A couple of months ago I joined a group on the internet which is called 'The Northwest nature study group'.  It's quite self explanatory and I thought it would be another opportunity for my boys to get out and about with other homeschoolers and I could benefit from someone else's area of expertise.  I've not managed to get to one of the monthly meetings yet, ('Best laid plans of mice and men gand aft aglay...'), but we have started nature journals.

This is a great idea and a little like how we used to do autograph books when I was a child.  We all have our own journal and choose a nature theme and then create a sign-in page and create our double page entry.  Then we post the journal on to the next person on the list.  There are 5 groups of about 7 sending journals to each other.  And this made me smile... about half the journals are going all over the country, some even to Spain!  Not quite 'Northwest' then.....

LJ  and PJ both chose 'animals' as their theme and we had a great time preparing their journals and researching their animals.  Hippos for LJ and kangaroos for PJ.

Creating the signing in pages.  We finished (in a bit of a rush before our holiday) and posted and on arrival back from holiday found the next journals to complete.

LJ's journal was on the theme of 'Under the sea' so he chose to research the octopus.  We found a great online clip of an octopus 'pouring' itself through a very small hole.  Amazing!

PJ's theme was 'In the garden' so he drew some roses and a leaf from our garden.  And now we post and wait for the next journals....