How to Create a Weekly Nature Journal Spread
A while ago, I came across the idea on Instagram of making a weekly nature journal page. I’d love to give credit, but I can’t remember where I saw it. With this idea, you include a whole week of nature observations on one page.
I love the idea for several reasons.
- It can be hard to find time to do a whole page on one day.
- If you skip a day of journaling, you still feel like you have a complete record.
- It’s fun to do.
There are several things I wish I had done different. I forgot to include the month at the top. The month could easily have fit it in with the year, but I didn’t think of it. I also wish I had drawn the goldenrod stem bigger so there would be more of a focal point.
Here are some things you could include on a nature journal page.
- month, date, and year
- moon phases
- weather
- location
- anything interesting you want to remember
- nature quotes, poems, or Bible verses
- any quotes about nature in your reading that week
- notes about what happened that week
I love the following quote by John Muir Laws.
“To make your observations valuable to science and help you keep track of your experiences, include where-and-when data on every page. It only takes a few seconds to do and converts any journal page from an anecdote to a scientific record. A pretty picture of a bird is just a pretty picture of a bird. However, if that same picture is connected with information about where and when the bird was seen, it becomes a rich scientific record.”
Keeping a nature journal might look intimidating. I’m not an expert, but my biggest tip would be to just jump in and begin. You really do learn by doing. There’s no right or wrong way to keep a nature journal, and you’ll learn what you like and don’t like as you go along.
This would be a great idea to use with my monthly nature calendars. Your child (or you) could use this method to record your nature discoveries that week.
For another nature journaling idea see this post: Nature Journaling: A Close-up View.
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