Kestrel Educational Adventures

On our final day of Survival Rockport Camp: Magic Week, we pulled together the pieces of our story and polished some skills we had been working on. At arrival time, campers completed their personal spellbooks and prepared to use the wands they had been gifted by the flying squirrels. They knew that their new wands granted them the ability to stay cozy in the woods, find their way, and befriend strange creatures, so it was a good day to practice all those magical powers. We began with finding some campers who pretended they were lost in the woods. Our search party had to communicate with them via radios and listen to their clues about the landscape around them. We then moved into choice skills practice, with campers deciding to work on their wilderness firecraft, knot tying, or finishing their shelters. A small group ventured on a hike to find and dig wild cucumber roots to eat and found some delicious ripe wild blueberries, too. Back at camp, "Hurricane Jessica" hit one shelter at a time and tested its design and construction strength. Finally, campers presented their own endings to our Flying squirrel wand tree story, in the form of skits, models, and even a story shared with clay marionettes. Thanks for a great week everyone!

Today began our first week of Survival Rockport camp for the summer. This week's story is that we are all on quest to find a magical wand tree, guarded by a family of flying squirrels. These protective creatures will only allow us to harvest and craft wands from their tree if we can bring them a list of the best trees to help explorers on a long journey, and a drawing of an animal that can find its way. Today we established our camp by making backpack hangers and shelters. A small crew went on a hike to find the important trees. These campers decided the most important tree species for a long journey would be one that provides shade, one that grows out of rocks that you can hold onto while climbing, a very climbable species for escaping danger and looking far out, and one that provides food. The campers then evaluated all the trees on our hike to match them with our own criteria. Meanwhile, the rest of the campers added ribs to their shelter structures and then learned to use metal hire starters. We closed with a ceremonial marshmallow (or two). Ask your camper to tell you what the journey trees are.

Dear Friends of Kestrel: We would love to have a couple of volunteers to help us prepare our supplies for camp. This entails organizing supplies, packing gear, and making camper kits. There are jobs that would be great for teens as well as adults.

ALL of Kestrel's staff are educators; we have no office staff. Our educators would love some help as we have a lot to do before camp starts in less than 3 weeks.

Will trade help for s'mores supplies! Get in touch if you or your teen would like to help us sometime in the next two weeks. Thank you!