Discover the fantastic national parks of our country without ever leaving the comfort of your own home unless you want to. That’s right, I’ve discovered a curriculum that will take you and your kid’s trekking across the country to 60 of America’s national parks!
*Disclosure: I was asked for an honest review of Traveling the Parks. I was compensated for my time. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own. I only choose to share resources that I would use with my own family and those that I believe other families will enjoy and benefit from.
Discover National Parks for Kids
My daughter and I started exploring United States geography with The Waldock Way’s Traveling the States this year. We started with our home state of Tennessee and have had a grand time. Then I thought it’s a shame we can’t explore the National Parks at the same time that we were exploring the states. After all, the Great Smoky Mountain National Park is just down the road from our home.
Hold up! Who says we can’t?
The Waldock Way has a Traveling the Parks curriculum that you can pair with their Traveling the States curriculum if you want OR trek the parks all on their own. Either way, you and your kids are going to discover some fascinating natural wonders!
The Waldock Way Traveling the Parks
Traveling the Parks is a unit study style year-long curriculum created by Jessica of The Waldock Way.
Traveling the Parks is a digital product emailed to you after purchase. There are lots of easy-to-click links within the teacher’s manual.
There is only one required book you’ll need for this curriculum:
- America’s National Parks
Jessica has done a fantastic job including extras, including:
- additional book list for each National Park
- game list – both games you can purchase separately, and several printable games
- link/QR code to a virtual tour for all 60 National Parks
- map page
- park in numbers page
- travel journal page
- animal profile page
- Who Was Theodore Roosevelt mini-unit study
- plus so much more!
Animal Profile Page
We started with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Did you know this 522,427-acre park is home to all sorts of animals, including thirty different species of salamanders? I think it’s funny that we’ve hiked in this national park many times and have never seen a salamander. We’ve got to start looking harder!
Even though the salamanders were super cool, my daughter wanted to learn more about the red fox. We’ve had a few pass through our yard before. She then added the red fox to her animal profile page.
Did you know the red fox is an omnivore?
Discover National Parks for Kids
The park in numbers pages are super cool because your kids can calculate:
- how many miles it would take to travel the park
- number of days it would take to travel to the park
- things to do
- things to see
- document any historic buildings
- and more
Then, with the Who Was Theodore Roosevelt mini-unit study, your kids get to discover the man responsible for the creation of our national parks!
What I Love about Waldock Way’s Traveling the Parks
Traveling the Parks is recommended for ALL ages, and we love it! Traveling the Parks is not scripted, and there is a suggested schedule of activities to do each day. However, you can adjust the plan to fit your child and family! Traveling the Parks is perfect for our delight-directed/interest-led homeschool.
I adore all of the extra resources that Jessica lists with each park. Because of her book list, we found several additional books at the library about salamanders!
Traveling the Parks is a digital curriculum, so print off what you need when you need it!
Homeschooling the National Parks
The Waldock Way’s Traveling the Parks is an excellent unit-study-style curriculum. It helps you travel to 60 of our National parks through videos, books, and hands-on activities! You can easily pair it with the Traveling the States curriculum and simply visit the national park as you also study the state that it resides in. Study the parks in any order you wish and enjoy all of the interesting facts and tidbits you’ll discover along the way. You won’t be disappointed!
You may also enjoy learning about how we incorporated Waldock’s Wizard and Wands into our homeschool last year: Harry Potter Homeschool Perfect for Young Wizards
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