Tag: summer memories

A Nature Journaling Memory

Tracy4 Comments on A Nature Journaling Memory

I love our summer nature studies. Oldest has especially bonded with his nature journal this summer. He’s always got it with him, including when we went on vacation. He sat on the balcony of our hotel room and sketched. When we visited with friends, he and my friend’s son sat outside on a rock pile with their nature journals and shared colored pencils.

books for nature study

I consulted two different sources this year: The Handbook of Nature Study and Nature Journaling, both from my library. The Handbook is rather intimidating, I’ll admit—very comprehensive and very hard to use with young children. I always feel like a momma bird when I use the Handbook; I have to read and digest the information and then feed it to my children in small, already-been-chewed bites. But I do understand when others write that you can’t do nature study without it. It is very comprehensive. On the other hand, Nature Journaling is inspiring and inviting. It not only provides ideas for how to have a nature journal but intentionally removes the fear factor. This book is why my son loves his journal.

journal for nature study

I haven’t forced a curriculum or made journaling an assignment. When he shows me an entry, I’ll ask him questions that relate to what we’ve been studying. Is it a vertebrate or an invertebrate? What classification is it? But his journal is not purely scientific; it’s a place for him to record his summer memories—the blue-taled skink that regularly visited our front porch, the squirrel they tried to lure with acorns, the varied leaves found in the yard.

His journal is made with my Proclick binder: a piece of cardboard for the backing, some notebooking pages with places to sketch and lines to write on, and a laminated cover.

But it’s not really how I made his journal that makes him love it; it’s about how I’m letting him make his own memories and then experience them a second time on paper.

nature study for little kids

Mud Memories

Tracy1 Comment on Mud Memories

I remember the time my sister and I decided to make chocolate milk.

Our ingredients were dirt and water.

Unlike other older sisters who wisely have their younger sibling sample the fare for them, I indulged right alongside.

We both ended up with a mouthful of mud—and vivid memories.

So when Middlest came into the house with her pail of dirt and asked for some water so that she could make a cake, you bet I cringed. But then, I also couldn’t resist. After all, every child needs a mud memory, right?

I was surprised when Oldest, my neat-freak OCD child, decided to join in the fun.

And though I tried to just set them loose on their mud escapades, I soon realized that my daughter needed a little instruction in the art of mud-caking. I had to empty her pail of rocks, bark, and leaves and help her add dirt to the right consistency. She couldn’t make up her mind at first what to make. First, it was cake; then it was tea; back to chocolate cake; and finally a batch of cookies.

Oldest wanted to make a cake and keep it in his pail until it had “baked” in the sun. Then he emptied his creation into his wheelbarrow for minimal mess. But I was proud when I saw his hands caked with dirt.

Then, Oldest suggested some music. Last summer we had a Handel’s Water Music party; this summer, it’s Bach and mud cakes! And after all that hard work making decadence you can’t eat, there’s got to be some refreshment.

easy pudding pops recipe

(By the way, the popsicles were made from instant pudding! Make the pudding according to box directions, pour into molds, and freeze! So simple and so delicious!)