Nature Journaling

My goals in nature journaling are
to increase my children’s observation skills,
to get my students outside
to encourage a fascination with nature so that they will love to explore and discover for themselves the beauty of God’s creation

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all.

Possible supplies:
(note: you should keep these together and ready for spontaneous exploration)

Field manuals/spotter’s guides

Magnifying glass

Binoculars

Clipboard/Notebook

Handheld Field scope

Ideas for getting started:

*Begin to go on a weekly or monthly nature walk. You could visit the same route on different days or times of the day to see if you see anything new on consecutive walks or you could change the route each day. Your child could journal or draw about what they see. They could also dictate to you what they saw.

*Make a nature bracelet: take wide clear tape and attach it around your child’s wrist, sticky side out. On his/her nature walk have them find flowers, leaves, blades of grass etc. and attach them on the sticky tape until the bracelet is complete.

*Talk about how your senses work. If you close your eyes can you hear better than you do with your eyes open? Sit very still with your child and listen, smell, and look around.

*Make a sky and cloud viewer: Take a piece of white poster board (approx. 8 ½ X 11) and cut a large rectangle out of the center, leaving a border of about 2 inches around. Discard the center piece. With pencil or maker, draw small bands of about 1-2 inches around the border. Experiment with paint (blue/black/white) to create a variety of shades and tints (several blues and some grays) that you might see in the sky. Fill in the bands you have segmented off with these various colors. Be sure to leave one of the bands white. When it dries, number your color squares and your sky viewer is ready to use. Hold it up to the sky and view through the cutout to determine which color best represents the sky today.

*Put a hula hoop in an area of your yard and have your child observe and list or draw everything he/she sees in that area.

*Choose a portion of your yard/a park and match some flowers/plants etc. with various shades of crayons. Have your child find something that matches the crayon colors you have selected and draw and color each thing.

*Make leaf or bark rubbings on typing paper. This could be used to decorate cards or stationary.

*Observe and journal the life of a fruit or vegetable plant from seed to fruit.

*Keep a weather chart for a week

*Lie on your back in the grass to watch the clouds. Draw what you see.

*Press flowers by putting them between two pieces of wax paper and putting them under a heavy book for several weeks. Besides putting them in your nature journal, these could be used on cards or stationary or could be put on a large piece of cardstock and laminated for a placemat.

*Take a wet nature walk (in the rain or just after the rain) to notice the difference from a “dry” walk.

*Find some sleepy grass and enjoy it. What out for the thorns, though!
*Find some moss and note where it grows and where it doesn’t

*Draw a spider in a web. Observe what insects have been caught in his web.

*Observe some ants for several minutes.

Books:

Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock

Keeping a Nature Journal by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth (note: this book is not from a Christian worldview)
Fun with Nature by Mel Boring
Pocketful of Pinecones by Karen Andreola

Picture Books that encourage nature exploration:

I Am an Artist by Pat Lowry Collins

Play with Me by Marie Hall Ets

Henry the Explorer series by Mark Taylor

The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer

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