IF YOU ARE NEW TO NATURE JOURNALING PLEASE LOOK AT OUR NATURE JOURNALING PAGE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

Nature Journaling is an incredible tool for helping students to add numeracy to their observations by measuring the length of a leaf,  the height of a plant and how far an insect jumps, etc.  By including meta data, i.e. the date, weather and location allows students to focus on temperature and how it fluctuates over the course of a day, week, month and seasons.  How does this impact what they are observing? 

At this age all three prompts "I notice..., I wonder...?, and It reminds me of..." become very intuitive.  However, the last statement becomes very important for making the connections.  Encourage students to begin writing using single words or simple sentences. Please note that spelling is not the focus in a nature journal.  At this age you may start to see art fears - ensure you are re-iterating it is not about a pretty picture.  It is about their observations.  Please see the link below for tips on giving feedback.  Using a combination of words, pictures and numbers allows the students multiple tools to document their observations. With permission Bethan Burton has allowed us to link to her website as she has written a blog post for Teaching nature journaling at all ages.  

Here are some more  ideas to get you started.

• Engage the fives senses (whenever possible)

• Make leaf prints ( paint the leaf and press the print into the journal)

• Make leaf rubbings

• Trace the items they are looking at 

• Add leaves into the journal using tape

• Count the birds/squirrels/insects etc. 

• Measure as much of the phenomena as the students can using non standard and standard units of measurement.

Here is a downloadable lesson from John (Jack) Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren book: How to Teach Nature Journaling. All resources shared with permission.  "I Notice..., I Wonder...?, It Reminds me of..."

GIVING FEEDBACK here is a fantastic resource from Jack and Emilie

NOTE: You are encouraged to spend time in the outdoors Nature Journaling.  However, you can also bring nature inside, look out your wonder window, have a refrigerator Safari or even observe a house plant or pet.

Pick a place as a starting point and mark it with an object, line of chalk or a flag.  Use this as the starting point for measuring distance between locations.

• Next, pick what your end point will be and measure the distance between the two points 

• Decide your measurement device - footsteps, metre stick, turns of the wheel of your bicycle, a stick, a pencil, a string, etc.

• Estimate the distance between objects and then measure with your choice of device, for example, I think it will take 11 stick lengths to get to the tree and then actually measure the distance with the stick

NOTE: This can be used with the Nature Journaling activity at the top of the page.

In the activity Change Over Time from John (Jack) Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren's book: How to Teach Nature Journaling. "Students describe a growing plant, a decomposing object, or a landscape feature as it changes over multiple observation sessions."

All resources shared with permission.

In the activity Time Observed from John (Jack) Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren's book: How to Teach Nature Journaling.  "Students observe the behavior of a group of animals and use a sample protocol to quantify the frequency of different behaviours."

All resources shared with permission.