I've been doing a support group meeting.  Mostly our classes are eclectic, Charlotte Mason, Thomas Jefferson Education, and just eclectic/classical. 

I have been trying to download these pictures for a long time and finally was able to.

Most of you remember the pictures of my boys sitting on our 113 lb pumpkin...

Our speaker this night was Karen Rackliffe author of the book "Wild Days" about nature journals with your children.  She came out to our garden and saw our pumpkin before the class, and she decided to show us how to do a nature notebook and she used our pumpkin as a model.

Here we are all watching her...Karen is the one in the turquois shirt:

I just held these at my house...it wasn't anything formal.

Here is her first rough sketch:

Now she adds some water colors:

At little more:

and this is the finished product:

And then I snapped a picture of one page of her nature journal.  She does these when she takes nature walks with her kids...Her kids each have one too.  They keep their paints, pencils, and paper etc...in a backpack and go on nature hikes several times a week and they do these.  They are amazing...at least to someone like me.  lol

Unfortunately I have had to postpone our support group meetings due to everyone's schedule being so busy and of course I am doing another theater production, a wedding, and too be honest...too many things to list.  lol 

If you want a copy of Karen's book, just google it and you should find it on Barnes and Noble or Amazon or one of the other book places.  I think I bought mine from http://www.pennygardner.com  She is another one of our Charlotte Mason speakers.  I recommend the book to everyone interested in combining art, science and even writing into one activity.  If you use Penny's website just click on the 'nature journaling" button and you'll see it.

Maybe I'll get brave and post some of our nature journal pictures.  ;)

LadyPoet33