Nature Journaling #5: Recipe Cards

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Summer is just beginning – and there are many many more nature journaling ideas to explore at our house yard. 

I figured I would end this series off with something fun – a recipe card entry.

See, my 5yo is constantly making flower petal salads, and grass salads, and all other sorts of salads for us to “eat.”  I figured we’d convert some of these natural recipes into official “recipes” for her journal…

Presenting:  Salad La Rose

 

And another favorite:  Dirt Dessert

Just in case you’re thinking all my references to grass in these nature journal posts have been exaggerated or overstated, let me leave you with this visual from yesterday.

We are surrounded on all sides.  Almost 2 acres of grass.  And Esmé is sitting in the mowed section – the back half hasn’t been touched in months.

Gotta get to the mowing!  Catch you later!

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Links to recipe card printables:  Lorax; little baker

Nature Journaling #4: Photo Hunt

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Did I mention I’ve got some impatience issues to work out as part of this whole nature journaling process?… :)

Yes, I struggle with the amount of time it takes my 5yo to complete an entry to her satisfaction, especially since I am trying to work alongside her.

And I suppose this “waiting” is good for my character.

But there ARE times when lack of time is an issue.  One of the ways I speed things up is to give my daughter a photo journaling assignment.  Because it takes a whole lot less time to snap of photo of “5 different flowers” – or whatever the assignment might be – than it does to draw 5 flowers.  And while she might not be noting all the little intricacies of each blossom, it gives her a “big picture” view of the variety to be found with a little hunting.

This means a little more work for Mom after the fact – as I organize and print her photos to put in a binder.  And we do get a lot of blurry or oddball shots, though I always put the camera in auto-focus before she uses it.  But it’s all good in the end.

Here is a collage I made after giving her a “rainbow” assignment – she was tasked to find and photograph at least one thing of each color in the rainbow.  Fun to do, fun to put together…

Notice Flame the Cat got himself into this activity as well…  And that’s not grass in the Green photo, though it well could’ve been – chives and onions grow as wildly as grass right now.

And a by-the-way: I used www.picmonkey.com to edit the photos, and www.photovisi.com to create a collage – both free online resources.

Lots of other photo hunt ideas out there:

• 5 of something – plants, trees, bugs, flowers…
• colors, shapes, things that start with a letter
• scavenger hunt – one domestic animal, one wild animal, one green plant, one flower, one manmade object, one evergreen tree, or other things along that line – just about any scavenger hunt can be turned into a photo hunt

Nature Journaling #3: Leaf Rubbings

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There are a LOT of things you can do with leaves.  Draw them.  Photograph them.  Dry them out and tape them into your journal.  Do symmetry leaf drawings (tape half a leaf onto your paper and draw the other half).  Graph the weight of a stack of leaves every day or so as they dry out.  Make leaf prints or stencils using paint.  Get yourself a decent field guide (note to self) and classify the different kinds.

In my quest for appropriate and EASY nature journaling activities for 5-year-olds, I decided to start with leaf rubbings.

Perhaps not so intelligently, I decided to start with soft pastels, which can be a bit messy (think chalk).  Crayons or oil pastels would probably be cleaner.

The assignment was simple.  No identification (I really need to get that field guide) – just a hunt for different textures and shapes of leaves that would be fun for rubbing.

Surprisingly – Esmé’s favorite subject was grass.

Though we did find a few other interesting shapes.  And practiced a little color mixing.

All in all, an easy, fun (and messy) way to fill a bunch of journal pages.

As I was saying the other day – I REALLY need to get Flame the Cat his own journal.  He did manage to get himself covered in green pastel dust – camouflage purposes, methinks?

Nature Journaling #2: An Ordinary Day

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I’ve debated continuing this series with some awesome nature journaling examples – but awesome is subjective, and the subjects don’t always cooperate, kwim?

So we’re just gonna walk through an ordinary day.

Actually, it was our very first day. 

I was considering bringing out the nature journal notebooks with a flourish and a grand idea to get us started.

That didn’t happen.

Rather, little Miss had been playing outside for a while.  She’d blown bubbles - and I’d taken photos of bubble blowing -  ad nauseam, and we were ready to move on to something else.  But the sun was shining for the first time in ages - this is Oregon, so I’m not exaggerating – and we weren’t ready to go back inside and face off math or other dreaded subject.

So I grabbed the journals and we settled in front of our schoolhouse, looking for a suitable subject for this grand occasion of journaling.

Grass.  We were surrounded by endless waves of grass everywhere the eye could see.  Luscious green never-ending terrible stuff - perhaps my opinion is colored in by the fact that it has to be mowed?

We settled on the subject of grass, Esmé allocated out the colored pencils, and I promptly filled an entire page of my journal with green lines.

