The Appalachian Trail: A Unit Study Review

Back in November we just returned from the Shenandoah Valley and mountains where we spent a week at. We got to do some studying on the Appalachian Trail and we were very interested in learning more about it. We were able to do a review on “The Appalachian Trail: A Unit Study” from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine and the Schoolhouse Review Crew. 

While we were in the mountains we realized how close we were staying to the Appalachian Trail and could have gone walking on it while we were at the condo. Instead we decided to wait until we traveled into town to go walk on it some. We tried to hike down to a waterfall that was on the trail in Virginia but we never made it there and had to turn back around before night fell upon us. But this is something that we can’t wait to go hike in the spring time! However this Unit Study was perfect for us since we had just returned from the mountains to do more investigating The Appalachian Trail and do some great activities that was in the unit study.

One thing that I loved about this unit study was that it had a lot of activities and learning activities to do to learn more about the trail. I had Olivia do a report on what kind of animals she could find there on the trail that you may run into and she came up with a great report. She learned more about other trees that were on the trail and she learned what not to do on the trail as we investigated on the internet. We already had a map showing the full Appalachian Trail from when we visited the Great Smokey Mountains back in April so this was perfect to be able to pull out and check out all the neat checkpoints. The book has several activities that cover each subject including home economics which when I was growing up didn’t do until the 6th grade so this was perfect for us. This book has over 150 activities in it and there is something for everyone in your homeschool group. This can be done with one child or if you belong to a co-op group then perfect for that to incorporate some activities in learning and possibly even taking a field trip for hiking some. I might make a suggestion to our tween group about going this spring on top of our own personal trips. We loved doing a little project involving some of the leaves that we collected while in the mountains and she gave the project to my grandma to cherish. I was very impressed with how well the art project came out and she enjoyed learning about the trail while she was working on the project. We have made a few recipes like trail mix that we can take out on hikes with us when we head back to the mountains and we can’t wait to go hike some. We have already started making hiking packs to be able to use and it will include an epi-pen for myself and Olivia in each bag. Olivia loved doing this unit and we plan on continuing to learn about The Appalachian Trail during the rest of this school year.

We have already made plans on where we want to start off on the trail for when the spring comes and we can’t wait to go for our hike. We have already bought a few hiking backpacks to be able to use on our hikes. We plan on going to a local park called Medoc Mountain that is close by to go hiking on to get some practice for when we go in the spring to the mountains in North Carolina. That is the glory part about living in this state because we are so close the trail to go enjoy it. We absolutely loved doing this study and we loved being able to do the review on it. You can get your own copy of the unit study here for only $4.95 and they have other unit studies that you can do. We plan on getting a few more to go along side some of the books we are reading this school year.