Come See our Recycled Spider on Earth Day!

NKOA has been working hard during the last two months to build a spider out of recycled bottles and other items.  We currently have a total of 2,555 estimated items attached so far!  Our club is putting on the finishing touches to our project and are excited to share our Spider with you on Earth Day!

Our Spider will be on display outside of the MTM Center, 18 School Street, Lisbon Falls on Friday, April 22nd beginning at noon.  Hope to see you then!

Owl Spotting

Check out this Barred Owl that Valerie spotted in her yard yesterday. A Barred Owl call sounds like, "Who Cooks for You? Who Cooks for You all?" How neat!

Our Recycled Bug Project for Earth Day

NKOA was inspired by this Giant Caterpillar project done by a group of New York school children. We plan on building our own "Bug" during the months of March and April out of recycled laundry detergent bottles. We will unveil our bug for Earth Day in April.

We are so exited to start on this project, but we need your help! We need donations of laundry detergent bottles and wire. These items can be dropped off at the University of Maine Cooperative Extensions Androscoggin-Sagadahoc office located at 24 Main Street in Lisbon Falls. Please tell them they are for NKOA.

Thank you for all your help!!

Wanted: Empty Laundry Detergent Bottles

NKOA will be building a "Bug" for Earth Day out of recycled laundry detergent bottles. We will needs lots of bottles! Please save your bottles for us!

NKOA's 2009-2010 Recap

Wow, NKOA was busy in 2009-2010! Take a look at all we did in our first year as a club!

9/9 First Meeting, Lisbon Ext

9/16 Thorncraig Hike, Lewiston

9/23 Nature Craft, Lisbon Ext

9/30 Lots to Gardens, Lewiston

10/7 Playing with the Harvest, Lisbon Ext

10/14 Pettengill Woods Hike, Auburn

10/21 Earth Science Day, Maine State Museum, Augusta

10/28 Mt Apatite, Auburn

11/4 Rock Crafts/Lip Balm, Lisbon Ext

11/11 Barker Mill Trail Cleanup, Auburn

11/18 Rockin' T Equine Rescue, Lisbon Falls

11/20 4-H Achievement Night

11/28 Bake Sale @ Tractor Supply, Lewiston

12/2 Paper Making, Lisbon Ext

12/16 Holiday Party

1/6/10 Insect & Butterfly Museum Visit, Lisbon

1/13 Winter Fun Day, Sabattus

1/20 Outdoor Safety Skills

1/27 Thorncrag, Lewiston

2/3 Animals in Winter, Lisbon Ext

2/10 Beaver Park, Lisbon

2/17 Valentine's Party, Lisbon EXT

3/3 Cold Frames/Starting Seeds

3/10 Signs of Spring, Lake Auburn

3/24 Greater Androscoggin Human Society, Lewiston

3/31: Project Discussion, Seedlings

4/7 Thorncrag, Lewiston

4/14 Thorncrag-Hiked to Whale Rock

4/21 Casella Recycling, Scarborough

4/28 Recycled Creations, Lisbon Ext

5/5 Barker Mill Trail Cleanup, Auburn

5/12 Letterboxing/Hike, Pettengill Woods, Auburn

5/26 Lots To Garden's Wood St Garden, Lewiston

6/2 Fitness Day, Beaver Park, Lisbon

6/9 Club Garden, Sabattus

6/16 Club Garden, Sabattus

6/30 Club Garden, Sabattus

7/7 Club Garden, Sabattus

7/21 Club Garden, Sabattus

7/28 Club Garden, Sabattus

8/4 Meeting to Prepare for the Fair, Extension Office, Lisbon

8/5 Decorated Club Booth at Topsham Fair

8/10 NKOA Ran Kid's Games at the Topsham Fair

8/10-8/14 NKOA's Members Demonstrations at the Topsham Fair

8/15 Topsham Fair Cleanup Day/Cleaned up our Club Booth

8/18 Club Garden, Sabattus--Planning meeting for Nature Day

9/18 1st Annual Family Nature Day-Sabattus

NKOA at the Topsham Fair

Today from 12:30-2pm NKOA 4-H is running Kid's Games at the Topsham Fair! Bring your children to come and play and earn prizes. Also be sure to check out NKOA's Club booth in the Exhibit Hall! See you there!

Car Wash Update

Unfortunately NKOA's 7/24 Car Wash at Tractor Supply has been cancelled. We will hopefully reschedule the car wash in August. Thank you!

Our Goals & Wishes

1. A Nature Playground planned, created and maintained by NKOA

2. Ruck Sucks for each 4-H Member

3. NKOA T-Shirts/Patches

4. NKOA Letterboxes and Geocaches all around the state

5. NKOA created curriculum

6. NKOA stamp

7. More raised beds for club garden

8. An adopt-a-spot maintained by NKOA

9. Bring club to Bryant Pond 4-H Camp

10. Once a month county wide hikes with other 4-H families

11. Camp at Swan Island

12. GPS for club/compasses for each member

13. Critters of Maine guides for each member

14. Trees of Maine guides for each member

15. A lending library with books, guides, thematic tote bags

16. NKOA Nature calendars

17. Annual Family Nature Day

18. Annual Nature Camp

Help Maine 4-H Power of the Wind Win $50,000!

