July NJ Club Update

Here is the summary for Montara's Nature Journaling Club's July 2025 meet:

1) Welcome and Icebreaker

Ice breaker question: "Why are you here today and what do you hope to get out of this club?"
I also went over the general plan for the meet and reminded everyone that I will make sure to end by 12:30 pm.

2) Walk to spot

3) Main Activity

Everyone sits in a circle, blindfolded.
I gave each person a natural object to feel for two minutes.
I collected all of the items.
I told them that I will be giving them objects again, and this time, some will get new objects and others will recieve the same one as they had before.
I gave out the objects.
Next, I had everyone guess whether they think it is the same object or a new one.
I removed blinfolds and asked them how they knew they were the same/different and what interesting things they noticed about their item.

4) Nature Journaling Session

Now, I told everyone we were going to have a journaling session.
I asked everyone to meet back by 12:00 (by then I think it was around 11:45?).
I asked anyone who wanted guidance to stay behind with me so I could provide them with a prompt (I have index cards with nature journaling prompts on them). If they still don't know what to do, I had some other inspiring materials to provide (like sample journal entries, interesting natural objects, and quotes).

5) Mini Activity

Some of the kids did not want to nature journal for the whole time, so we played a game I'd prepared beforehand.
Earlier, I made two paper dice: one with the numbers 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and one with N, S, E, W, NW, SW.
The first player rolls the dice. Say they get 10, S. In that case, they walk 10 steps South. They stand in their spot and observe everything around them.
Once everyone was position and had had time to observe, I called everyone back. Next, we all went on a tour to each person's spot, with the person acting as a tour guide describing everything they found interesting.
Each round we started at a different location.

6) We walked back toward the trailhead and were there by 12:30, as promised.