Nature journal

We did nature journals when my kids were younger. Because we only have one car, we mostly did nature study in our backyard. The kids would find flowers, insects, birds and animals to draw in their journals. It is surprising how many different things you can find in a yard. They would make sketches, color them in, and then label them with the date, location, and identity of what they had drawn.

I love nature and am not squeamish so we have also housed garter snakes, tadpoles, and various insects at times. My kids have enjoyed the opportunity to research the care of each critter and how best to feed them and make their captive environment as close to their wild environment as possible. Even today my fifteen year old daughter has crickets and spiders in her room, which she feeds and takes care of. She knows the habits of crickets very well because she has been allowed to keep, study, and research crickets to her heart’s content.

I will be honest and tell you that we do not formally do nature journals anymore. Nature journaling just wasn’t some of my kids’ style. Rather than make a big issue of it, I decided to be a bit sneaky. I brought nature to us and provided the tools my kids needed to enjoy nature study in their own way. I placed bird feeders near windows, planted trees and bushes, planted flowers to attract birds, insects, and butterflies, provided good field guides and other books, and bought my kids a digital camera. My children now enjoy discovering what butterflies, insects, birds, and other small critters come to our yard. Several of them use the camera to take photos, which they label and sometimes post on a nature Web site my husband set up for them.

An easy nature study is to raise a caterpillar to a butterfly. We planted milkweed in our yard just so we could enjoy this activity many times during the summer. You can have your kids draw the caterpillar, the chrysalis, and the adult butterfly. Being a “techie” family, we took it a step further and have videotaped the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly from egg to butterfly.

I hope that gives you some ideas of what you can do with nature study. You can find more ideas here: http://simplycharlottemason.com/books/hours-in-the-out-of-doors/nature-links/ .

We have, um, very eclectic nature journals. We love nature study, but we have a hard time doing “OK, this is OFFICIAL NATURE STUDY” type things. We just enjoy outdoors and critters and animals. We hike and geocache, we look for bugs and critters, we each pick a tree species on a walk and try to spot as many of our type as we can, trying to get more than everyone else! Our notebooking sort of goes in fits and spurts. I try to make mine look “traditional” with drawings, observations, but it usually ends up being full of poetry snatches I remembered as I sat and gazed around and daydreamed. I have one very techie son who counts and measures things, and that’s about it–his is full of minute measurements in tiny handwriting. LOL I have one son who draws a little and then writes a lot, and one son who prefers to get a small picture from one of our nature coloring books of something we’ve seen, and color it in.

We also love photography in our home and take a lot of photos. Even though that wasn’t Charlotte Mason’s way, we like to do it, it can be an art form as well, and we put them in our notebooks anyway. 🙂

Michelle D

We have done what many have said as well. I tried to do the drawing and learn the habit of observation but it just wasn’t working with my boys who do not like drawing or coloring. So many times we have traced out of nature coloring books and mostly we turned to our camera and took pictures to add to our journals. I do have to confess that I have let nature study slide the last few years. We still enjoy nature, find things to put in our nature box(cardboard box with slots for shoes) in the garage but we don’t add it to our journals anymore. Hmmm — maybe we should pick that up again. We also have bird feeders , raised caterpillars, raised tadpoles,hatched chicks with an incubator, made our own maple syrup, and now we raise honey bees. All showing our Creators amazing glory!

Blessings,

Suzq