{Susan's kids with their host's granddaughter}

I get a bit jealous when I read about other contributors’ travels to visit family in Spanish speaking countries. What a great way to not only connect with family, but also to reinforce the Spanish being taught at home in the United States. Unfortunately, I don’t have family abroad to visit, but I was convinced that my own children would greatly benefit from the experience of visiting another country and being immersed in Spanish.

Back in high school I started studying Spanish, but it was during a semester study abroad program in Spain that I actually achieved fluency. There is nothing like being completely immersed in the language to learn how to speak it with confidence and ease.

For our family study abroad experience, I chose Peru. My husband and I had traveled throughout Peru prior to having children and just fell in love with the country, its culture and people. Before our sons were born, we rarely planned our trips, having only a rough itinerary and our plane tickets. Traveling with children changed my usual travel style, and so, I started planning our trip eight months prior to our departure. I began to research different schools and programs so that our whole family could spend time immersed in Spanish and the culture of Peru. My plan was to duplicate many aspects of my own study abroad adventure, and I was able to pretty much achieve a similar experience for our entire family.

My sons both spoke Spanish well before our trip, but now they are experts. We spent a month living in Arequipa with our home stay family. Living with a Peruvian family was a rewarding experience, and we were fortunate to have been placed with a family that was friendly, welcoming and supportive. Our host mother Marta went out of her way to help us feel welcome and at home.

Living day to day completely surrounded in Spanish was wonderful. My sons were also fortunate to have had lots of opportunities to play in Spanish with other children too. We were able to visit a preschool to play with other children, and the grandchildren of our host family were always coming over to play.
Originally I had planned to put the boys into a preschool program, but my son’s bilingual preschool teacher suggested private classes instead since it typically takes children a month to adjust to a new pre-school.  Fortunately, I found a school that had teachers who specialized in teaching young children.  The situation was actually perfect. My husband and I took Spanish classes while our sons were taking classes each with their own teacher. My older son was being taught to read using the Coquito method which is a Peruvian method of teaching that I think is one of the best in the world. My younger son spent a lot of time singing, reading and just playing with his teacher in Spanish. The boys’ teachers were wonderful, and for two hours a day, I was able to work with my own teacher studying Peruvian literature and furthering my own language skills.

We also traveled while in Peru to expose the boys to more than just life in the city. We spent time visiting an ancient religious site of the Wari Civilization and seeing the Inca terraces and small villages of the Colca Canyon. I was pleased that my sons loved to travel as much as their father and I do.

This trip has been a wonderful experience for our entire family. My husband and I plan to use Spanish with each other so that he will not lose the fluency that he acquired while living abroad. As a non-native speaker raising bilingual children, I am more confident in my own abilities and am inspired to continue reading in Spanish to further my own language skills. Most importantly, living in Peru was a wonderful experience for my own children. Being immersed in the language has really helped develop their Spanish and their traveling and playing with Peruvian children is helping them become citizens of the world.

I highly recommend this experience for other families.  I will post our school information in the forum.  Our host family is also interested in hosting other families.  You can email me if you would like their contact information.

{Image credit: boeke}

Yesterday we talked about how important it is to keep your child’s mind active over the summer months. While there are many ways that you can keep kids busy right at home – one popular option is summer camp. Summer camps range from free and inexpensive to costly; some are sleep away camps and others are day or half-day camps. You can choose a local camp or one as far away as Costa Rica or Spain.

To keep your bilingual child’s mind growing over the summer, today we’ll introduce you to Spanish language learning summer camps. Language learning summer camps focus on teaching or immersing children in a second language, and most of these camps even make it a cultural experience as well. Below we’ve provided a mix of Spanish language learning summer camps across the nation and beyond, as well as resources to find camps that teach other languages if none of these fit your needs.

Tip: If you fall in love with a camp outside your home state, consider sending your child to stay with relatives who live in the area while they attend. What could be better than summer camp and getting to spend a week with the abuelos, tíos or primos?

Spanish Language Summer Camps by State

California:

Bay Area – Juguemos en Español Spanish Summer Camp

Glendale – Gift of Language

Irvine – Camp Hola

San Diego - Lingua Natal

Los Angeles area:

North Hills – The Language Garden School

Hollywood – Kallpachay Summer Camp

Glendale – Art Box

Glendale and La Cañada – Lango

Colorado:

Denver – Fiesta Camp

Lowry – DMIS Language Summer Camps

Florida:

Weston – Camp Lingua

Miami – Isabella & Ferdinand (also in Washington, D.C.)

Illinois:

Chicago – Camp MK

Elgin (and other cities) – Language Stars

Maryland:

Bethesda – Sidwell Summer
Bethesda – Language Stars

Massachusetts

Charlestown – Spanish In Motion

Michigan

Detroit – Bilingual Fun

New York & New Jersey:

Various locations – The Language Workshop for Children

NYC – Queen Sofía’s Spanish Workshop

North Carolina:

Chapel Hill – Immersion Island

Raleigh and Cary – Spanish For Fun

Texas:

Austin – Live the Language

Virginia:

Alexandria (and other cities) – Language Stars
Charlottesville – WishWish Language Camp

Other camps to check out:

• OBG Adventures specializes in “travel and learning excursions for girls ages 11-16 with an emphasis on a multicultural camp experience.” (Excursions leave from the Bay Area, California.)

• Mis Amigos annual week long summer camp in Silver Spring, Maryland is especially for children adopted from Latin America, and their siblings.

• La Semana Culture Camp in Minnesota for children from Latin America.

Experiences that stand out from the crowd:

Concordia Language Villages in Minnesota – (Wow! Click through and check it out!) You can also read more about this program in this post from our archives.

Study Abroad opportunities for older children:

• KidsCamps.com- (searchable by language/location)

• ZandorSpain.com- (various types of camps offered in Spain)

• SpanishAbroad.com- (various programs in various countries)

• Don Quijote Spanish Summer Camp- (Spain)

• SpanishInTheWorld.com Camps- (various locations across Spain)

• TeenSpanish.com Camps- (various locations)

Resources to search for Camps Which Teach Various Languages:

• Swopnet.com

• KidsCamps.com

We hope you come back for more: tomorrow we’ll have a guest post from someone who attended a kind of study abroad/exchange program here in the U.S. as a teenager from Peru. She shares how the experience shaped her in terms of both being bilingual and bicultural.

Do you know of a great language/culture summer camp we didn’t include?  Please tell us about it in comments section or in our SpanglishBaby Playground and help us build a list for all to find a bilingual summer camp in their city.