ABSTRACT

In this chapter, Jana Walsh recounts her experience implementing nature journaling in her school garden over the course of a school year with her kindergarten students. She uses the journaling as a way for students to make meaning of science concepts and to develop their literacy skills. Her research examined children’s and her own sense of place and belonging, sense of story, and use of authentic literacy. Her account captures both the powerful learning that children engaged in with the assistance of the journals and the setting as well as the sense of peace and calmness that pervaded these weekly experiences as children built their connections with the natural world on their school grounds.