Kicking off the year
Are you hoping to teach others how to nature journal? Are you trying this yourself for the first time? Follow along as I teach a year-long class to high school students on the practice of keeping a nature journal.
The class meets for an hour as part of a once-a-week homeschool co-op. Hundreds of students attend a full morning of classes, with multiple choices per hour, per age group. A huge undertaking to organize! I am teaching two highschool classes this year. Nature Journaling comes in the third hour and is a lovely way to end the busy morning.
I will summarize the substance of each class, grouping several weeks together after this kickoff post. You will be able to find subsequent posts by clicking on the ‘Series’ tab above.
The Goal
“Our goal in this class is to grow in wonder, curiosity, and the ability to see and record in words and drawings, the nature around us.
We will ask questions and not worry about how well we can draw or what something we observe is named.
We will go outside as often as possible to look, learn and record, though sometimes draw from nature artifacts or learn from videos in the classroom.”
Week One: Cool Stuff!
Starting a new endeavor is often hard, new kids nervous, lots to remember to bring and figure out. I find that settling in to the place, time, and people is best done gently without swamping students with too much information or art tools. In this class I provide the sketching kit but introduce pieces over time.
And so we begin.
Students let me know why they signed up for the class. (Always interesting to gauge interest and to tailor the lessons to the actual kids in the room.) There are ten students ages 13 to 17. Three are repeating the class from last year so I want to be mindful of giving them new material, especially as we repeat the introductory information. Several new ones are there because one gregarious repeat student brought them along with her enthusiasm.
“She was always showing us all this cool stuff she got in the class last year!” confessed one.
“Ah, so you’re here for the ‘cool stuff’?”
“Yeah!”
First Tools
Students received their sketchbook, a mixed media, spiralbound notebook. They also each were given a mechanical pencil and tube of extra leads, all of which they eagerly opened and figured out.
It’s good to play with new tools and the back of the sketchbook is the ideal place for that. They experimented with the different marks their pencils could make and I made sure they each knew how a mechanical pencil works.
Sketchbook Setup
We set up the front of our sketchbooks with a format inspired by Barbara Stecher in her book, Sketchbooking. Leaving the first page blank for a future ‘Title Page’ and the next two spreads for ‘Contents’ and ‘Introduction,’ we emulated the format of a published book.
The first spread after that became home for John Muir Laws’ four nature journal prompts which I wrote on the whiteboard and the students wrote large to fill the page.
“I notice
I wonder
It reminds me of
Could it be?”
These we’ll dig into in future weeks, but I handed out oak leaves and acorns from Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum I’d collected that week and we practiced noticing, wondering, and being reminded of things. One said their leaf reminded them of leprosy. It did indeed have a diseased-looking skin. This is going to be an interesting class.
They took these home to make their first nature page, recording what they notice, in writing, along with the metadata of date, time, place, and weather that we learn to put with every entry in our own distinctive style.
The Blank Page and the Courage to Start
Starting takes courage. We looked at a nature journal I started over the summer and the objectively dreadful attempts of the first pages, attempted in the dark, crowded New England Aquarium, on what was also my daughter’s birthday, and with glasses that did not work. Ha! There are plenty of excuses, aren’t there? I’d left these pencilled in pages as they were, even as I pressed on all summer and produced many satisfying pages. It can be encouraging to see a teacher grow and start where they are also.
Most Important: The Pep Talk!
This was passed on to parents by email and to students in person. In subsequent weeks I’ve seen and heard that this was taken to heart and gives us so much better of a starting place.
You do not need to make perfect or pretty pictures in your nature journal!
Nature journaling means seeing and noticing nature—clouds, weather, trees, change, seasons; birds, bugs, mammals, tracks, twigs, leaves, details—whatever is happening around you. And then recording what you see—in words or pictures or both. It can mean recording data: numbers, temperature, measurement, symbols. Or quotes and poetry and thoughts. It is not all drawing.
However, learning to draw is a skill we can all learn. Putting in your pencil miles—or inches— will bring improvement. Don’t compare your work to anyone else’s, including mine. Your record is unique—it belongs to your experience and life and is worth recording.
Remember, if you’re frustrated and don’t like how a page or observation turns out, don’t berate yourself or make general put-down comments. Try to figure out specifically what you‘re stuck with and we can find a solution together. Give yourself credit for showing up and trying.
Choosing a Nature Spot
Students explained whether they had pets and what environment they live in, everywhere from inner city apartment to the countryside, but with most coming from the suburbs. I don’t take for granted what type of wildlife they each have easy access to.
We discussed a spot they could adopt to observe change throughout the year. Much hilarity ensued from a student in an apartment who swore he had no nearby wildlife, until finally persuaded that the tree outside his window—‘in the way’ of the view—would actually qualify.
The Birthday Bag
As well as making sure I had each student’s email for weekly homework, they recorded their birthday in my plan book.
At a class nearest a student’s birthday, I bring in a gift bag of three or four ‘finds’: art tools, nature ID titles, art pouches, etc. They get to pick something to keep. More cool stuff! No birthdays til next month so I have time to get some good finds together.
Week 1 Homework
Write three answers to any of the four curiosity prompts when observing the leaves or acorns you took home.
Give your answers a separate page. Give the page a heading (like, 'Homework for Class Week 1' and the date, or 'What I Notice' and the date) Always include the date!
Use bullet points or numbers and spread out your answers to fill the page. You could add an oak leaf- or acorn-colored border.
Using the back page or two of your journal, get to know your mechanical pencil, how hard or soft it writes. Try shading, doing different types of lines. In general, play with your new art tool.
Consider a place near your home that you can adopt for this school year to observe change. It could be a tree or tree stump. A pond. A ditch. Anything that you can get to easily and repeatedly and that you're interested in. Also it has to be visible in the winter, so a summer flower patch might work but not be as interesting in January.
Other
Sketch Kit Links
Background Information for Parents
Pencil Inches, encouragement that if you keep drawing, you will learn.
“Remember, if you’re frustrated or don’t like how a page or observation turns out, don’t berate yourself and don’t make general put-down comments. Try to figure out specifically what you’re stuck with and we can find a solution together.”