Today I am going to review a book that I haven’t read. It is a book that my husband is reading and telling me so much about I thought I would make it part of the [1] Saturday Review of Books.

The book is [2] Nature Journaling by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E Roth.

For the last 4 years my husband has been a contractor in nuclear power (He has worked in the industry for over 20 years). For most of that time he worked in one place. This year he had to hit the road. At first that seemed like a big negative but now it is beginning to look like a big positive. As a permanent nuclear radiation protection specialist he works long hours without any time off, as a contractor he works long hours when working but then can take time off. He has been off the month of January and we are all a bit sad that he starts back to work Monday. Thankfully, it is a local job.

While he has been off he has set up a bird watching station in our bedroom. He put a 6 foot table in the bedroom, covered it with a nice tablecloth, bought a very pretty transferware looking lamp, set out all his bird books, found a odd nature notebook around the house, bought tons of birdseed and attracted even more birds to the feeding area.

He has greatly enjoyed the book Nature Journaling for its emphasis on amateur work and quick drawing, not meticulous drawing.

He has also started up a little contest with the children. Everyday he puts a different bird on the desktop and they each have to come to him when they have identified the bird. Even little Alex was able to identify the prothonotary warbler. (Why doesn’t the spell check recognize prothonotary?)

Tim is transferring what he is reading in the book to his children by learning the art of nature journaling. Now he can give the children tips on drawing for their journals.

Yesterday, he read me this quote which sealed the book’s fate as my review of the week:

Becoming a Naturalist
pg 9 of Nature Journaling.

The overwhelming majority of people who become good naturalist don’t gain their knowledge from formal schooling. They get it in the field, by devoting themselves to direct observation and spending time with other largely self-taught naturalists. Nature journaling is a process that fosters self-learning, challenging the observer to combine intellect with experience. The work naturalist has disappeared from education today. Many of us know about specialists m, the oncologist, dentists, physicists, gerontologists, chemists…….
We disagree with the current trend towards over-specialization. Naturalists study nature outdoors, everywhere, and every part of it - rocks, volcanoes, buffalo, clouds, tides, earthworms. They are generalists and rank among the oldest of scientific learners. Pliny, Aristotle, Darwin, Linnaeus, Audubon, Pasteur, Thoreau, and Thomas Jefferson were all naturalists.”

All of this relates back to something I have been wanting to blog about for a long time. Passing on what you love to your children is one of the greatest gifts homeschooling can bring to a family. Whether it is birds or trees or knitting or Latin or grammar or wildflowers or music, your children will naturally learn to love the things that you love. This is a tremendous boon for the whole family. After our children have identified 10 birds on the desktop they get a cup of hot chocolate free. Hot chocolate is a money making enterprise for my husband and I That way he adds a little external motivation that keeps the learning from losing its initial excitement.

One of the best things about Charlotte Mason was her encouragement to get children out of doors learning about their environment through familiarity. She encouraged nature notebooks as
a way to accomplish attention to detail. Nature journaling is a type of narration. Familiarity with the outdoors is sadly lacking in our society of specialists. I honestly don’t think learning English grammar is more important than being familiar with the birds and trees of your own neighborhood. You don’t have to neglect one to have the other!

This book would be a great addition, a worthy purchase, for any library, especially a family one.