Forest Fiesta. . .Nature Journal

I am so excited to share this event with you.  Mommy Labs has put together a special team of bloggers to help celebrate World Environment Day(WED).  This year’s WED theme is Forests.  If you want to know more about WED click the button below.  (While you are there take some time to explore Mommy Labs. . .she is a very creative Mommy!)

Nature Journal (The Cover)

Making a nature journal has been on my to do list for a while and this event gave me the perfect excuse to move it to the top of the list.  I wanted our Nature Journal to be something we made that would be able to grow with us and be used for a long, long time.

what you need: large, thin cardboard piece ~ paint ~ flowers ~ Mod Podge

I really wanted to make the Nature Journal bigger than the notebooks we have.  Little M tends to collect and fill the pages of any notebooks that have blank space.  I thought if this one looked unique I could keep it separate from her collection.

I painted the cardboard white and let it dry before presenting this project.  We happened to have a bouquet of flowers that had seen better days so I let Little M use them to paint with.

I used a picture of our family on a hike and a piece of construction paper to decoupage the front cover.   I think I will probably add a fun word below the picture, but I haven’t come up with the perfect title yet.  I punched holes in the side and used binding rings to hold the book together.

Nature Journal (The Pages)

I have been collecting pictures from our hikes, in hopes that some of them will become subjects in our nature journal.  I really want this journal to be a source of research and discovery.  On our last hike we wandered into an area that burned a while ago.  The sight was breathtaking.

The pictures really don’t do the scene justice.  The trees are blackened and bare but from them new leaves are sprouting.  New flowers surround the burnt logs.

I printed out a few pictures and used a shapie to title the page.  On the next page I wrote three statements.

What we know:
What we want to know:
What we’ve learned:

These statements will let the kids guide the learning.  I plan to let them choose a topic, or picture from one of our outings.  We will be able to discuss the characteristics they already know and what questions they may have.  After further research we will be able to record our findings.  My hope is that as they grow their observations and questions will become more in depth.

Now we are ready to explore our near by forests!

This post is a part of the EARTH DAY lesson plan.

Make sure to see what all of these other talented bloggers have done to celebrate WED.  If you have a contribution but are not a blogger, please post a picture at Mommylab Facebook page or my Facebook.