Each week when we get home from our nature study group outing, I set up a little tray with our “finds” for the children to look at, play around with, and record in their journals. Having it on a tray (instead of on our nature shelf or spread out on the dining table) is the key–it allows me to move it when the littles are around or to put it aside to take out the next afternoon if we want to revisit it. It most often happens, for example, that the children will sketch and color on Friday afternoons after our outing, but I’ll have my hands full of a baby (or two!) and won’t get a chance that day. So I just put the tray up on top of the bookshelf that evening, and I pull it back out on Sunday afternoon, when my husband is home and I can spend a quiet hour working in my journal alone or with just my oldest two. (As I’m sure you can imagine, as soon as I get my notebook out, the big kids are begging to grab theirs as well. 😉 The convenience of taking it all in the other room if the toddlers are around or of pulling it out to look at for a few moments without turning the dining table into a mess…so very helpful for our busy household.
7 comments
This is a most excellent idea–I'm going to borrow it! Thanks so much!!
we do this too! thanks for sharing, celeste. 😉
This might sound silly, but…Where did you buy your trays? Of what are they made? We've used glass jars, but I like the tray idea better, especially with the white underneath to provide contrast. Great idea! 🙂
Not silly at all, Brandy–I should have linked to them before! We got them through our homeschool charter school, but they are these particular ones are the Easy-Clean Craft Trays from Lakeshore Learning: http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/product/productDet.jsp?productItemID=1%2C689%2C949%2C371%2C898%2C055&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=1408474395181113&bmUID=1366129075632. They're made out of durable plastic. Useful for all kinds of things, including keeping beading and hand-sewing projects tidy. (Handcrafts! ;))
Thank you for sharing this! I knew I wanted to let my daughter gather some things to add to her nature notebook but wasn't sure exactly how it would happen… (I envisioned a big mess). This is so organized and it's easy to see each thing in the tray. I am going to do this. 🙂
This is awesome! We usually do Leave No Trace outings, but I'm going to have to consider doing this, at least some of the time. It would be so nice to be able to do drawings at home at least part of the time.
Ritsumei
What a lovely simple idea! My youngest loves to collect and display her nature finds and we can all benefit from having a common nature tray handy! I love the freedom this has for each of us to also sketch, research, document and discover something from the tray each week.