Nature journal advice please – I'm in a muddle!

Hi Inky,

My children are 7 and 5.  Last year, we used some of the free notebook pages from the OHC and planned to keep them in a binder.  For some reason, that just did not work for us.  

This year, they are using wire bound drawing pads.  The wire on the side has not been an issue.  I think you could find them with the wire at the top if it were troublesome.  

The notebook pages that you can print out do look neat and tidy, but I like to see what my children choose to draw on their own.  That being said, I may use them at some times and just have my children glue or tape them into their journals like we do the Nature grids that are included in the Outdoor Hour Newsletter.

We don’t carry our journals around with us.  We draw after we explore.  Sometimes that’s outside at the picnic table.  Other times it’s inside at the kitchen table.

I hope this is somewhat helpful.  

What we did last year with my 6 year old was focus on pressing leaves in her journal. This required less writing/drawing for her and it was great fun. We pressed the leaves between books and put them in her journal (a sketch book w/ wire at the top) with contact paper. I did find that I was starting to be a control freak about her nature journal b/c I wanted it to look a certain way. So this year, I decided to get my own! that has been much better. So far we have done an entry on hummingbirds and Rock Doves b/c we have a Rock Dove nesting in on our front porch and tons of hummingbirds coming to our feeder on the back porch. Next up we are going to attempt a rabbit and a cardinal b/c that is what we’ve seen in our yard lately. For drawing them in our books, we pull up a clear picture on the computer and sit inside and draw them. We do step by step together (we are both pretty artsy, though). I see drawing as just being able to identify basic shapes in an object. We’ve been working on shading this year, too. I second the recommendation on Draw Write Now books, we did those last year. She seems to like seeing that I value having a nature journal, i’ve also loved adding poems to mine as well, so she sees me doing “copy work” : )

I hope you will find something that is enjoyable for you both, that’s what’s most important now!

Oh another idea is to just take a photograph and print it out, I donn’t see anything wrong w/ that at this age if you are concerned about the drawing aspect.