Our Nature Notebooks
Posted by Cindy on July 12, 2007
I need structure. My children do, too. A couple of years ago, I tried giving them blank paged notebooks for nature study, and, well, the pages are still mostly blank. Since we aren’t naturally gifted in sketching or drawing, nor do we eloquently come up with poetry or wise words about nature, those blank pages were intimidating. So, being the organized creature that I am, I put together nature notebooks full of pre-made notebooking sheets and ideas for nature study, with tabbed dividers to boot!
These notebooks have worked so well! When we go on nature walks, I can look through the sections to see what topic we might need to focus on. If the kiddos want to go on their own nature walk, they can easily find an appropriate page. Many of the notebooking pages have lines on them for neat handwriting. Some of them have no lines, in case we just want to draw. Some of them have places for scientific names to be added at home. Some are even like checklists. We have a variety of pages available to fit the variety of notebooking moods we have!
Here are samples of some of the pages in our notebooks. I don’t remember where I found many of them, but here are a few great resources: Considering God’s Creation (awesome checklist-type pages), Notebooking Nook (they have freebies), NotebookingPages.com (they have freebies, too), this Yahoo group has free pages, and Jennie Fulbright has notebooking pages that go along with her science curriculum books – some of which will work in nature notebooks.
The categories I included are plants, insects, birds, animals, rocks, weather/sky, other.
I even included some ideas to get them going on their own. I try to copy these sorts of things as I come across them, so I don’t remember where any of them came from. A few of the ideas include:
*Tweezer Trek – collect only things in a baggie that can picked up with a tweezer, then notebook about the experience.
*Puddle Walk – after a rain, notebook about something you find in a puddle
*Measure Me Walk – give them a scavenger hunt list of things to collect that measure various lengths, then notebook about the experience
*Texture Walk – give them a scavenger hunt list to find certain textures, then notebook about the findings
*Shape Walk – give them a scavenger hunt list to find certain shapes, then notebook about the findings
Hi Twinkle Mom!
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You will LOVE nature study, I can’t wait to hear how much you enjoy it.
When I originally wrote this post, I just put the pages in the notebooks and we took walks. When something struck my fancy, I searched for a page in the notebook that “fit”. Since many of them were generic, I could usually find one that fit pretty easily. I still struggled with the impromptu study of nature, though, and needed something to guide us as we walked. That was hard to find! So, my friend, Melissa, and I decided to write our own nature units. We’ve written 12 of them, with six more to be ready soon. Each one focuses on a particular nature topic and gives ideas for outdoors and indoors, as well as prepared notebooking pages for you – plus lots more. You can check them out if you’re interested at http://www.ShiningDawnBooks.com.
Enjoy the outdoors!
Blessings, Cindy
This looks fantastic! We are starting our first year of nature study and this looks great!
Can the workbook be used as a standalone or do you suggest getting the book as well and if so…what is the difference between the student edition and teacher’s manual?