Nature Journaling

Nature Journaling is an awesome way of remembering your child's adventures in the great outdoors with endless educational opportunities.  A three-ring binder is a great choice along with sheet protectors to give the journal that professional look when you are showing it off to the grandparents and friends.  You can find or make copies of paper with the top section blank and lines on the bottom half of the paper for journaling.  The top half is made for objects your child may find in nature, photos, or drawings.

Now you maybe thinking oh my child isn't even writing yet.  Maybe they aren't but that doesn't mean they couldn't paste a leaf on the page and practice writing an "L" or color a green spot on the page to practice their colors or so on.  You see there are endless possibilities.  When my boy Brandon was in 2nd grade I would have him write a couple of sentences about an object he had found  and then have him underline the subject and circle the verb.  Brandon even began taking photos with a disposable camera that he kept in his hiking pouch.  Later we saw this worked great with history and time-line pages.  Where he could literally flip through history in the order that it happened.  Even using math to figure out how may years were in between Nana's birthday and the building of the St. Louis Arch.  It's a great way to add or to create you own curriculum.

Then we began to notice our journal was filling up fast with a large majority being on trees.  So we decided to make one whole journal for trees.  Don't be afraid to step outside the box on this project.  If the kids are interested go with it. :)

* Let the children take 4x4 index cards out in the field when exploring and then tape them to the blank section of the Nature Journaling page.  This way your 3 ring binders stay clean.  :)