Ranger Training Adventures
Throughout history, “Ranger” is a word that has been used to describe scouts, explorers, and adventurers of all kinds, well before the modern Army Ranger. They would have to be experts at many skills – survival, navigation, climbing, tracking, scouting, mission planning, camouflage, and more. Unlock an exciting path to adventure for your child with a whole year of missions and skill training!
Excitement and Challenge
What's more exciting when you're a kid than getting letters and going on adventures? How about monthly letters from a real Army Ranger, complete with missions, field guide cards, training activities and plans!
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Nothing awakens the imagination like a call to adventure and a pathway to develop skills and abilities so they can take charge of their own adventures with confidence.
Missions and Adventures All Year
Every month of the course your child gets access to new sections that include a latter from a real Ranger instructor, a simple workout plan and tracker for the month, printable Ranger handbook field guide cards, and a new mission brief that will get them outside - learning, exploring, and growing their skills and confidence. Everything is printable too, so you even print off and deliver a whole mission packet to your Ranger candidate each month!
What Are the Missions Like?
Sometimes the mission will just be one adventure for the month, and sometimes there will be multiple. Expect to do things like planning and scouting a hike route to a new place you've never been, learning to build a low-visibility campfire quickly, setting up a field-expedient shelter to camp in, using codes and ciphers to send messages, or a camouflage hide-and-seek mission.
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The mission briefings provide guidelines for how to conduct the mission and are accompanied by instructional material for the young Ranger to learn and practice basic skills that will be used - like how to tie simple knots, how to properly and safely build a fire from scratch in under 3 minutes, how to use a map and compass with terrain association to plan a route, etc. But each young Ranger will learn and practice the process of planning their own mission and executing their plan.
What Age is this For?
We recommend and use Ranger Training Adventures for ages 8 - 12. They include everything needed for an individual child to embark on their own adventure missions, but they're also fantastic for multiple children to do together as a team, and we highly recommend putting a group together for them - we incorporate them with siblings and homeschool co-op meetings and they're always a hit!
How it Works
1. Sign up
Subscribe here
2. Log In
Once you subscribe you'll be added to the program, which you can access through your profile button in the top right of the screen
3. Ranger up!
Every four weeks new missions and materials will drop that you can print out if you wish, or just check in on here for the missions and plans. Practice new skills, track your training progression, and start completing your missions!
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Ranger Training Adventures?
Ranger Training Adventures is a unique subscription program that invites children aged 8 - 12 to learn new skills and embark on adventure missions that will develop their imagination and intrepidity, with stories and coaching from a real Army Ranger!
What is included in a subscription?
A subscription includes 13 printable packets over 12 months - 2 in your first month (a welcome packet and the first mission packet), then 1 new packet each month. The training packets are hosted here in the Programs section, and aach packet includes a letter from the Ranger Instructor, two Ranger handbook pages to print out and build a complete handbook over the course of a year, a monthly physical training plan and tracker, and an adventure mission briefing. Also included are videos and training resources like example page PDFs that will be available every month to help young Rangers get eyes-on some of the activities they'll be doing. There is also a downloadable Parent's guide that gives a brief overview for adult facilitators for how to help with missions when necessary, how to modify elements based on your particular circumstances, and ideas for how to incorporate the Training Adventures with a group like a homeschool co-op or a team of neighborhood kids who want to train together.
What is the recommended age for this?
We recommend this program for ages 8-12, but there is a lot of room for variety depending on how you want to use it. We have several children in that age range doing the program themselves, but they also like to bring along younger siblings (5 and 6) who get to do certain parts of it with them as they can. This actually enhances the program quite a bit, as it fosters teamwork and allows the Ranger-in-training to start developing and practicing leadership skills. They love sharing the adventures with siblings as they really feel like they're part of something special, and everyone enjoys the excitement of the missions!
Is this a military training program?
Although it draws heavily from a lot of the training and methodologies employed by military units like the Army Ranger Regiment, this is not a military program. All of the missions are geared towards broadly usable and beneficial skills and experiences, like navigation, climbing, physical exercise, planning, bushcraft skills, camping, and communication. All of which factor heavily into military operations as well! But as we point out in our introduction letter, "Ranger" is a word that has been used for centuries to describe scouts, explorers, frontiersmen, and adventurers of all kinds, long before the modern Army Ranger. There is no explicitly tactical element to the Ranger Training Adventure program.
Who is the ideal candidate for this program?
The answer to this question would depend a lot on your particular goals. One the one hand this would be right up the alley for an active kid who loves playing outside and exploring, wants to try new things and overcome challenges - it is a natural fit for the natural "go-getter" child. On the other hand, it could be a fantastic structure and motivation for a kid who is not active, not exploratory, not driven to the outdoors or adventures... Ranger Training Adventures can help an "un-ideal" candidate really start to unlock and step into capabilities and experiences they probably would not have otherwise. It's also phenomenally well-suited for structured group activities like co-ops and play groups - we even recommend forming neighborhood teams of a whole group of kids to do the training and missions together.
Meet the Cadre
Joel Trumbo
A Virginia native and resident, Joel served for 11 years in the military, deploying all over the world from 2003 - 2013, including 4 deployments to Afghanistan as part of a JSOC task force while serving in the 75th Ranger Regiment, the Army's premier special operations direct action unit. He attended numerous specialty schools while serving as a Ranger, including Regimental Master Breacher, Squad Designated Marksman, and Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE-C). He completed 8 more deployments after getting out of the Army, working on close protection teams in Iraq and Africa until 2018. In many ways Joel is still a little boy at heart; from climbing trees and playing soldier as a kid to running secret missions behind enemy lines, Joel has always sought out adventure and excitement. Now with 10 kids of his own, Joel gets to share the knowledge and adventure with them, which is how Ranger Training Adventures came to be. Whether he's doing night-time mountain hikes and tactical driving drills with his teenage sons or playing camouflage hide-and-seek and rappelling with his younger kids, Joel always wants to inspire the same spirit in younger Adventurers.
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