Survival Unit Study Review
Survival was not first on my list to study this year. In fact, doing a whole study on survival had never even crossed my mind. It was actually prompted over the summer by my 9 year old during his homeschool interview. When I asked him what he wanted to learn about this year he totally took me by surprise when he said he wanted me to give him $100 so he could go to the store, buy a tarp, and sleep out in the mountains. It was hilarious, but he was dead serious. So, I knew I needed to switch gears and make some of his little dreams come true. His simple request opened the door to an entire study that I think changed all of us for the better.
When I was 16 years old my best friend and I took a paddle boat onto Bear Lake in Idaho one night to stargaze. We naively didn’t tell any parents where we were going and while we were on the boat…with no life jackets…a storm blew in. What was supposed to be a quick little paddle to see some pretty stars turned into ten hours stranded out on the lake soaking, exhausted, and doing everything we could to stay alive as our little boat sunk. We prayed hard and meanwhile, back on land, we were considered missing and our families and the search and rescue teams from both Utah and Idaho spent the night looking for us. The next morning we were eventually found ten miles away from where we had departed. We were hospitalized and the rescue team told us that 95% of the people who spend the night stranded on Bear Lake in the conditions that we were in…die. Our survival was considered a miracle. In fact, it was even reported as just that across multiple news outlets around the country.
That experience taught me a lot about the importance of physical survival, yes, but it also taught me that we are not meant to survive on our own. As human beings we are very interdependent. We rely on one another for knowledge and strength and protection and even rescue. And I think this is very true on a spiritual plane as well. We need each other and we also need Christ. There are some wildernesses we can prepare for, but there are others where we simply have to reach beyond ourselves. I LOVE this compass because it’s a good reminder of this and that God is always our true north.
So, as we moved through this unit there was certainly a level of education on physical survival, but just as importantly, there was also an overarching theme of spiritual survival and how we could apply everything we were learning to just life in general. So, let’s dive into some of the resources we used.
A General Overview of the Curriculum
For the physical survival side of things we used Waldock’s Way Wilderness Survival as a spine. The curriculum is designed to take about 15 weeks, but we condensed it into five weeks spending about 3-4 hours on it a week. Here are some of the areas we focused on:
Week 1: An introduction to Survival: We stuck pretty close to the curriculum for this week. We worked through the survival handbook digitally (showed it on our computer) and went over the basics of first aid, shelters, fires, water, food, and introduced Bear Grylls.
12 Survival Environments: For the remaining lessons we spent about 1-2 days on a variety of survival scenarios from places like the Arctic to the jungle to earthquakes to mountains to volcanoes. In each of these scenarios we also had a lot of “what if” discussions. We learned how to be prepared for emergencies, but also how to respond calmly and wisely in an emergency or dire situation.
Biome Studies: With each environment we studied, we spent some time learning about the biome and what made survival there unique. We even dove into topics like Pompeii and Titanic.
Survival Skills: In the unit study there is a one page information guide that I would read with each environment. We would talk through what we would do in each survival situation. We skipped all of the extension activities, the backpack project and would occasionally use the True and False Questioners.
Videos: We watched a lot of the recommended videos. Some were a big hit with the kids, while others were kind of “meh.” I also found a few substitutes.
Bear Grylls: We learned a lot about Bear and watched quite a bit of his survival content. I’d recommend the Bear Grylls Survival School and The Chosen in the Wild with Bear Grylls. The kids were hooked on the survival school episodes. The Chosen episodes definitely aren’t as fast paced, but the spiritual messages are great.
Aron Ralston: We watched a short documentary on Aron and his story is crazy. My boys especially loved learning about him.
Read Alouds: We used My Side of the Mountain as our main read aloud and it was so good. I would highly recommend it. We all LOVED it. I’d also recommend the old 1970 video to go along with it. You may wonder why I didn’t use this as our main spine (there are lots of unit studies on this) and the reason is because I wanted a broad overview of lots of different survival scenarios plus more of a focus on the biome studies. We never got to Hatchet, but it is on my older girl’s list to read this year.
We ended up skipping the Bear Grylls Complete Adventures books. We read one, but I felt like the meat was in the educational resources and they were just a fun supplemental read and since we needed to condense the unit a bit, these ended up being too much to add on. I am hoping my 9 year old will read a few of these for fun over the rest of the school year though.
Hands On Projects & Games: The curriculum has lots of extension ideas, but instead of doing all of them I just chose a few simpler things we could do as a family. Since this was our first unit of the year I also needed to balance getting back into routine and an all about me art project I wanted to do so I just kind of integrated everything.
