I am part of the Windows Champions Program. As a Windows Champion, I am loaned a laptop, and, on occasion, Microsoft products such as software to assist me in developing content for my blog posts. All opinions are my own.

This year, as a Windows Champion Ambassador on behalf of SpanglishBaby, I will be exploring all this new platform has to offer you, with a focus on information, tips, and apps for bilingual families.

Today I want to tell you about the YouthSpark Summer Camps at Microsoft retail stores. There are five different classes to choose from and they’re all completely free as part of Microsoft’s YouthSpark commitment “to provide 300 million youth around the world with better access to technology and educational opportunities in order to set them up for future success.”

Some of the things your child could learn at a YouthSpark Camp include:

· Digital Movie Madness: Go from script to screen – and all the movie-making steps in between.

· Storyteller Studio: Write short stories, create games, and design slideshows and custom creations.

· Digital Art Smarts: Inspire artistic vision and creation through graphic design and photography.

· Game Masters: Mastermind a gaming world as the programmer, designer and producer.

· Game App: Plan, Create, design and publish game apps like a pro.

Imagine if our children reach adulthood as tech smart bilinguals! There’s no stopping them! If you’re ready to register for classes or check out the schedule of your local Microsoft Store, click HERE.

Stay tuned for my next post! If you have any specific topic regarding Windows 8 that you’d like more information about, please feel free to suggest it in comments below!

We dedicated all of last week to explore the topic of immersion travel and its amazing benefits in terms of your children’s bilingualism and biculturalism. But if traveling with your family for an extended period of time to a Spanish-speaking country is not an option for you right now, you can always send your kids to a language summer camp without having to travel too far.

Language summer camps are run the same way a regular summer camp is: a bunch of activities both in and outdoors so your kids don’t get bored during the long, lazy summer months, except that everything is done in a language other than English. In other words, not only will the kids be entertained, but they will also be immersed in Spanish or the target language you’re trying to teach them.

I was actually surprised with the amount of options out there and although they are not cheap, some of the programs offer financial assistance in the form of scholarships — particularly the ones where your kids get to sleep over. But maybe I should start by explaining the differences.

A day summer camp is exactly what the name implies. Your child attends camp daily for however many weeks you’re interested in (or you can afford.) Obviously, the longer your child attends, the better the end result. As far as I understand, the daily curriculum is taught in the target language, which depending on the program you choose, can range from Spanish to Arabic. Normally, age requirements are a bit more lax in this type of setting. A couple of summers ago, for example, I sent Vanessa to the language summer camp at Denver Montclair International School, which accept kids as young as 3. By the way, their Spanish program is so popular, it’s pretty much sold out for the entire summer!

Then, you have camps like Concordia Language Villages, which offers both options — day and regular summer camps — and it’s the kind of place that I would love for my kids to go to  when they get older. Concordia has been around for over 50 years, their curriculum is truly impressive and they firmly believe in immersion as the best method to learn a language.

“We communicate with the children almost exclusively in the target language,” according to Carl-Martin Nelson, the director of communications of the Minnesota program. ”There is very little translation going on.”

Children must be 7 years old to attend one of their summer camps in any of the 15 different languages they offer. Each camp can last anywhere from one to four weeks. This means your child is actually away from home for that period of time, just like the thousands of other summer camps that abound in this country, except that they spend their time immersed in the target language.

So how much can your child actually learn in one or two weeks? The truth is probably not much. But if you’re already raising bilingual children, it can be a great way to reinforce the second language— especially when kids get to the bilingual rebellion stage.

“We not only teach kids the language, we improve their attitude about learning the language,” says Nelson. “Our primary goal, our job, is to make it the coolest thing in the world to speak the target language.”

Nelson also brought up the fact that this type of program is perfect for families using the OPOL method because it helps to reinforce the language that the child may only get from one of the parents in a fun and completely different way. The same goes for children who already attend dual language schools. In other words, it’s a great way for them to brush up on their language skills in a non-school setting before the new school year because the emphasis is not only on the physical aspect, but also on the academic one.

“Our experience has been that these kids go back to the classroom excited and enthused about the language they’re learning,” Nelson says.

Sounds like a win-win situation, right?

If like mine, you’re children — or their parents — are not yet ready for sleeping-away camp, look around because in the last few years, we’ve seen an increase in the amount of language summer day camps available in cities across the nation. A great place to start searching for those options is in our bilingual education directory where you can find programs by city and state. If you know of a program that’s not in our directory, we’d really appreciate it if you include it as it’s user-generated. You can also check SpanglishBaby Playground in case anyone has posted about summer camps in their area.

{Photo by ScienceWorldCA}

{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.