The Living Page :: Nature Journals

Last week we talked about the first chapter of Laurie Bestvater's The Living Page, and earlier this week I raved a bit about a favorite part of mine from the second chapter.  (Don't those Natural History Clubs sound amazing?)  Now I'm back to think a bit more about this second section, in which Ms. Bestvater discusses Nature Journals.  

Jen invited us to share excerpts and photos from our own nature journals, and I'm planning to do so.  One of the most delightful parts of my week is Friday afternoon, when I sit down with my oldest three, our drawing supplies, our notebooks, and our nature tray and spend an hour or two capturing on paper the discoveries from our outing that morning.  If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that nature study takes up a good chunk of my writing space here.  So I had lots of examples to pore through that I have posted here before, and I've chosen just a few to re-share.

Before I do that, I want to chat a bit about this chapter.  Last time I focused on the idea of whether e-notebooks can provide the same benefits of Keeping that Miss Mason promises.  I still can't answer that. ;) 

But I can say that I don't really think there is a digital comparison for a nature journal.  One can take lots of nature photos and arrange those photos into a useful record, the kind of record that the students in Miss Mason's schools were keeping for sightings of birds, wildflowers, and other signs of changing seasons.  Those photos can also be useful for identifying and for drawing from (we do this often).  One can keep narrative notes of one's nature walks in digital form and I don't think much is lost.  But photos and typed notes are distinct from drawings, which are a component of Miss Mason's nature notebook and require of the Keeper a different kind of observation and attention.  One also cannot keep pressed flowers or leaves in digital form, as Bestvater includes under nature scrapbooks in this section.  So a digital Nature Journal, though perhaps more useful and complete than a hand-Kept one in some ways, would not meet the full intentions that this category of Keeping carries.  (Or am I mistaken?  Let me know.  It's so valuable thinking all this through with others.)

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Now on to some examples from these labors of love in our home:

I love viewing my son and daughter's narrations of the same outing side by side.  It's so interesting to see the differences in what they focus on and how they process their discoveries.

And from a more recent outing:

A few from Mommy's nature journal:

And one from my preschooler's--her drawings are just darling and she is so very serious about getting things just as she sees them:

I was not a nature-lover as a child, nor have I ever considered myself a draw-er.  I determined, however, to get over my inhibitions and start a nature journal alongside my children when they started their formal schooling.  Since then, it has become a favorite hobby.  And my children, seeing me excited and inspired, have eagerly taken up the habit as well.  Even my preschooler loves to join in, drawing next to Mommy, looking up finds in field guides, and asking me to write down the nature walks she spontaneously narrates to me as the older children record their own observations in both word and drawing on the other side of the table.  Nature study is one of the highlights of our home education (something I never thought I would say a few years ago!).  And if there is hope for me, a girl born and living still in the midst of Silicon Valley suburbia, there is hope for you and your family as well. ;)