Oh, this is a subject dear to my heart. My guys are six and eight and now keep their things in old military map bags. I used to keep all our things in my messenger bag.
I know you’ll hear a variety of responses and I love to hear what others use as well. I’ll just tell you what we use but can’t say I would recommend anything. I like going into supply stores and asking lots of questions. We use Moleskine watercolor journals (5*8″) because they can handle a variety of media and everything is kept nicely in place. I like little pocket watercolor sets and if you have a small spray bottle of water along you can simply mist the colors. Koi has a pocket one with a brush pen that holds water in the reservoir and handles nicely. We worked on properly handling our paints/paper during little lessons in the home.
Some of their best entries were spontaneous. After observing something outside they might run in and grab their journals, some colored pencils or anything to their liking and sketch it out.
This is one of my favorite inspiring posts re nature journals from Alice Cantrell at a Number of Things.
I delved into the art of nature journaling and the mechanics of nature journaling if you want to see those:
I. Art
II. Mechanics – the second one provides a link at the end where you can see some pics of nature journals that CM’s students kept.
Have fun enjoying and observing nature – I’m excited for you and yours!
Richele