Week 1: Settling back into a rhythm & Essentials Kit
Week 2: All About Me Art Projects
Week 3: Paracord Bracelets
Week 4: Essentials Kit
Week 5: Knot Tying
I also got the game Survive the Island, but it was a bust and the kids didn’t love it. They did enjoy all of the games out of the unit though. When we played bingo I would ask them questions from the survival skills pages inside the unit studies. And, we used Jeopardy as the big final “test” at the end of our unit which they loved. They passed with flying colors and we all went out to get sodas for a job well done.
Essentials Gear Kit: This was one of the big highlights of the unit for both me and the kids and it ended up being especially meaningful to me. Inspired by The Dangerous Book for Boys we didn’t make a “survival kit” but we decided to get my dad’s old fishing tackle box which felt extra special because he was an avid fisherman and outdoorsman. We cleaned it out, took pictures of everything inside and kept some of his old things to pass down to my boys. Then we added some of the things they wanted in their own kit. It was so fun and the boys loved it. I shared more about this in my story highlight “Survival Study” on IG.
Our Big Field Day
This was the BIG HIGHLIGHT of our unit and if you’re in Utah (or passing through) I’d highly recommend working with Making Tracks Earth Education. Erik, the founder, absolutely spoiled us. He is super passionate about the outdoors and survival. As homeschoolers, that is our favorite kind of teacher to learn from, isn’t it? As part of a collaboration he custom created a class for us and about 25 of our homeschool friends. We went out into the mountains and had a class where we got to have hands-on experience with:
Outdoor safety
Building fires and shelters
Learning about nature and wildlife
Practicing observation and awareness
Trusting and listening to our instincts
Erik kept us hopping for three hours and boy did my kids sleep well that night! The kids also played lots of games that kept them moving and were very educational. One was even all about the scientific names of plants and animals where the kids learned some basic latin. I overheard one of the boys says, “Wow! I learned a lot today!” We all did! The class was absolutely phenomenal!
Making Tracks Earth Education offers regular classes and experiences for homeschool families and co-ops, but they can also custom create experiences for cooperations, team building, schools, or even just individuals who are interested in the outdoors. They have multiple instructors and Erik told me they’re open to work with any ideas you might have. They offer regular classes from Ogden to Payson out from Tooele over to Midway. All of the classes are listed on their website (and, yes, they still have openings available for this year!) So be sure to check it out and you can find their contact info under the About tab to get in touch with them if you have questions or want to organize your own classes.
What I Hope My Kids Remember
So much of this unit was real life. Even though we went through lots of “What would we do if….” scenarios like What would we do if there was a house fire? What if we were stuck on a boat overnight in a storm? What if there was an earthquake? What if we’re in a car accident? Unfortunately, these are all experiences I’ve lived through or had someone very close to me experience. I hope my kids never have to face those scenarios, but whatever life throws at them, I do feel better knowing we’ve at least talked about what to do, how to stay calm, and where to turn to for help in a very broad way.
It was also very timely that September 11th also fell during this study and so I was also able to share some of my own experiences along with stories of survivors that day. These conversations weren’t always easy, but they gave us opportunities to talk about courage and resiliency and what it means to keep going when life can suddenly look very different than you expected.
Another thing I taught the kids is that in stories and scripture, the wilderness is often a place of testing, trial, and transformation. The Israelites journeyed through the wilderness before reaching Canaan. Lehi and his family left Jerusalem and entered the wilderness before crossing the waters to the promised land. Christ was also led into the wilderness where he was tempted by the adversary before beginning His ministry. We see echoes of this pattern in stories like Harry Potter, Hansel and Gretel, and Briar Rose where the wilderness or forest or castle halls or the waters become a place where characters face trial and temptation and challenge, but ultimately they also experience growth and transformation.
So at the heart of this unit we learned how to survive in a physical wilderness. But, even more, we learned how to survive the wilderness of life. I anchored our study around the scripture:
“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Phillippians 4:13
We can prepare for the wilderness and we should. But we will still encounter things we could never prepare for. I hope my kids learn to recognize the bigger pattern at play here. It is in the wilderness that we are strengthened and transformed and, if we so choose, it is one place we can learn how to connect with a higher power. I hope they can see that when we are sinking in the storm, Christ already has and will continue to reach his hand through that veil to rescue us.
For the record, we never bought my son the tarp. But we did buy him a nice tent. We’re an RV family so camping with a tent is a new experience with him. He has slept in it many nights now and he and my husband have been off on their own little adventures together. I know we’ll keep circling back to these topics again and again as the kids get older, but I wonder if my son realized just how inspired he was when he asked for that tarp though. I think many times our kids know exactly what they need to learn before we do and I am so glad we listened because it made for a pretty amazing family study.
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