Recently, I wrote about Charlotte Mason ideas that can enhance any homeschool. One of the mainstays of a Charlotte Mason education is the use of nature journals with children. Here are some plans for all different nature journals you can make right at home.
- The Handbook of Nature Study has very simple instructions on how to make a basic nature journal with plain white paper, a stick and a rubber band! Be sure to spend time reading more of this fantastic blog for other nature study ideas, free page downloads and more.
- Another variation of the stick and rubber band binding is here.
- Right now, CurrClick is offering these nature study lined pages for free. The bird-themed pages would work well for dictation, copywork or for the pages of a nature journal.
- If you'd like to start small, you can find instructions for mini books at lovelydesign (feel free to skip the cover art and fancy editing) or glittergoods blogs.
- In Heywood's Meadow has this super easy tutorial for making miniature nature journals, with these ones held together with clips so the pages can be shuffled and arranged (or discarded, if there's a big blunder!) and then bound later.
- The Making Books Blog has a lovely journal made entirely of "upcycled" (reused) paper, where pages with writing are glued face to face to make thicker pages. Be sure to browse through the rest of the blog as well, for instructions on homemade books like the Winter Buds Sketchbook and lots of other wonderful projects.
- Remember, nature journals can get elaborate but can also be made simply by folding paper in half with a cardstock cover and stapling at one end (cover the staples with colored tape or masking tape).
For the basics on how to use a nature journal, see this article or this page from a Charlotte Mason site. Feel free to adapt the idea to suit your children, though. That's the beauty of homeschooling, that we can take great ideas and adapt them any way we like!
If you'd like to see lots of examples of children's nature journal pages and find more links and ideas than you know what to do with, be sure to visit the Squidoo Nature Journal page.
Where should you go to find things to sketch? Anywhere! Head to your own backyard, take a neighborhood walk or visit a local park. In the Mankato area, check out parks like Sibley or Minneopa to find lots of wildflowers, leaves, animal tracks and more. Parks like Spring Lake are wonderful this time of year too, because they're full of songbirds, geese and ducks.
Next time, I'll post a tutorial of our handmade pocket-and-handle nature journals from paper bags.
Also in this series:
Five lessons to take from Waldorf for your homeschool
Making your own Waldorf materials
Five lessons to take from Montessori for your homeschool
Making your own Montessori materials
Five lessons to take from Charlotte Mason for your homeschool
Coming next in the series: Five Unschooling ideas to enrich your homeschool
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