You can enroll in the current 4-H year starting October 1 of each year.  The child will be considered a member if they were 8 years old as of January 1st.  If you child is 5-7 years old as of January 1st they will be considered a Cloverbud and can enter display exhibits and non-hoofed animals, such as a cat, dog, rabbit, or chicken.  

Enrollment Website

Choose which county you will participate in.  Our family chose to attend the county we reside in even when our girls attend school in the neighboring county and do all their other activities there.  My husband and I both grew up enrollled in 4-H and we knew it would be something our family would participate in.  So when the girls were 3 & 5, I attended both fairs.  We knew the county the girls were enrolled in school and other activities was planning on us being the next generation to be their 4-H program however I did not see a way for us to grow and push ourselves to be better so we chose to enroll in the county we resided in.  You can enroll in any county remember in South Dakota you are only to attend one county achievement days.  (My understanding is this is not the norm across the US so check with your extension professionals).  

Find you county extension professionals and get to know them.  They are your communication link for everything 4-H.  I frequently call and ask if I am missing anything or what I may need to know about upcoming events.  

Once you choose a county you will want to choose a club.  You can go through 4-H as an independent I just find there is a lot to learn by having the members get together run a meeting or participate in a meeting and plan community service projects together along with the face-to-face time our kids these days seem to be missing.  

You will want to see if the clubs in your county are based on project areas or geographically based.  For example, in our county we have a shooting sports club and that is all they do is shooting sports.  However, there are other clubs such as our that is based on our geographical location being 40 miles from the county seat.  Some counties will have horse clubs, STEM, or robotics clubs for example.  

Once you decide on a club make sure to call your club leader to make sure they know you are in their club.  I have had members enrolled in my club and at the end of the year I was handed my enrollment and there were two kids on the list that I had no idea were members of our club.  Give them a call and let them know you are interested and enrolled. 

When you are choosing project areas during enrollment it is in your best interest to sign up for any project areas that may in the littlest bit make you think about enrolling.  This is because when there is a workshop that comes up a lot of extension professionals will simply populate the members that are enrolled in that specific project areas and forward the information to those members.  If your name is not on the list you may not receive the information at all or receive it at a later time.  There is a add/drop date of May 31st for project areas for the year.  We usually sign up for most of the project areas in October and then May 15th the girls and I sit down and make a plan to complete the rest of the project areas they are enrolled in or we delete them form the list.  

Once all the big decisions have been made it will be time to grab a record book from your extension professional.  It would be best if you had your record book for the first meeting as you will be electing officers and setting club goals.  These will all need to be recorded in the front of the record book.