Last fall I bought nature journals for some of the kids. We didn’t seem to get out to use them very often and most of the kids hadn’t written or drawn much of anything in them. So I decided to have them pull out their journals and take a walk. We just took a walk in the woods that are behind our house, but it was fun.
The woods aren’t that large, but have some interesting things in them — some old farm equipment and a cemetery and a little bridge that the kids had fun on. I’m not sure why we don’t go there more often.
The kids insisted on taking a snack, water and, of course, their journals. I always have good intentions when I buy these things, but sometimes I just don’t get out with the kids enough and help them record the things they see and encourage them to draw some of nature.
I’m good about making sure they do their math, history and other subjects, but stuff like this seems to fall by the side — though, I think it is important.
Even the kids that don’t normally like to write — that would be Sarah — decided it might be fun to draw something or write a little. I guess it was because of the excitement of the other kids. I enjoyed just taking pictures and watching. They looked up some of the flowers they found and tried their hand at drawing them. Later, at home, they printed some pictures to put in the journals. We kept this pretty simple but hopefully they learned a little while having fun.
