Nature's Playground

I received Nature's Playground about a month ago. I must say I am very impressed with the content.

The book begins by going over outdoor places to consider, how to include the entire family and ways to encourage everyone to get involved. After the introduction, the book divides into a section for each of the seasons, year long activities, activities for after dark, safety and resources.

This book is the perfect place to start if you are unsure on how to bring your family closer to nature.

The photographs are exquisite as they depict real children enjoying the great outdoors.

Several Suggestion for Autumn from Nature's Playground:

1. natural painting: using plants and berries to create paint
2. autumn collections: collecting various natural treasures most found on the ground
3. forest mobiles: using natural treasures to create mobiles

You must purchase the book yourself to find out details and more activities to get your family involved with nature. 

Our Nature Journals

The other day when I got the new book, I Love Dirt, I had said that the boys and I would be creating nature journals. Well, we did!

Here are the Procedures:

1. Create a cover page for your journal.

*I love to go to discovery school clipart to find great pictures that can be used for various projects.*

You will need to right click on the clipart and save it to you computer. Open up WORD and create a text box. You can insert the picture into the text box and move the text box around on the page until it is in a position that you like.

Our cover page has a plant on it. You can see both above and below the soil which I thought was quite appropriate for a journal about nature.

2. Add a title to your cover page.

I used a free font called BASIC FONT. It is a nice bubble font that allows the letters to be colored in.

3. Print cover page.

4. Allow your children to color using QUALITY coloring any way they wish.

5. Use packing tape to adhere the cover to a composition notebook.

Make sure to cover the entire picture so that it stays put and doesn't end up getting ripped.

*You want to avoid tears if at all possible.*

I hope you enjoy creating a Nature Journal with your family.

Click on the hyperlinks to take you to resources that I used to create our cover page.