Last year, Ella did a visual presentation for 4-H on Duct Tape (The Duck That Doesn't Quack - Duct Tape). She won at the State Competition, so the pressure has been on. Well, self-imposed pressure as always *grin*.

This year, she did an entire presentation on Artist Trading Cards. It was beautiful. She had sponge-painted all her "boards" (the posters that the kids use as an outline for the presentation). She made one HUGE Artist Trading Card so that everyone could see what it was. Then she found a great way to mount all the atcs so that they popped off the display.

But, then, in February, she decided to do a visual presentation on the eye.

Deep breathing exercises were used.

And then she set off to work again.

She ended up making a beautiful cross-section of the eye from large pieces of that foam paper (why didn't they have THAT when I was a kid?).

She worked really hard, and set up a whole new project. We are going to the county visual presentation this weekend, and if she does well then she'll go on to the state competition.

We'll keep our fingers crossed.

This is one of her "visuals" for the VP. It shows an image of the inside of an eye and some fruits and veggies that contribute to eye health. as she says (every time she practices), not only are they good for your eye, but they provide nutrients for your body to keep your eye healthy."

This is her title page (ohh....it feels like you could be right there listening to her, doesn't it?)

Oh, yeah, baby, feeling like a winner. With a carrot.

Library Lovin'

Oh, I love our library. There was an awesome display here about the perils of high fructose corn syrup. After it came down, the Shellvers made an Ode to Jon Scieszka. It was so cute, because all these "cool" middle schoolers and high schoolers were like, "Jon who?!" but then when we started pulling the books off the shelves they got so enthusiastic about the books that they remembered from when they were small (oh so long ago *grin*).

Of course, the rise in enthusiasm may have stemmed from the chocolate and marshmallows and frosting that I was feeding them.

I am not above a little bribery.

Shellvers Make ATCs

We made ATCs at the library with our Junior Volunteers. They choose the name Shell-ver last year. Get it? Shelving books, shells since we are near the ocean. Hee hee.

We definitely introduced a couple of the girls to a new passion. There are a couple of boy volunteers, as well, but they were on the computer during this activity.

The volunteers have worked really hard this year so far. They did face painting, balloon selling and clean up at the Attic Sale, and they were great elves during the Centerville Stroll. We celebrated the accomplishments of the last year and got ready to keep on going with an ATC making pizza party.

We got a fabulous donation of pizza from Not Your Average Joe's, and although I wasn't sure that the kids would like the bread they gave us with olive oil and garlic and Parmesan cheese dipping sauce, but they ate it all up!

Even Declan got his creative juices flowing with some ATCs on Batman!