Journaling with children of every age

Nature journaling is a wonderful activity to share with the children in your life. Whether you are a parent, grandparent, teacher or friend, nature journaling can begin when children are old enough to hold a paintbrush and can be adapted as they grow.

I will share my thoughts on nature journaling with children of different ages. Each age group has different needs and challenges and we can sensitively adapt our nature journaling practice to benefit each child as they progress.

When nature journaling with children, it is important to remember to cover their basic needs first. Enure that they are safe, warm, protected from sun and insects and have water and food at hand.  When these needs are covered, children are much more able to concentrate on journaling. This is important for all age groups but especially when children are very little. 

Having a dedicated nature journaling kit can help make nature journaling easy and fun. If you’re a parent, you can have a backpack for each child with nature journal, paints and pens ready to go. If you’re a school or kindergarten teacher, you could have a box with all the nature journals together which you can grab when the class is ready to go on a journaling adventure. Less time searching for materials means more time journaling!

Early Years (Age 0 - 4)

At this age, nature journaling will involve a lot of talking about the things you see and experience. I consider talking about nature to be nature journaling, at this age. We are ‘writing’ the nature experiences into the hearts and minds of our children. Experiences in nature are something that they will remember for the rest of their lives.

You can use specific language when you’re talking with children, even when they are very young. Instead of using the word ‘bird’ you can say the species name. You will be surprised how young children can begin to identify particular animal and plant species, given the chance.

Say your thoughts out loud and let them do the same. Tell them what you see, the questions you have and the things you wonder about. Let them share your amazement too! The natural world is infinitely fascinating and when young children see you looking at the world with curiosity and wonder, they will too.

Let nature journaling be messy!

Introduce a range of different mark-making tools and allow the children to express themselves while they are outdoors. A two-year-old dabbing paint on paper while sitting outdoors with you and talking about birds is nature journaling.

Remember that nature journaling and nature experiences at this age should be PLAY. It is going to be messy and that’s how it should be. Children learn best when they are at play. Let them paint themselves, if that’s what they want to do. They might paint the grass or they might pick up a leaf and paint that too. Your role is to facilitate interaction between nature and the child. Do this in whatever way feels fun for everyone.

Some activity ideas that you can use for children in this age group:

• Leaf prints

• Rubbings

• Hand prints with mud

• Mark-making outside with paints/pens/crayons

• Stick leaves or flowers in their journal with packing tape

• Nature scavenger hunt

• Verbal exchange with caregiver

• Sensory experiences

• Patterns in the dirt with a stick

• Counting birds/flowers/fruits/anything!

• Write on leaves

• Collaborate on a page together

• Follow ants with chalk

You can create a nature collection with your child or kindergarten group. Picking up treasures is a wonderful sensory experience. You can talk about the texture and colour of the object to help them practice their nature observation skills. Is it wet? Is it smooth? Is it spiky?

Using magnifying glasses or loupes is another fun way to engage young children. My favourite magnifying tools for children are by a group called The Private Eye. They have simple, plastic loupes that are easy for youngsters to use and magnify the world by 5x! You can find them on The Private Eye’s website.  
 

Primary Years (Age 5 – 12)

Children at this age are expanding their awareness of the world and their experiences. This is a great time to start using words, pictures and numbers to capture their nature observations and to bring in the three prompts ‘I notice…’, ‘I wonder…’ and ‘It reminds me of…’.

Around the middle to upper ages in this range (from around 8 or 9), children often start to get nervous about making art. They begin to judge their own drawings and many people stop drawing altogether at this age. It is important to recognise this and to be sensitive to it.

There are several ways we can tackle this issue of children criticising their own artwork. Firstly, we can remember that the type of feedback we give makes a lasting impression. Instead of praising artistic talent or ‘pretty pictures’ we can give feedback by noticing what they have noticed. We could say, for example, ‘I see that you have used words, pictures and numbers on your page’ or ‘I see that you noticed the hairs on the surface of your leaf. Did you look through a magnifying tool?’ Feedback like this will not reinforce children’s idea that nature journaling is all about art, but instead help them go deeper with their observations in nature.

A second way to ease children through this sensitive time is to give them specific art instruction, such as using simple shapes to build the 3D form of an animal. Step-by-step instructions can show children that these skills can be learned and that they need not give up just because they feel they don’t have ‘talent’. Books such as Drawing With Children by Mona Brookes can help you.

There are lots of nature journaling activities that can be done with children of this age that are fun and engaging. Many of these activities are described in detail in the book How to Teach Nature Journaling by John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren. Be sure to download or buy a copy of this book if you’d like more details.

