NATURE JOURNALING IN A FIFTH GRADE CLASSROOM

 

Nature Journaling in a Fifth Grade classroom
 
          Earlier this week I was able to visit Amtulnoor Grosser’s 5th grade classroom at Garrisonville Elementary in Stafford to talk about Nature Journaling.  It was a great visit and I really enjoyed working with her great bunch of fifth graders.  During my visit Amtulnoor and I talked about ways to introduce the topic and how it might fit in as a regular classroom activity.  Based on that discussion and my observations of the class working in the classroom and outside, here are some ideas for using Nature Journaling. 
 
Journaling using more than one notebook.

1.  The small, 3.5 in x 5.5 in, ruled journal - this is a pocket-sized, portable journal that students can carry just about anywhere.  It’s a place for recording quick observation, questions, ideas, and very simple quick sketches.
2.  The larger, 5.5 in x 8.5 in blank page journal – this is the larger journal for drawing/sketching/mapping. 
3. The single object card, a 6 in x 4 in index card with prompts for writing and sketches.  This card is for recording more detailed information about a single, interesting, object.

               This approach differs from the more traditional idea of recording everything in a single journal.  We tried this in Amtulnoor’s classroom in the following way:
- First hand out the small journals and let students know these are for writing questions, recording obsevations, and ideas.
- We then gave each student a large, 4- 5 inch, fairly realistic model of an insect.  We asked them to look closely at the insect and record their observations and questions in the small journal. 
- After a few minutes of work with the small journals, we then gave them the large journal and asked them to do some drawing and sketches of their bug.  We also asked them to look closely at different parts of the insect (legs, mouth parts) and do some detailed sketching, and to use rulers to do some measurements to add to their drawing.
- The third step would have been to ask the students to fill out (as best as they could at this time) an object card for their insect.  We wanted to give the students some outside time so they could do some field practice with their journals so we didn’t get to this step.
 
Benefits.

           There are many good approaches for implementing Nature Journaling in classrooms - you will see several described in the Final Projects/Reports page on this site.  One of the primary benefits of using this particular approach might be:
- Getting students to write first, developing ideas and thoughts before drawing.  And there might be many occasions where students don’t have time or the setting isn’t quite right, for drawing, but they can use the small, portable notebook to record questions and ideas about something they’ve seen.  It’s possible that, with questions and ideas already in mind (and recorded) drawings might be more focused. 

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