This project is aimed at primary members, but older members are welcome to join or even be a junior leader.
Filmaking Fun
Participants will prepare movies for the Alameda County 4-H Film Festival and for CA 4-H State Film Festival. Members will have opportunity to participate in screeenplay writing, acting, and film editing. They will attend 4-H film related events.
Fix-It Project
This is a project focused on fixing thing. What things, you might ask? Broken bikes, old tools, small appliances, anything that doesn’t require a computer or expensive tools to fix. We’ll use basic tools, some know-how and get our hands dirty as we learn how to fix everyday things
Game of Go/Chess Project
A club available to all Go and chess enthusiasts. Every level is welcome to this non-competitive, collaborative environment, which offers both teaching games and games for advanced players.
Gilltract Farms
Come learn organic gardening at a family-friendly, urban farm in Albany with a special children’s garden. Weed, plant, mulch and harvest veggies that you can take home!
Hiking
Join us for a monthly hike around the Bay Area. Bring your camera, sketch book, etc. and let’s have some fun! Hikes are under 3 miles. Parents are encouraged to hike with us.
Hooks & Needles
Join us to learn how to knit or crochet, or to improve the skills that you already have. The meetings will be based around the skill level of the project members. We can start with the basics or we can jump in with small projects, or if you already have a work in progress started or a project in mind, feel free to bring that. Primaries are welcome, but they must bring an adult who can help them.
Learning Script
Come and practice your script (or cursive) techniques and learn about other cultures’ styles of script and calligraphy. Members will bring their own pens and paper, and the project leader will have helpful examples to copy. There will not be homework, but members should read the article “Cursive” in Wikipedia before the 1st meeting. Other suggestions include: the Wikipedia articles on “Grundschrift”, “Cyrillic script,” and “Japanese Hiragana.’ Members will have a lot of say in deciding the direction of the project (which styles to study and more). We’ll meet at the Kensington Library in their meeting room.
Life 101
Here are some tips and tricks to practice “adulting.” We will do some activities related to getting a job (resume building, interviewing), paying the bills (budgeting, shopping, balancing a checkbook), and other day-to-day tasks that will help with the “adulting” experience.
Marine Science
Members will go on field trips around the Bay Area and Monterey. We will learn about endangered marine animals. We will focus on porpoises and marine mammals. We will engage in events designed to save endangered species in the Gulf of California. We will also participate in Coastal Cleanup events.
Mushroom Madness
Members will attend the Fungi Fairs in the Bay Area. They will learn to identify mushrooms, nutritional benefits of mushrooms and the importance of fungi to the environment. They will also grow their own edible mushroom from the kits.Members will also learn about using mushroom in composting.
Members will learn how to grow food organically in the backyard garden and in containers. This year we will focus on raised bed gardening, composting, winter gardening, greenhouse gardening, edible fairy gardens, and bee-friendly plants. Members will continue to grow plants as homework after each meeting. They will also study related plant science topics and microscopy.
Perfect Presentations
Members will learn how to prepare a presentation. Participants will be preparing presentations for the 4-H Presentation Day. The focus will be Illustrated Talk.
Philosophy
In this project we will look at what philosophy truly means, watch videos and discuss a large range of topics- some might be controversial, and we will learn about ancient philosophers as well as argument techniques. We might also discuss books that focus on topics of philosophy but the meat of the project will be learning how to express ideas and thoughts and debate all manner of things in a way that is effective and respectful. Participation in open discussions is required.
Physics of How Things Work
We will explore the physics of everyday phenomena, like pulling a tablecloth off a table, spinning a pinwheel toy, swinging water overhead, high-flying balls, and more as we follow along in Louis Bloomfield’s book, “How Things Work: the Physics of Everyday Life”. Meetings will be discussion based, talking about the ideas and theories in the chapter. Used copies will be available to buy at the first meeting for about 5$, and will be used for background reading as well as recommended websites and articles before each meeting.
Primary Makerspace
A makerspace project designed especially for our younger members! From low tech to high tech, we’ll have fun making things. So join us as we build cool creations out of everyday materials like paper and tape, learn how to program a simple robot, explore electricity using Snap Circuits, and more!
Public Speaking
Most people fear public speaking more than they fear spiders, clowns, or heights. In this class, we look at how to become more comfortable with public speaking by breaking down the reasons we are uncomfortable with it. We will discuss anxiety, stress, and ego while playing games and having a great time with our friends.
The Kindness Project
The Kindness Project is an opportunity for members of all ages to perform acts of kindness in our community. Hands-on projects will
include (but are not limited to) assembling care bags for the homeless, painting kindness rocks, creating valentines and placemats for Meals on Wheels recipients, cleaning up a local park or beach, and expressing appreciation for local firefighters. We’ll also be learning the importance of being kind, and participating in individual projects of caring for others.”
Wilderness Skills
Join us to learn basic wilderness and survival skills such as knife use, fire starting, plant identification, map and compass use, and more. We will also invite project members to make suggestions or requests about what skills they would like to learn.
World History
In this monthly project, we explore world history through hands on activities, such as games, re-enactments, arts and crafts, and cooking projects. Each project meeting will consist of a discussion-based introduction to stories from history, after which the youth choose activity stations that they want to work on to bring history to life. We use Story of the World for our topics and are currently about 2/3 of the way through the third book. Some examples of past projects that were great favorites of current project members are: Sumo wrestling (complete with pillows to add the extra body mass our youth lack) The age of exploration on the lagoon: project leaders hid “treasures” in “Africa,” “South America,” and “India,” then members went out on the kayaks to explore the world and find the treasures.Shadow puppet skits: Last year some project members wrote their own Turkish fairy tale, built a shadow puppet theater, and performed it for presentation day.