Making a Nature Walk Journal with Children by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Making a Nature Walk Journal with Children by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Many local parks have nature walks set up for families to do outings on a regular basis in all seasons.

Using a local resource like a nature trail allows parents to help young children keep observation journals and introduce them to the recordkeeping necessary for science fair projects.

The first project children could do with a journal concerns the walk itself.  Before going on a walk, parents and children could consult a Peterson’s Field Guide about wildflowers, animal life such as birds, and rock bed formations in an area for a walk.

Using my local community in Marina (California) as an example, we have two parks for doing nature walks that can provide lots of data for journals:

-Locke Paddon Wetlands Park by the library

-Marina Dunes State Park

In each of these parks, a parent could help a child note data in a spiral notebook to make each visit unique:

“Ecosystem Observations”

Where:

Date:

Day of the Week:

Time:

Temperature:

Latitude:

Longitude:

Tide Level:

Flora (Plant Life):

Fauna (Animal Life):

Rock Bed:

(Igneous, Metamorphic, or Sedimentary)

Cloud Types:

(Stratus, Cumulus, Thuderheads)

Water Cycle in evidence in area:

Food Webs in Area:

After making a good journal observation list, the reward could be going to Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Pacific Grove Natural History Museum.

Souvenir Ideas:

Compass

Books:

The Complete Book of Science Fair Projects:  The Classic Science Fair Resource by Julianne Blair Bochinski

Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling by John Muir Laws

(Books like those two above can be found in public libraries as well.)

Spiral Notebooks

Postcards of wildlife – Sets

Tracing Paper for postcard pictures

Colored pencils

Crayons

Books about how to make scavenger hunts for birthday parties and outings with tea parties afterwards

Happy Trails!!!!

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France


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