"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers!" - Anne of Green Gables Is what I've been saying to myself over and over again this week as the kids and I have stepped outside each day to Nature Journal. I signed us all up for the Nature Journaling class offered online by Brave Writer. It's a four week long class, we are one week in, and I am loving it. I had no idea how soothing and rejuvenating sketching outside in nature could be. Sure, I've had my kids do Nature Journaling for a few years now, but I've always got a baby or a toddler or both to chase around and keep alive, so I've always just turned the kids loose on their own to journal, while I tended to business. But for this class I'm making an effort to journal also, so the kids can see me, so that they can watch me take a time out to communicate with out-of-doors, so I can show them the details I've found, and the things that catch my eye. So we can talk about it at dinner.....so they can share their discoveries with me. And as we look and notice and talk and share, we will be building a richer vocabulary, a shared love of this beautiful world, and a connection with our God who created it all.
The class is incredibly fun, seriously. I didn't know how an "online" nature journaling class would go....it seems counter intuitive, right? But it's well thought out. Basically you log in to your class, and they have a lesson posted that you can read through. Then each day they have suggestions for different activities you can do with your kids. Example, week one was In Your Own Backyard, so the focus for journaling was on things that were close to home. Week two is about going further away from home, on a nature outing, and journaling there. There are suggestions of games to play, different methods of journaling to try, writing extension activities for older kids, tips and suggestions for other resources, etc. Then at the end of the week you pick one entry to submit to the class, and you answer the questions the teacher has asked. Then the teacher goes through each one and gives feed back. Since this is a family class, I posted one entry for each of my three oldest kids (the picked which ones they wanted to submit), and I typed for them while they answered the questions. Our teacher was lovely and took time to make a personalized response and to walk through each individual submission with my kids, pointing out what they did well, encouraging them to try different things, and giving suggestions about what would make their journal time more beneficial and meaningful for them. The teacher also coaches me on how to give the kind of feedback that will be most helpful to encourage creative writing skills in my kids.
I'm thrilled, truly. I've always loved writing, but sometimes I struggle to instill that love into my kids who don't quite love it so much. And since writing has always come naturally for me, I've never known how to break it down to it's parts to present the parts to the kids when they don't "just get it". And this class is helping SO much. And let's be honest.....I can praise and respond with positive feedback until I'm blue in the face....but sometimes my kids just need an "outsider" to do the same thing before it clicks, or motivates, or whatever. And so this class is giving us that as well.
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