Nature Journaling #1: What Do I Need?

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I wrote an article for Heart of the Matter Online last month about Nature Journaling for Little Ones.  It was a wish list of things I wanted to do with Esmé.  And here’s how it started:

I’ve wistfully contemplated nature journaling – beautiful, romantic, sweet, beyond my grasp. Life is too busy to just sit, relax, observe, be? Whenever I head outside, I grab my gardening tools. Or furtively check emails on my iPod while pushing my daughter’s swing.

And my little girl? She’s too young to enslave with a pencil and paper, I’ve thought. She needs to be free to run, roam, explore, discover.

No longer. I’m tired of coveting others’ journals. And I’ve been reading how nature journaling, rather than restricting freedom, can be an avenue for focused exploration, discovery, and expression. A way to be amazed by the littlest details of this world God has made.

Because we are official experts now, having a month of nature journaling under our belts as well as a posted article, I figured Nature Journaling would be the perfect topic as we join the illustrious group of 65 or so bloggers over at The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew on their 5 Days of Blogging Hop.  So with that disclaimer and plea for grace, let’s dive right in with the first topic: 

What Do I Need for Nature Journaling?

1. Something to write on
2. Something to write with

I know, I know.  You were wanting a legitimate reason to peruse your favorite office supply store and tap into your education budget.  Never fear, we’ll get to that later.  I just wanted to remind you that there are no nature journal police out to get you if you don’t have all the requisite supplies.  You can start today!

Something to Write On

Paper is the obvious choice, though don’t let that limit your creativity.  Write on rocks if that works for ya – though I’d definitely recommend Sharpies for a writing instrument if you go that route.

For us, the first question was:

• Do we want pretty little notebooks?  Something we can just pick up and grab as we’re heading outdoors?  That in itself inspires us to creativity?
• Or do we want a binder?  Something we can add to over time, using pre-printed journaling sheets, lined paper or plain, sheet protectors for actual plant samples, etc.

Indecisive as we are, we went with both.  And guess what? – the pretty little WalMart spiral notebook wins, hands down.  It’s easy to use and just seems to evoke the spirit of journaling in us.

If you do go the binder route, by all means, make that binder cover as fancy as you wish.  I’m still drooling over the twig binding on this journal.  For us novices, here is a dried flower picture (covered with contact paper) from last summer that is perfect for slipping into the transparent front pocket of our 3-ring binder.

Something to Write With

All right - here's where you can go hog wild with shopping if you desire.

• Colorful pens, pencils – to get creative juices flowing
• Pastels, crayons – to make plant rubbings or just color things up
• Hair spray – to set the pastels if you choose to use them
• Camera – to “imprint” photos for photo journaling
• Printer (with ink) – to print photos, printable notebooking pages, poetry, quotes – anything you don’t want to write out yourself.

Actually, it’s a pretty basic list.  Just pull out your favorite art or scrapbooking supplies and take ‘em outside with you – you’ll be good to go!

If you DO want to get more complex and do something the phantom nature journal police will approve of, make ink from plants.  Though I think making nature paint using tempera would be more fun.

Still not sure how to get started?  We’ll have a few specific newbie examples for you over the next few days.  But if you want to go to the pros for ideas, check out Handbook of Nature Study for LOTS of journaling ideas.

Skin…

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Today’s science experiment:  Why does skin get puckered when it’s in the water a long time?  Specifically, toes and fingers?

Materials:

• New cellulose kitchen sponge
• Bowl of water
• Petroleum jelly
• Something to spread the jelly with – if you’re not into using your fingers… :)

Mom’s prep:

• Cut one-inch strip of sponge for use with experiment.
• Cut a section from the one-inch strip so that about half of the sponge is half as thick.
• Rinse sponge strip and squeeze out.  Let it dry thoroughly.

Once the sponge is dry, we’re ready to begin!  Press the dry sponge with your fingers, making it as flat as possible.

Thoroughly cover the surface of the thinner section of the sponge with petroleum jelly.


Use your finger to drop 2-3 water drops onto the petroleum jelly-covered section of the sponge.  The drops will sit like a round ball on top of the sponge.


Drop 2-3 water drops onto the uncoated section of the sponge. 


The sponge will pucker up where the water falls.


Now try dripping 2-3 water drops onto your arm or the back of your hand.  Does it look like the petroleum jelly-coated area or the uncoated area of the sponge?

Your skin secretes oil (sebum), which makes your skin water-resistant.  However, your toes and fingers have thicker skin without the oil layer, so that skin soaks up water and puckers up faster when you are in the water for a long time.


Now play!  Esmé made water handprints on the paper towel, emptied the bowl of water, and then covered her arms with petroleum jelly…



Inspired by Janice VanCleave’s Play and Find Out about the Human Body:  Easy Experiments for Young Children.

Fingers…

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Our science experiment today was about fingers:  Why do fingertips have ridges?

Here’s our list of materials:

• Dime
• Transparent tape
• Pencil
• Paper
• Magnifying Lens

First, we laid the dime on the table.  Esmé demonstrated that she could pick it up with no problem.

Then, we put tape on her thumb and index finger.  Now the fingers were smooth, and she was unable to pick up the dime.  (She solved the problem by using her untaped middle finger to pick it up… :)



Fingertips have ridges to help grip and make it easier to pick things up…



Then we examined our fingerprints. 

We scribbled an area of our paper with the pencil and then rubbed a fingertip across the pencil scribble. 


