What do you do when the days are short (it's dark by 4:30pm nowadays!) and the weather has been very cold and wet most of the time? Tiger and I decided to transport ourselves to sunnier places through nature study!
Just to change things around for a bit, I am currently using a new set of 12 nature books that I bought recently as a springboard to investigate interesting aspects of nature around the world.
We have just started on the book of November, and reading through what happens in this month in Europe, North America, and the Arctic. As we have concentrated in the European (specifically British) aspect of nature study in the past, and Tiger has learnt about the Arctic animals before, he decided to spend his time learning more about the Amazonian manatees,
and the octopuses, specifically the North Pacific Giant Octopus:
As we were reading the information and watching the documentaries, it occured to me that I really fancied some drawing, so I invited Tiger to join me in what I'd call "quick-sketch, no-fuss nature journal entry". The idea is to spend not more than 5 minutes sketching (I'm aiming to make an entry in our journal, not a frame-worthy piece of art work) followed by another 5 minutes of writing down everything that we find interesting or noteworthy about the subject. There is no right or wrong answer to this -- it's an individualised piece of work even though we were working alongside each other -- since what we find interesting to write down need not necessarily be identical. As you can see below, our pages differ greatly in style and presentation.
Increasingly, Tiger is showing that he has very clear ideas of what he wants to do and how he wants to do it, so I see my role as showing him one possible approach to how things might be done; it is by no means the only correct way. He is free to either follow my example or to do it in his own way. In case anybody is wondering: Tiger often chooses the latter.
Drawing and writing quickly in our journals is quite an exciting process. It took away both the pressure to create perfect drawings and the dread of a drawn-out session to make a perfect entry. More importantly, we concentrated hard for those 10 minutes and felt exhilarated by it. Perhaps this is the way forward for us, as far as nature journaling is concerned.
This post is linked up to:
Just to change things around for a bit, I am currently using a new set of 12 nature books that I bought recently as a springboard to investigate interesting aspects of nature around the world.
We have just started on the book of November, and reading through what happens in this month in Europe, North America, and the Arctic. As we have concentrated in the European (specifically British) aspect of nature study in the past, and Tiger has learnt about the Arctic animals before, he decided to spend his time learning more about the Amazonian manatees,
and the octopuses, specifically the North Pacific Giant Octopus:
As we were reading the information and watching the documentaries, it occured to me that I really fancied some drawing, so I invited Tiger to join me in what I'd call "quick-sketch, no-fuss nature journal entry". The idea is to spend not more than 5 minutes sketching (I'm aiming to make an entry in our journal, not a frame-worthy piece of art work) followed by another 5 minutes of writing down everything that we find interesting or noteworthy about the subject. There is no right or wrong answer to this -- it's an individualised piece of work even though we were working alongside each other -- since what we find interesting to write down need not necessarily be identical. As you can see below, our pages differ greatly in style and presentation.
Increasingly, Tiger is showing that he has very clear ideas of what he wants to do and how he wants to do it, so I see my role as showing him one possible approach to how things might be done; it is by no means the only correct way. He is free to either follow my example or to do it in his own way. In case anybody is wondering: Tiger often chooses the latter.
Drawing and writing quickly in our journals is quite an exciting process. It took away both the pressure to create perfect drawings and the dread of a drawn-out session to make a perfect entry. More importantly, we concentrated hard for those 10 minutes and felt exhilarated by it. Perhaps this is the way forward for us, as far as nature journaling is concerned.
This post is linked up to:
- Hip Homeschool Hop - 11/4/14
- Finishing Strong - Homeschooling the Middle & High School Years Week 36
- Hearts for Home Blog Hop #90
- My Week in Review #12
- Collage Friday - Hands On, Field Trip, and Fine Arts Learning
- Weekly Wrap-Up: The one that was a lot less stressful
- Science Sunday #2: What Can Be Learned When Experiments Fail?
Thank you for the link to the books. We are covering world geography next year whilst we do the explorers and these would be a great go along.
ReplyDeleteI love both yours and Tigers note pages!