Yes, I absolutely journal with my daughter.  I’m trying to set a good example – and working alongside her has proven to be the most effective ways of keeping her on task.

Esmé, on the other hand, promptly ripped a page out of her journal – AGH!  The point of a spiral bound notebook is to keep it all bound together?  I chilled out – there’s a pocket in the front of the notebook, after all - and she enjoyed the feel/effect of the concrete directly under her page as she colored.

And colored.

And colored.

I wrote a poem in my journal.  A Bible verse.  A Bible chapter.  A full-length novel.  I doodled.  I took enough photos to fill a dozen albums.  I snuck a peek at emails on my iPod.

And she colored.

And colored.

Here’s Esmé’s grass page…

.In the middle of it, she happened to spot a little roly poly in the grass.  And decided to take a break from journaling to make it a home in the pencil lid. 

We observed it right side up, upside down, curled in a ball, in all manners of escape mode.  Counted sections and legs and more.

I devoted a journal page to it.

So Esmé decided to include Roly Poly in her journal as well.  But since I didn’t want to wait an eternity – yes, Mom needs to work on the patience/relaxation factor of journaling – I offered to take dictation and a photo.

Here’s Esmé’s roly poly page, still intact in the journal…

Of course, Flame the Cat HAD to check out what was going on and give his stamp of approval.  He often tends to show up on our outdoor excursions, so I may have to get him a journal of his own.

To round it all off, we could’ve come inside and done a unit study on roly polies.  Or grass.  But I figured we’d done good for a first day.  Things could only get better!

Nature Journaling #1: What Do I Need?

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I wrote an article for Heart of the Matter Online last month about Nature Journaling for Little Ones.  It was a wish list of things I wanted to do with Esmé.  And here’s how it started:

I’ve wistfully contemplated nature journaling – beautiful, romantic, sweet, beyond my grasp. Life is too busy to just sit, relax, observe, be? Whenever I head outside, I grab my gardening tools. Or furtively check emails on my iPod while pushing my daughter’s swing.

And my little girl? She’s too young to enslave with a pencil and paper, I’ve thought. She needs to be free to run, roam, explore, discover.

No longer. I’m tired of coveting others’ journals. And I’ve been reading how nature journaling, rather than restricting freedom, can be an avenue for focused exploration, discovery, and expression. A way to be amazed by the littlest details of this world God has made.

Because we are official experts now, having a month of nature journaling under our belts as well as a posted article, I figured Nature Journaling would be the perfect topic as we join the illustrious group of 65 or so bloggers over at The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew on their 5 Days of Blogging Hop.  So with that disclaimer and plea for grace, let’s dive right in with the first topic: 

What Do I Need for Nature Journaling?

1. Something to write on
2. Something to write with

I know, I know.  You were wanting a legitimate reason to peruse your favorite office supply store and tap into your education budget.  Never fear, we’ll get to that later.  I just wanted to remind you that there are no nature journal police out to get you if you don’t have all the requisite supplies.  You can start today!

Something to Write On

Paper is the obvious choice, though don’t let that limit your creativity.  Write on rocks if that works for ya – though I’d definitely recommend Sharpies for a writing instrument if you go that route.

For us, the first question was:

• Do we want pretty little notebooks?  Something we can just pick up and grab as we’re heading outdoors?  That in itself inspires us to creativity?
• Or do we want a binder?  Something we can add to over time, using pre-printed journaling sheets, lined paper or plain, sheet protectors for actual plant samples, etc.

Indecisive as we are, we went with both.  And guess what? – the pretty little WalMart spiral notebook wins, hands down.  It’s easy to use and just seems to evoke the spirit of journaling in us.

If you do go the binder route, by all means, make that binder cover as fancy as you wish.  I’m still drooling over the twig binding on this journal.  For us novices, here is a dried flower picture (covered with contact paper) from last summer that is perfect for slipping into the transparent front pocket of our 3-ring binder.

Something to Write With

All right - here's where you can go hog wild with shopping if you desire.

• Colorful pens, pencils – to get creative juices flowing
• Pastels, crayons – to make plant rubbings or just color things up
• Hair spray – to set the pastels if you choose to use them
• Camera – to “imprint” photos for photo journaling
• Printer (with ink) – to print photos, printable notebooking pages, poetry, quotes – anything you don’t want to write out yourself.

Actually, it’s a pretty basic list.  Just pull out your favorite art or scrapbooking supplies and take ‘em outside with you – you’ll be good to go!

If you DO want to get more complex and do something the phantom nature journal police will approve of, make ink from plants.  Though I think making nature paint using tempera would be more fun.

Still not sure how to get started?  We’ll have a few specific newbie examples for you over the next few days.  But if you want to go to the pros for ideas, check out Handbook of Nature Study for LOTS of journaling ideas.