April: the month of 4-H Demonstration Day. Demonstration Day is scary because a whole roomful of people are watching you. Demonstration Day is good because it forces us to work on our projects. I like to watch other kids' demonstrations. The time my club members demonstrated how to make salad and trail mix and then shared their food was my favorite. Thanks to them we make both of those at home now.

Mrs. Knobloch did a demonstration for us at the beginning of our April meeting. It was about testing to see if the dirt is good or not. She put dirt and water and dish soap in a jar. She made a jar like this before we got to our meeting and she made a poster that explained the steps and the conclusion. It was a really good demonstration.

Because of her example, I made a poster for my demonstration and took a finished product to show. This year I demonstrated how to make pumpkin drop biscuits. They were tasty. The other thing I liked about our April meeting was seeing the stuffed bears my club members made at Mrs. Knobloch's sewing clinic (too bad I did not get to go). They were displayed at our booth at fair.

We also listened to to secretary and treasurer's reports and the list of all the 4-H activities happening in April, May, and over the summer. Kids were excited about screen free week and Camp Needmore. We also brainstormed community service ideas.

It was ok sitting through all of that talking but I would rather be playing with Mrs. Knobloch's toys like I did before I was old enough to join 4-H.

In June and July we worked on decorations for our fair booth. Cory and Zack worked hard over the summer to do the welding. They did a good job. I think our fair booth looked good.

In September we had our last meeting of the year. It was short. We talked about how fair went and that we need to finish our record books and turn them in and what is happening in October. My brother had made cookies for snacks and they got overcooked and were really hard. My dad told him to put a pancake in the bag with them for a couple of hours. We were surprised that it worked – the cookies were perfectly chewy when we ate them after the meeting.

John Dudek

Reporter, Tongue River Crossroads 4-H club