Thanks, Claire. The book set is very good as a springboard to further studies. I'd imagine it will fit well in your world geography lessons. :-)
DeleteIt's always so fun to learn about nature! We studied Giant Squids and Colassal Squids a couple of years ago. They were fascinating, in part, because scientist are just learning more about them.
ReplyDeleteWe have missed nature study this year, so it is good to get back to it. :-) Nature offers endless learning opportunities and there's always something that we don't know about. Getting away from studying British natural history is a good way to look at a topic with fresh eyes. :-)
DeleteWe have had so many great lessons about nature... it's all around us, so that helps. :) It is something we all enjoy a lot.
ReplyDeleteYes, indeed. Nature is often the best and most gentle teacher. :-)
DeleteTen minute natural journalling - I love it! Your journal entry is beautiful, and Tiger's is very creative too. Brilliant that he knows how he wants to do things. Aren't we lucky our children aren't in school, being spoon fed "the one RIGHT way" of doing things?
ReplyDeleteFunny you should write about octopuses. I realised on the third day of our Spain trip this week that I'd been checking whether restaurants had "orange juice without octopus" for J(9). ("Pulpo" instead of "pulpa" - pulp/bits.) No wonder I got a few blank looks from waiters!
I'd love to fit more nature appreciation into our learning.
You're too funny, Luncinda! :-) I can imagine the fun and adventures that you guys are having this week in Spain! The best adventures usually involve instances of 'lost in translations', don't they? My favourite travel tale occured in Seoul when nobody there spoke a word of English (that was many years ago) and I don't speak any Korean, so I didn't know what I was ordering in a restaurant and ended up with a table of 20 different dishes, enough for 5 people! Everyone in the restaurant stopped and stared at this foreign woman who obviously didn't know what she was doing, but I had a blast! :-)
DeleteThe reason I came up with the 10-minute journaling idea is precisely because we haven't been getting it done. It's a trial run to help us get past our/my perfectionistic tendencies and just get something done instead of over-analysing it. It seems to work! :-)
On the note of school, I can't think how it can be suitable or beneficial for any child who is remotely non-conforming. Given Tiger's temperament, I predict I will get called into the headmaster's office every other day! We are much better off doing what we do currently. And yes, I am thankful for the opportunity to be able to homeschool. :-)
I love your Seoul story, Hwee. :-D When I realised what I'd been doing in Spain, the children said, "Now you've got a story to beat the cows one!" They were referring to the time I'd approached a group of surfer-dudes on a northern Spanish beach and asked them earnestly "Where are the cows?" ... ("Vacas" instead of "olas". In my defence, I was on a surf trip and had just driven from France, where waves are "vagues"!)
DeleteToo funny! Your story had me laughing yet again tonight! :-)
DeleteWhat a GREAT idea to sketch for 5 minutes and then write! For kids like mine who don't gravitate to drawing this would be perfect as it would take pressure off them!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jessy. Yes, the idea is to be done in 10 minutes (sketching + writing) so that it leaves no time for pressure to build up! It has worked for us, and I hope it'll work for you too! :-)
DeleteWhat interesting books & I *really* love your nature journals!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lynn, that's very kind of you. :-) It will be great if we can be more consistent with making nature journal entries AND come up with beautiful entries at the same time, but when we can't manage to do both, I'm happy to settle for having more consistency first. Maybe our drawing skills will catch up in due time. :-)
DeleteWow, those books look amazing! My girls would love them. I love what you did with the journal pages, too!
ReplyDeleteI think the books are adequately interesting, but I couldn't call them amazing. They're certainly useful as an introduction to nature study around the world and we've used them in this way. On their own, they're probably slightly thin on content. Thank you for your kind compliment about our pages. :-)
DeleteThe nature study pages are gorgeous! What a great idea for winter nature study.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Phyllis. Sometimes a change is useful to liven things up a little. It has been interesting to start looking at nature from other parts of the world, as a break from that which is becoming a little too familiar! :-)
DeleteI like the quick sketch approach to nature journals - might have to give it a try!
ReplyDeleteDo give it a try! We find that a quick sketch takes the pressure off us, and we actually get something done! :-)
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