Some activity ideas that you can use for children in this age group:

• Words, Pictures & Numbers

• I Notice, I Wonder, It Reminds Me Of

• Sensory awareness

• Colour search

• Look up high and down low for new observations

• Trace a plant shadow onto your journal page

• Games and challenges - My Secret Plant; Each To Its Own (from How to Teach Nature Journaling)

• Zoom in, Zoom out using magnifying tools

• Comparison of two similar things

• Lifecycle study

At this age you can bring in some different art tools such as fine-liners, colour pencils and watercolour pencils. Give specific instruction on how to use these new tools to build the children’s confidence and comfort level.

If you are a beginner yourself and are not confident using specific art tools, that’s absolutely fine! YouTube is a great source of information. Search for whatever technique you would like to learn (for example, ‘how to use watercolour pencils’) and you will have a range of videos to help you learn each new skill. Learning alongside the children can be wonderful because it lets them see that art is a skill that improves with time and practice, not a talent you’re born with.

Teenage Years (Age 13 - 18)

At this age, children are starting to deepen their conceptual understanding of the world and their study areas of literacy, numeracy, science and art. Nature journaling is perfect for encouraging them to go further in all of these areas in a way that is interesting and engaging.

To encourage mathematical thinking you can focus on counting, measuring and finding data in the landscape.  This can be done by mapping data using stem and leaf plots, histograms, and bar charts. To develop confidence with the written word, you can focus on poetry and prose in response to nature. To develop artistic skills in specific areas, you can use the tutorials in John Muir Law’s book ‘The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling’.

Some activities for children in this age group might include:

From How To Teach Nature Journaling by John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren

• Species identification using field guides

• Mapping the landscape

• Cross sections

• Poetry and reflective writing

• Event comic strips

• Biometrics

• Finding numbers

• BioBlitz/Biodiversity days

• Tracking change over time

• Generating and testing hypotheses

• Sit-spot reflection

• Mentoring opportunities

Adolescence can be a confusing time for many children. Things are changing quickly, and children can feel confused about school life, social life and families. Just as important as science and maths at this age is finding solace and safety in nature. Nature can have a calming effect and provide a place to reflect. I recommend building some time into the schedule for personal reflective writing while in nature.

Time spent in nature in childhood builds lasting memories and helps creates adults that are passionate about nature and nature conservation. Let nature journaling be a part of your child’s learning and development and adapt it to their needs and interests as they grow.

If you’d like to keep the conversation going, or share your experience of nature journaling with children, be sure to comment below.

Nature journaling with a toddler

When you have young children, it can be difficult to find time to do anything outside of the normal routine of meals, naps and family activities. However, nature journaling can become something joyful that you can do with young children as a regular part of your week, it just takes a little planning and some flexibility. 

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Here are a few tips for getting started:

1. Make a plan for adventure

   Think about your week ahead of time and plan a day when you will have time and space for an outdoor adventure. Pack your nature journaling kit the night before and also the other things you will need for a day out with a young child (a change of clothes, snacks, nappies…all that good stuff!)

2. Bring a helper if possible

   A second person to help is perfect, although not always possible. The helper can entertain the little one after their attention on nature journaling starts to waver.

3. Keep your journaling kit simple

   For your little one you just need a notebook, a set of student watercolours and a water brush, or even just a notebook and a set of coloured pencils. It is a good idea to simplify your own journaling kit too. Your little one will want to explore your tools and if you bring out fancy dip pens, masking fluid or tube paints, things could get messy. A watercolour journal, a black pigment liner, some watercolours and a water brush are all you need. Save your fancy materials for solo nature journaling expeditions.

4. Start journaling together

   When you take out your journal and paints your child is going to want to do the same. Keep a dedicated nature journal kit for your child, even if they are not old enough to do more than dab at the page with the brush. They will be proud to work on their nature journal while you do.

5. Explore the senses and ask questions

   Talk to your child about what you can see, feel, hear and smell. Talk about the birds you can hear and what they might be saying to each other. Asking questions sparks natural curiosity in your child and will lead them to think, dream and explore nature in a deeper way. This is possible even when a child is very young. Toddlers will surprise you with the questions they ask and the answers they come up with.

6. Find distractions

   Your toddler’s interest in journaling with you may last five or ten minutes and then they will be looking to you for the next activity. Seek out things around you that can distract your child and allow you to continue journaling for a little while longer, if you would like. For little ones, a pile of stones stacked into a tower can be entertaining for a while. For older ones, send them on a little scavenger hunt. Ask them to find five leaves of different colours or shapes, or ten sticks that are longer than their hand. Be creative and you might just buy yourself an extra ten minutes!

7. Finish your page from a photo

   If rock towers and scavenger hunts are not doing the trick, not to worry! Snap a photograph of the scene you were working on and finish your journal page at home.

Often, I only get time to jot a few notes and a quick sketch on my page before my toddler asks to move onto the next adventure. That is the nature of journaling with kids and that is ok. With a sense of fun and a slightly lowered expectation of what it is possible to achieve, nature journaling with young children can be the perfect family activity.