Please Vote everyday in June to help our local 4-H Power of the Wind program win a $50,000 Pepsi Refresh Grant!! Vote for Engage Maine Youth in Science and Engineering with 4-H Power of the Wind ! Don't forget to vote each day in June!

Here is a video to learn more about 4-H Power of the Wind!

Coming in the Fall a Science and Technology 4-H Club

In the fall look for a new Science and Technology 4-H Club. This club will include Legos, Lego Robotics, 4-H's Power of the Wind Curriculum, and many other science topics. This will be a collaborative effort, and will be a seperate club from NKOA 4-H. Please let us know your thoughts and ideas! Thank you, Valerie and Tamra

Joining NKOA

If you have a child 5+ years and are interested in joining NKOA 4-H we will be accepting new members in the Fall. As of right now we are full to capacity. If you would like your name included on a waiting list or for more information please contact Valerie vkettelhut@aol.com or Tamra tamra_hartley@yahoo.com . Thank you for your support!

Visions for the Future: A Nature Playground

Imagine a forested spot in Androscoggin County where children and their parents could go to play. Imagine if you will a playground in a natural setting, but not a playground you would typically see at a school or inner city playground. Picture a ropes course, shelters made out of pine boughs and limbs, climbing structures made out of wood, rope swings, maybe a sandbox, trees to climb and areas to explore nature. Maybe there would be benches to sit on and some picnic tables to lunch at. A place where parent's could take their children to be in nature. This is a dream that I would like to see NKOA make a reality! So I just entered us into the Clifford BE Big in Your Community Contest for a chance to win a $25,000 grant. Let's keep our fingers crossed that come August 16, 2010 we will be a potential winner!

If we would like to send in any supplementary material to accompany our submission we can send in drawings, pictures and other items. If would be great to get some pictures from the kids with their ideas.

NKOA would also love to hear your ideas for this project!

Recipe for Lip Balm

During our meeting on 11/4/2009 we spent time in the kitchen making lip balm. It is a very simple process and can easily be made at home!

You will need oil, beeswax, and a container to pour your lip balm into ~ that's it! Use any kind of oil that you want, you can blend several together or use just one! Examples are; olive, soybean, canola, sunflower, etc...

The recipe is a 4 to 1 ratio;

If you use 4oz oil use 1oz beeswax.
If you use 8oz oil use 2oz beeswax. (this will make a lot of balm!)

On low heat melt your beeswax into your oil blend, add essential or fragrance oil if you would like to scent it, and then pour into your containers.

That's it! Enjoy!

The Future is Green Guidebook

Stonyfield Farms teamed up with Body & Soul Magazine to bring us this free download. It's the ultimate guidebook on green living. Discover 350+ small eco changes that can make a big difference!

Click here to download your free Going Greener Guidebook!

Chloes Masterpiece!

This is a radish that NKOA member Chloe turned into a masterpiece!

While celebrating our Harvest Theme, Chloe was busy painting with vegetables. She focused on this radish and decided to gently dip it into different colors. She whirled it in paint and then around in her hands, she skipped right over finger painting on paper and just used her hands! :)

After a couple of minutes she called our attention to her work and said "look at my egg!" We were incredibly impressed with what she had created. It did look exactly like an egg with a perfect set of swirls in a pattern of colors that was breathtaking, just sitting there in her tiny hands!

It was awesome to see the twinkle in her eye, which was just as amazing as her art piece!

Thanks so much for sharing Chloe!

Scrape Art!

This week while continuing with our Harvest Theme we painted with fruits and vegetables. We all had a great time, creating beautiful pieces of art that are hanging in our meeting room!

NKOA members Ari, Bryar, and Talazen naturally progressed into finger painting and enjoyed rubbing the paint all over their papers. Talazen picked up a slice of green pepper and SCRAPED the excess paint off her paper. A simple thing to do but what was discovered has now been coined Scrape Art!

After scraping off the excess paint, the paper underneath had absorbed different colors in different spots to create an amazing tie dyed look. Ari's eyes popped open when she saw Talazen's paper, she then scraped her paper with a mushroom, then Bryar took notice of Ari's work and did the same thing using a string bean! They were very joyous and proud of their creations, each being different from the next because of their color choices!

Scrape Art can be used to create stationary that has your own flair!

Here is how they did it & how it looked:

~Use white, acid free, card stock paper.

~Finger paint or brush on lots of different colors onto the paper, cover the entire surface and use enough so that there is a thin layer of paint floating around on the sheet. (we used Tempera paints)

~Use any object with an edge to gently scrape the excess paint off...be ready for a great surprise each time!

~Let the paper dry.

Enjoy!

Thanks to Ari, Bryar & Talazen! :)