Kansas 4-H Clover Classroom Activities added to HirePaths
Kansas 4-H and HirePaths are now sharing career-related content to help youth learn about high-demand jobs and skills related to Kansas careers. As part of this partnership, many activities from the Kansas 4-H’s Clover Classroom library are now available on the HirePaths Free Lesson Plans page and the Activities for Kids section of the website.
“These activities are appropriate for anyone to do with a child or young person,” said Patsy Maddy, Kansas 4-H Youth Development special projects administrator. “You can feel good about doing them at home with your kids and neighbors, or they can be done in a classroom or a 4-H Club meeting.”
Clover Classroom started in 2019 to provide parents and club leaders with an easy resource to help facilitate educational activities that teach kids many real-world life skills, such as how to track wildlife or bake bread — skills that in many cases directly relate to possible careers such as a park ranger or baker.
When the world shut down in 2020 during the pandemic, 4-H developed more Clover Classroom activities for online distribution because families needed more activities to use at home. The HirePaths partnership will help these lessons reach even more Kansas kids, either at home or school.
“Everyone is busy,” Maddy said. “We collaborated with extension agents in their areas of expertise to package these programs into activities that are easy for families to facilitate at home.”
Several new lessons are in the works, and Maddy is always looking for new collaborations to add to the collection. But before a Clover Classroom activity is published, it is vetted by experts at K-State Research and Extension to make sure the guidelines are clear, complete, accurate and safe.
After using one of these activities, Maddy hopes adults will take the time to provide feedback to Kansas 4-H. Click the link to an online survey on the second page of each lesson to provide input and share a photo of your child doing the activity. (See example below.)
Clover Classroom is always looking for new ideas to include in its library of resources. Any parents or educators who are interested in authoring an activity for Clover Classroom can email Maddy for more information at [email protected].
