On the last page of our local Saturday paper, a lady who happens to be our vet's wife does a lovely painting and article on some aspect of nature that has given us ideas for our nature notebooks and for field trips as well. Also in our local paper is a weekly article about the stars. From this we have done some star gazing, tried to draw what we have seen and sometimes joined the dots, constellation-like. While beautiful, my youngest was really put off by her inability to draw as beautifully as what she saw. It also contains some beautiful quotes.
Every child is an artist.
The problem is how to remain an artist once he is grown up. Sophocles As for how often, we normally walk every evening that the weather is good with our small dog through our country neighbourhood. If we see something interesting, we might consider it for the journal once we are home. We are pretty informal about it, adding to the journal as the mood strikes. It is nicely illustrated with mostly pencil sketches and has the advantage of being written at about a Grade 3 reading level so that the child can get some reading practice while learning to observe nature in his own backyard.