Nature Journal
Kids are natural
scientists. Their childlike energy and curiosity lends itself to a
natural science approach. Science for children is exploring, wondering,
collecting, touching, observing, and recording.
Step out into God's classroom with your child and enjoy! Open your door
and follow your child down nature's path looking at the home of the roly-poly
who lives under the lowest log and looking as high as the stars in
heaven. Be an ant tracker and follow one of these little creatures to his
home. Examine spiders and marvel at the talent God gave to these
wonderful web weavers. As you introduce your child to God's creation and
the natural world all around him, questions will arise. Many
"hand/help" books can be obtained free through your local
library. One great resource found in the reference section of your
library is A Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Comstock. This is a
wonderful book with a wealth of information and ideas.
When you go exploring, take along your Nature Journal and a pencil.
Encourage your child to make a sketch of a bug, flower, bird, animal, or
leaf. Looking at nature is like looking through a kaleidoscope where
pattern after pattern, design after design, and texture after texture can be
seen. Don't forget that nature is not only color and form but music
also! Listen for the gurgle of a brook, the patter of rain, the buzz of a
bee, and the orchestra of the birds.
Spotting wild animals in your area may be difficult because many of them are
active only at nighttime. However, together you can learn about their
lives as you gather evidence about them from what they leave behind: food,
droppings, burrows and nest, and especially tracks. Identifying their
tracks can be great fun. Do your detective work early in the day before
wind, rain, or other creatures disturb the tracks. If you go out quietly
at dawn or dusk, you might even see who made the track!
Where do you look? Rocks and wet meadows will rarely provide impressions
of tracks but mud, sand, dust, and snow will be places you can discover
footprints. Along the bank of a river, stream, or pond or near a
puddle on an out-of-the-way dirt road or path are good places to start your
search. Mud records tracks in fine detail and most animals go to these
wet places to find drinking water. The sides of roads and sandy trails or
dry stream beds/banks are other likely spots to find tracks. Fine, moist
snow also gives excellent opportunity for discovering animal trails.
Look for clues to find where animals have been: disturbed leaf litter on the
forest floor, scratched or gnawed tree bark, a patch of flattened grass, a pile
of acorns or pinecones, nests, burrow holes, and droppings. Search those
areas for footprints.
Tracks can be grouped according to similarity to make identification a bit
easier. Hoofed mammal prints that you might see are moose or
white-tailed deer. Tracks with five toes and a pad usually belong
to the weasel family (mink, otter, skunk, and fisher). Footprints with four
toes and a pad belong to coyotes, foxes, bobcats, and weasels (the weasel
has five toes but only four of them can usually be seen in their tracks).
Prints that are similar to human hand or footprints are from
raccoons, beavers, muskrats, porcupines, woodchucks, opossum, and black
bears. Rabbits, cottontails, and hares have long hind and small fore
prints. Small prints are from rodents: squirrels, chipmunks, voles,
moles, mice, rats, and shrews.
By learning about animals’ habitats, you can through process of elimination solve
the mystery of similar tracks. If you see a small human-like print in an
open woodland area, you are probably looking at a woodchuck print not that of a
muskrat who lives in and around a pond or stream.
Without ever seeing any wild animals, you and your young detective can learn
which ones live in your area. You can make a journal by simply
folding paper in half and covering it with a piece of cardstock. Your
child can decorate the cover. We have included two printable files below
of the more common tracks you might encounter. Either print separately,
or print one side and send it through your printer a second time to print the
opposite side. This can then be placed in the center of your child's
nature journal for a quick and easy reference.
Don't forget to bring a bag to store treasures picked up along the way!
Click here to download animal prints!
Click here to download animal prints 2!