How to Teach Nature Journaling: Resources for Educators

OVERVIEW

Inspire Curiosity and Wonder In Your Students with Nature Journaling

How to Teach Nature Journaling is a collection of activities and tools to engage children in outdoor learning, created by John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren for their book of the same title. You can download the activities and teacher support guides from this site. A complete copy of the book is available for free as a PDF file, and a printed book version is available for purchase.

Wild Wonder Educator Program

The Wild Wonder Educator Program provides a supportive, nurturing community where you can gain the confidence, skills, and mentoring you need to share your love of nature journaling with others. This program offers several options, including a Nature Journaling Educators Workshop and a Nature Journal Educator Certificate. 

Your Quick Start Guide to Nature Journaling

Download or order printed copies of our new zine: Your Quick Start Guide to Nature Journaling. (“Zine” rhymes with “green” and is a mini-magazine!) This handy zine includes everything you need to get started nature journaling and it is a perfect handout for new nature journaling students age 6 and up. Now available in six additional languages, and those versions are available in two sizes: 8.5x11 or A4!

Nature Journaling:

  • Builds creativity, curiosity, and observation and critical thinking skills.

  • Nurtures a connection to nature and the outdoors.

  • Invites children and adults alike to slow down, pay attention, and experience awe and wonder.

Learn Why Teaching Nature Journaling is Important

Explore these 31 FREE Field Activities to:

  • Set students up for success in journaling in any outdoor context.

  • Build students’ foundational journaling practices.

  • Scaffold skills of writing, drawing, mathematics, scientific thinking, and visual communication.

  • Connect to key concepts in art, science, math, language arts, and environmental literacy.

  • Spark collaboration and connection within a school, class, educational group, or family.

See all Activities

Educator Support:

  • Engage and manage student groups in the outdoors.

  • Offer meaningful, supportive feedback on student work.

  • Choose activities appropriate for your goals and setting.

  • Integrate journaling into lessons and units.

  • Connect to educational standards and frameworks, including the Common Core, the NGSS, Charlotte-Mason Inspired Education, Waldorf Education, and more.

View Educator Support Resources

“[Nature journaling] is a natural way for parents and teachers to integrate the mystery of nature into the lives of children.” —Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, in his review of How to Teach Nature Journaling