How to Start a Waldorf Nature Journal With Your Child

To start a Waldorf nature journal, get a sturdy book of plain, unlined paper and a few block crayons. Take the same walk with your child once a week and bring one thing home: a leaf, a feather, a snail shell. The next morning, ask your child to draw it from memory, then look at it again and add what they missed. You write the date and a word or two underneath. That's the whole method, and it can run all year.

What is a Waldorf nature journal?

A nature journal is a book where your child records the natural world close to home, week by week, mostly in pictures. The tree at the end of the lane in October. The same tree in February. The worm on the path after rain.

In a Waldorf-inspired home it sits next to the main lesson book, but it isn't the same thing. The main lesson book holds the careful, finished pages of a block. The nature journal is rougher and runs all year. It's closer to a diary than a school book, and some pages will be a single crayon smudge of sky.

Charlotte Mason families keep something similar and call it a nature notebook. AmblesideOnline describes the children keeping "a dated record" that is "not corrected." Waldorf-inspired families often lean more on drawing, and on waiting a day before drawing, which fits how Waldorf teachers approach science.

Why draw it the next day?

Waldorf teachers often teach a natural thing in three steps. First the child meets it with their senses. Then they recall it when it's no longer there. Then, after a night's sleep, they come back to it and talk about what it means. Reinhard Wallmann, writing for Waldorf Resources, describes Steiner's approach as starting with "perceptual observation" and arriving at the concept only after the night's rest.

A nature journal fits that pattern well. The walk is the looking. The drawing the next morning is the remembering. The conversation afterwards, when your child looks at the real leaf again and says "oh, it has a notch there," is where the understanding starts.

In the early grades, keep it to looking with your own eyes. The Parenting Passageway, a Waldorf homeschool blog, suggests looking at things "with the NAKED eye" and saving magnifying glasses and microscopes for later years. A hand lens can come in grade 4 or 5.

What age should children start nature journaling?

Under 7. A young child doesn't need a journal. They need time outside, pockets full of stones and a nature table to put them on. If they love to draw, let them draw freely. The Steiner Connection writes that drawing for young children in Waldorf settings is "an unguided process," and suggests not asking a child what their picture is. You can keep your own journal beside them. Children often copy what they see a parent enjoying.

Grades 1 and 2 (about 6 to 8). This is a good time to begin. Your child draws with block crayons from memory the day after the walk, and you write the date and a word or two that they tell you. Many Waldorf schools take a weekly nature walk in these years. Richmond Waldorf School says its first and second graders do. The journal gives that walk somewhere to land. The grade 1 nature stories and grade 2 nature studies guides show how the walks and stories fit these years.

Grades 3 and 4 (about 8 to 10). Your child can start writing their own captions, then a sentence or two. Some children now want to draw outside with the thing in front of them. Let them try, with a board to lean on. John Muir Laws is a naturalist who teaches nature journaling. His curriculum is mainly for children of 8 and up, and it rests on three prompts: "I notice, I wonder, It reminds me of." They suit this age well, said out loud on the walk before anything is written.

Grade 5 and up. Now drawing from life becomes the heart of it. Waldorfish describes fifth graders in the botany block sketching one flower or leaf outdoors with colored pencils, and noting its smell, texture and number of petals. The grade 5 botany guide goes further into that block.

What supplies do I need for a Waldorf nature journal?

Keep it simple and keep it together in one bag by the door.

• A book of plain, unlined paper. A spiral-bound sketchbook with heavier pages lies flat and takes crayon well. An A4 or letter-size book gives a young child room.
• Block crayons for grades 1 and 2. Stockmar is a brand many Waldorf families use. Block crayons are good for color and shading and hard to use for fussy outlines, which suits this age. Our guide to block crayons and stick crayons says more.
• Colored pencils from about grade 3. Thicker ones, from brands like Lyra, are easier for small hands to hold.
• A pencil for your writing, and later for theirs.
• A clipboard or thin board once your child draws outside.
• A small bag or basket for finds on the walk.

That's all. Watercolors can come later, for older children who want them.

What do you put in a children's nature journal?

One page per walk is plenty. On it can go:

• One drawing of the thing your child brought home, or of something they saw and couldn't carry, like a rainbow.
• The date and the weather. "Tuesday, windy, cold hands."
• A word or a short line your child tells you, written by you until they can write it themselves.
• A first. Mason's families kept a list of firsts through the year: the first catkin, the first ripe blackberries. You can keep one on the inside cover. First frost, first swallow, first conker.
• Something real. A pressed leaf or a feather taped in.

Older children can add labels, a question they want to answer, and a short description of where they found it. Leave out worksheets, fill-in boxes and facts copied from a book. The journal is for what your child saw.

How do I do nature journaling on walks?

Walk the same path each week if you can, so your child sees one place change through the year. Go slowly. On the way, ask one or two quiet questions: what color is that bark, where did that feather come from? Then let silence do the rest.

Let your child choose one thing to bring home. Some things can't come home: a heron, a frozen puddle, a mushroom you shouldn't pick. Then ask them to look at it for a long moment "so you can draw it tomorrow."

The next morning, before anything else, bring out the journal. Ask your child to tell you about the walk first, then draw. When they've finished, put the real leaf or feather on the table and ask what they'd add. Keep this to 15 or 20 minutes. It fits well at the start of the morning, or as the quiet part after a main lesson.

How do I make nature journaling fun for reluctant kids?

Some children don't want to draw, and that's all right. Choose one of these and try it for a few weeks.

• Keep your own journal beside them, and draw at the same time. Don't make a show of it.
• Don't correct and don't praise the result. Notice the effort instead: "you looked at that for a long time."
• Let them dictate. A child who won't draw will often talk, and you can write it down.
• Give it a purpose. "Let's find out when the first leaf falls from our tree."
• Tie it to the festival year. A page for Michaelmas, a page for the first snowdrop at Candlemas. The festival guides mark the year out.

If it still isn't landing, pause for a season. Keep walking. The journal can come back in spring.

How often should kids do nature journaling?

Once a week suits most families. One walk, one page. Over a school year that's around 40 pages, and your child will have watched a whole year go round in their own handwriting and colors.

Some families do more in the spring and autumn, when there's the most to find, and less in the deep of winter. That's fine. The rhythm matters more than the count.

Are printable nature journals worth it?

For an older child who likes prompts, a printable page can be a nice change. For a 6 or 7-year-old, printed boxes and lines tend to decide how big to draw and what to notice. A plain page leaves the looking to them, and one sketchbook lasts the year.

How it fits your year

The nature journal runs alongside everything else, so it's worth tying to the nature blocks you already teach. Starpath's grade 1 Nature Studies block, 16 days on the four elements and the seasons, uses daily outdoor excursions and drawings in the main lesson book. You can read how it runs in the free Nature Studies guide. A journal kept through the year gives those block drawings a place to come from. The grade 1 curriculum guide and the best Waldorf homeschool curriculum for grade 1 cover the rest of that year.

A way to begin this week

Buy or find one plain book. Choose a path you can walk every week, and a day. Go out with your child, come home with one thing, and put it somewhere safe overnight. Tomorrow morning, open the book, write the date at the top, and hand over the crayons.