Nature Journaling #2: An Ordinary Day

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I’ve debated continuing this series with some awesome nature journaling examples – but awesome is subjective, and the subjects don’t always cooperate, kwim?

So we’re just gonna walk through an ordinary day.

Actually, it was our very first day. 

I was considering bringing out the nature journal notebooks with a flourish and a grand idea to get us started.

That didn’t happen.

Rather, little Miss had been playing outside for a while.  She’d blown bubbles - and I’d taken photos of bubble blowing -  ad nauseam, and we were ready to move on to something else.  But the sun was shining for the first time in ages - this is Oregon, so I’m not exaggerating – and we weren’t ready to go back inside and face off math or other dreaded subject.

So I grabbed the journals and we settled in front of our schoolhouse, looking for a suitable subject for this grand occasion of journaling.

Grass.  We were surrounded by endless waves of grass everywhere the eye could see.  Luscious green never-ending terrible stuff - perhaps my opinion is colored in by the fact that it has to be mowed?

We settled on the subject of grass, Esmé allocated out the colored pencils, and I promptly filled an entire page of my journal with green lines.

Yes, I absolutely journal with my daughter.  I’m trying to set a good example – and working alongside her has proven to be the most effective ways of keeping her on task.

Esmé, on the other hand, promptly ripped a page out of her journal – AGH!  The point of a spiral bound notebook is to keep it all bound together?  I chilled out – there’s a pocket in the front of the notebook, after all - and she enjoyed the feel/effect of the concrete directly under her page as she colored.

And colored.

And colored.

I wrote a poem in my journal.  A Bible verse.  A Bible chapter.  A full-length novel.  I doodled.  I took enough photos to fill a dozen albums.  I snuck a peek at emails on my iPod.

And she colored.

And colored.

Here’s Esmé’s grass page…

.In the middle of it, she happened to spot a little roly poly in the grass.  And decided to take a break from journaling to make it a home in the pencil lid. 

We observed it right side up, upside down, curled in a ball, in all manners of escape mode.  Counted sections and legs and more.

I devoted a journal page to it.

So Esmé decided to include Roly Poly in her journal as well.  But since I didn’t want to wait an eternity – yes, Mom needs to work on the patience/relaxation factor of journaling – I offered to take dictation and a photo.

Here’s Esmé’s roly poly page, still intact in the journal…

Of course, Flame the Cat HAD to check out what was going on and give his stamp of approval.  He often tends to show up on our outdoor excursions, so I may have to get him a journal of his own.

To round it all off, we could’ve come inside and done a unit study on roly polies.  Or grass.  But I figured we’d done good for a first day.  Things could only get better!