We rolled the fingertip onto the sticky side of a piece of transparent tape to capture a fingerprint, then stuck the tape onto a clean section of the paper.  The last part of our experiment was to examine the fingerprints with magnifying glass.


Fingerprints are unique.  Basic fingerprint patterns include whorls, loops, and arches.

Thanks for joining us in our science experiment!  We were motivated by a thrift store discovery:  Janice VanCleave’s Play and Find Out about the Human Body:  Easy Experiments for Young Children.  It’s a bit basic in terms of vocabulary and principles, but it is hands-on and uses materials we already have – exactly what I need right now – something I can grab off the shelf and use at a moment’s notice.  Definitely a fun way to incorporate science into our hectic schedule.

M4–September Part 2

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We’re a tad bit behind in blogging – but it’s finally back in the juggling queue, so we’ll try to catch up a little before something else threatens to come crashing down…  (Anyone know what I mean?)

Motion

Parachutes

First, Esmé dropped her pony free-fall from the top of the couch to see how quickly it fell to the ground.
 

Then Daddy and she made a pony parachute (advertising Safeway, of course – we’re still waiting for our check from them).  We had to get a slightly smaller pony in order for the parachute to work, but we got it working all right.  Amazing how much more gentle a parachute landing is than a free-fall.

Matter

Onions

We harvested lots of onions from our garden – the one thing the deer didn’t demolish.  So we checked out sulfuric acid…


When you cut into the onion cell walls, you release a gas that turns into sulfuric acid in the air.  It stings when it gets into your eyes.

First Esmé peeled some of the onions while holding them under water.  Then she took them out to peel more, and the tears came…

The water dilutes the gas before it escapes into the air.  Another trick is to refrigerate the onion, which slows the movement in the atoms of the gas.

Mitosis

Frogs

We did a frog lapbook.  You can see more in our Frog unit study review…
 

And Me

Sleep

We tend to be a little lacking in the sleep department, thinks Mom.  So we read the Sleep section of You and Your Body (It’s Science series by Sally Hewitt).

And learned something interesting about sleeping with the lights on.

And watched some cute video clips:

• Dogs, cats, and kids sleeping
• Photo contest:  I can fall asleep anywhere

And colored a page of a girl sleeping.
 

M4 – September 1

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Motion

Magnetic Force

I was planning to focus on magnets around Valentine’s Day, being romantic and all, but in the “back to school” rush, I just grabbed a topic that I figured would be a hit, and magnetism it was!

It started with this Polly Pocket set of Esmé’s:  It has a lever that you move around, causing the magnetized pony to roll around and around on the floor.  Hmm…  what makes that happen?!


So we got out the “big and powerful magnet” and showed how we could make a paper clip dance on Esmé’s chair by moving the magnet around underneath!  And yes, dancing paper clips are a big hit in this house…

Matter

Magnetic Properties

Speaking of magnets, I collected a random assortment of small stuff and dumped it on the table.  Esmé then used her “big and powerful magnet” to see what items were attracted to the magnet.  We tried doing predictions first, but then it just became a free-for-all as the items congregated towards the magnet.


I am just loving that smile!  Who knew magnets were such fun?
 

Mitosis

Giraffes

We focused on giraffes.  You can see more in our Giraffe Copywork review…

And Me

Taste

We were studying all things pink for our book theme, so we did a pink taste test…  Pinky Pie, meet grapefruit juice, and raspberry lemonade, and fruit punch…


Esmé was quick to allocate the drinks out to everybody.  SHE got the fruit punch, Mom got the lemonade, and Daddy got the grapefruit juice.  Hmmm…

She also drew and cut out a tongue to glue on our Esmé-sized body cutout.  Methinks we’ve been reading about frogs too much lately.

M4 - Summer

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This post is LONG overdue, thanks to all the busyness of summer.  But we are back on track with M4 now – only we’re taking two weeks to get through Motion, Matter, Mitosis, and Me.

Here is the summer edition:

Motion

Pitch

The roof of the schoolhouse got finished, so we learned how a steep-pitched roof is more difficult to walk on than flat ground!

Matter

Clouds

We discussed the whole evaporation process and demonstrated how clouds (cotton balls) drop water onto the land.

Mitosis

Snakes

Summer is the perfect time to study life outdoors!  We  studied ladybugs and beetles in a bug jar…


…found fuzzy, floaty things everywhere, as well as lots of green stuff…


…put queen anne’s lace into food-colored water with grandma’s help – this worked WAY better than white carnations!…


…and discovered a snake skin in our garden!


Since we had also heard much ado about snakes when a bull snake was discovered at the cousins’ house down the road, we decided to focus on snakes for this post.


We read Rattlesnake Rules by Conrad J. Storad (a REAL favorite here!) and Snakes and Lizards by Daniel Moreton.

And then we made some rattlesnakes!  Just draw a spiral on a paper plate with a head and a rattle in the middle, and then staple two plates together, leaving an opening to fill with dried beans before finishing! 


A great rattle – and lots of fun!  Esmé repeated the project several times over the summer on her own initiative.

And Me

Sweat

In honor of summer, we focused on skin and sweat!  We discussed the article “Sweating Is The Pits!” as well as info we read in What is a Bellybutton? Time Life for Children.

Then we colored this skin page.



That's it for this post. We've got another M4 post coming up as soon as I have time to get through photos...