Have you taken the opportunity to visit and enjoy the gardens behind our wonderful library?  It’s a beautiful space to stroll, sit, contemplate, meet with friends, and read.  Did you also know that it is a terrific place to bring your nature journal?  That’s exactly what a group of young library-goers did this past June during our Nature Journaling Workshop for children (you can read more about that here).  This fall, we will be offering another nature journaling workshop, this time for adults. We are very excited!

So, what exactly is nature journaling?  To quote Claire Walker Leslie in Keeping a Nature Journal, “Simply put, nature journaling is the regular recording of your observations, perceptions, and feelings about the natural world around you”.  There are no limits.  Along with written descriptions, nature journals can include sketches, photos, magazine/newspaper clippings, poems, pressed leaves, or pounded flowers.  The options are endless and can be suited to anyone’s interests.  Through nature journaling, one will:

• increase appreciation for the natural world
• deepen understanding of nature’s cycles, patterns, and interconnectedness
• strengthen connections with all living things
• encourage curiosity and investigative learning
• improve skills of observation
• improves communication skills
• create a calming, peaceful, grounding experience

If you take the time to make close observations, you will be amazed.  Nature never fails to impress.  So are you ready to get started?  Watch for the sign-up sheet and more information coming late summer...  

In the meantime, here are some helpful links:

How to Make a Nature Journal
Handbook of Nature Study
The Art of Observation (nature journaling with children)

and, of course, some books to get you started:

Keeping a Nature Journal, Clare Walker Leslie and Charles Roth
The Nature Connection: An Outdoor Workbook, Clare Walker Leslie
Illustrating Nature: Right-Brain Art in a Left-Brain World, Irene Brady
Nature Journaling: Learning to Observe and Connect With the World Around You, Charles E.   Roth
Hands-On Nature, Jenepher Lingelbach

Please continue to visit for more information about our on-going nature journaling activities.