How We Do Nature Notebooking & What We Use!
Sometimes when we see things that other people do, like nature journaling and nature note-booking, it can seem intimidating. What do they do? Where do they go? How does that work?
So let me share with you all about our nature journaling and nature note-booking – what I keep in our backpack and how we do that.
The Backpack
To start off with, we have a backpack that I got on Amazon, which I absolutely love. They have a few different colors to choose from and it’s perfect for what we use it for.
I keep all of our nature journaling supplies in here so that I never have to think about it. As we use it and think of things that we need – for example when we were journaling recently, we realized we needed more paper towels – I’ll add things to it as we go.
Sketch Pads
We bring sketch pads with sheets that I can tear out for the kids to use and color on. I like thicker paper because it’s better for art supplies like wet paint.
It can also be handy to get all the kids an individual notebook so there’s one central place for each of them to keep everything they’ve created. That way we don’t end up with a stack of stuff that ends up getting lost.
Watercolors & Colored Pencils
In our backpack we carry two watercolor pallets. That’s usually enough to put one on each side of the table and everybody can share.
In another pouch we keep all the watercolor pens. We have used them awhile and really love them. They are just watercolor paintbrushes that you put water in and it makes them usable all the time without needing a separate cup. These are great for kids!
The big girls really love to use our watercolor crayons. They can draw a picture and then go over it with the watercolor paintbrush and it turns the crayon into something that looks like a watercolor painting.
For my own fun I like to bring watercolor pens with a brush tip. They’re a bit like a calligraphy tool, so not necessarily the best thing for the kids to use.
And then usually I also bring a package of regular colored pencils.
So there are lots of different options for drawing and painting but nothing that’s too cumbersome to carry.
Instax Mini Camera
The Instax Mini camera is a great tool for making memories in your homeschool, not only for nature journaling but just taking snap shots around your school room. You can always put the photos into a scrapbook as a homeschool yearbook.
We take our camera and extra film on our outings but there are so many ways you can utilize the Instax in your homeschool and it’s just super fun to have even you’re not a homeschool mom.
Books & Resources
Hello Nature: Draw, Color, Make and Grow by Nina Chakrabarti
This is a book that we added to our collection this year. It has so many beautiful illustrations and includes guides to garden birds around the world, how to identify different leaves, guides to different shells, etc.
There are spots for the kids to draw but we use it more as a reference book.
Anybody with little kids, homeschooling or not, would love this book, especially if you want to get them crafting and creating something around nature. It’s made out of recycled paper, so it’s pretty light for a book of its size.
Wild + Free Nature Journaling Course by Kristen Rogers
This is a curriculum I just bought this year. Last year we bought the nature note-booking books from The Good and the Beautiful and we enjoyed them, but we wanted something different this year. With this course you get a physical book in the mail but the rest of the material comes as a digital download. I have to go through this and make a plan of how want to use it but it looks promising!
Botanicum: Welcome to the Museum by Katie Scott and Kathy Willis
I don’t keep this in my nature note-booking backpack because it’s massive, but it’s so stunningly beautiful. You can learn about so many things like fungi, the giant sequoia, wild flowers, flower structure, aquatic plants – so much inspiration for painting and drawing. It also has an activity book to go with it. I think this is a beautiful resource to put on the shelf in your school room.
Snacks
And of course, I always make sure that our backpack has some snacks and water bottles.
So How Do We Do It?
We like to keep it simple. We pick a park, hiking trail or area around us and then we just explore.
The kids ask questions as they discover things they want to know more about. They might find a beautiful leaf they want to draw so we’ll pick that up and bring it with us.
Sometimes I’ll take pictures of things on my phone or when we find something unique or beautiful we’ll usually break out the Instax and take a picture so we have something to take with us and they use it as inspiration when they’re creating or drawing.
After we’ve gone for our little hike, we find a picnic table or area where we can spread out, and we get out the art supplies and sometimes I’ll turn on some music on my phone. Then we just create and draw, have some snacks, hang out and spend time together getting fresh air and talking over things. It’s super casual, nothing formal.
I am excited to see if there are any ideas I haven’t thought of as far as structure for our nature note-booking, like maybe creating collections.
I also look forward to applying this more as we travel to different places. So when we’re in beach areas we can hone in on things like shells and water plants or when we go through everglades we can discover things about the swamp.
If you’re interested in getting started with nature journaling and nature note-booking, just remember it doesn’t have to be a big thing. It’s just about getting out and spending time together – spending time in nature, getting fresh air, eating snacks and creating together!