Kestrel Educational Adventures

Kestrel Educational Adventures Visit our website www.kestreleducation.org

TOMORROW! A free talk by the author who inspired much of Kestrel's teaching approach; David Sobel, with our Founder/ Dir...
08/26/2026

TOMORROW! A free talk by the author who inspired much of Kestrel's teaching approach; David Sobel, with our Founder/ Director serving on the discussion panel. Kestrel has an entire section on our shelves for Sobel's books, and they are required reading during staff trainings. He teaches that instead of teaching climate disaster to students indoors through books and simulations, we should take students outdoors and have them conducting project work that engages them directly in their community and their local environment. He has worked throughout his career to train educators to value students' connection to the wild, their own ideas, and to nurture a sense of care. His books discuss the value of fort building, map making, and moving things, holding things, and playing in the wild.

This event is free, but please pre-register, and we will see you there!

Kestrel Founder Jessica Kagle will be on the panel for this event featuring a talk by Kestrel's leading inspiration for ...
08/20/2026

Kestrel Founder Jessica Kagle will be on the panel for this event featuring a talk by Kestrel's leading inspiration for our teaching methods, occasional mentor, and all around nature-connected PBL superhero, David Sobel.

The talk and discussion are free, but you need to pre-register.

Please come and join us!

News from the Wild -
08/19/2026

News from the Wild -

On Deer Day, our final camp day for the summer, we had to spend part of the morning finishing our otter activities. Tran...
08/15/2026

On Deer Day, our final camp day for the summer, we had to spend part of the morning finishing our otter activities. Transitioning to deer, we did our transformation spell and our fawn song. Then we traveled back to Otter Island, where we checked our camera and found the otters had come to call. Along the way, we found there were many deer prints and deer s**t. We followed a deer trail all the way to a possible coyote den. The "fawn in the forest" game was immensely popular- It involves dressing up a little fawn and having its family hide it in the forest. Then, when the finders come to the area, the deer family spreads out, eating leaves and bark and leading the humans away from the fawn. They have to try to find it anyway. We ended the week with making some animal track guides to take home!

08/15/2026

At Being Animals Camp, we transformed our campers into a different animal each day. On Otter Day, we put up a camera aimed at a known otter slide. Imagine our campers' delight when we returned just one day later on Deer Day, and found our otter friends had come to call in the early morning hours.

At Being Animals Camp for 4-7 year olds, we were fishers on Wednesday and otters on Thursday. On Fisher Day, we learned ...
08/14/2026

At Being Animals Camp for 4-7 year olds, we were fishers on Wednesday and otters on Thursday. On Fisher Day, we learned how to lope around like a weasel, how to find hollow trees and logs to hide our babies, and to look for mice and rabbits and frogs and eggs. We also learned there is no fisher call! On Otter Day, we learned to roll down hills on our stomachs, look for fish, and slide into water to catch our food. While we didn't see a live otter or fisher during the camp day, we watched videos of both fishers and otters visiting the places we were exploring; videos that were captured by trail camera last winter. Today is Deer Day!

Kestrel parents and former students: We're looking for a couple of folks to hire to help with the end of summer office o...
08/12/2026

Kestrel parents and former students: We're looking for a couple of folks to hire to help with the end of summer office organizing and gear cleaning. We need at least one person over 18 as we don't have kids working with bleach. We could also hire one high school student. Both must be very organized and self directed as we will be putting a variety of large and small items away as well as washing items used in the field. We can pay $22 an hour for 4 hours each for two people. Either this weekend or early next week - You can choose the time and day. Comment here if you can help. Photo of current staff for attention.

Today at Being Animals Camp was cottontail rabbit day! We read a story about a New England cottontail looking for others...
08/11/2026

Today at Being Animals Camp was cottontail rabbit day! We read a story about a New England cottontail looking for others like it. Then, the campers got to decide whether to be the (rare, native) New England cottontail, or the (common, introduced) Eastern cottontail. Ask your children how to tell them apart by the facepaint photos. We had a rabbit hiding game, and a rabbit jumping contest. Then we went into the forest and found rabbit browsed saplings all over the place. We also found some mystery (we think some type of weasel) tracks and explored "Otter Island." We found an owl pellet on shore, and we're working on figuring out what kinds of animals it ate. In the afternoon, campers made rabbit nests and played more games.

Today was flying squirrel day at Being Animals Camp. Meeting at Brookwood School's Forest School, Being Animals is a cam...
08/11/2026

Today was flying squirrel day at Being Animals Camp. Meeting at Brookwood School's Forest School, Being Animals is a camp where every morning, we cast a magical spell to turn all our campers into a different local wild creature. We spend the day moving, gathering food, and making homes and friends like the animal of the day. We learned to glide with a patagium (or as we called it, our cape), gather hickory and beech nuts and acorns, and looked for tree cavities and hollow trees. We even set up a sort of a zipline to clip our flyer to so we could watch it glide from tree to tree!

Highlights from Woodland Seekers Journey Week: Monday was pretty much a wash for outdoor activities; we stayed inside an...
08/06/2026

Highlights from Woodland Seekers Journey Week: Monday was pretty much a wash for outdoor activities; we stayed inside and learned about insect travel. Tuesday was seed day, and we explored ways seeds can travel and made original traveling seed designs and tested them. Wednesday was deer day, and we spent the whole day being deer and traveling through the forest with a deer mindset, and found lots of evidence of their presence. Today, Thursday, is fisher day, and we're studying how to tell fisher, otter, and raccoon tracks and habitats apart. The campers ventured to our creek to look for frogs and fisher tracks, then cooled off in the sprinkler!

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Beverly, MA
01915

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