Concordia Language Villages, part 1: What is CLV?

Oh my goodness? Remember me? I used to post around here! We've had a busy start to our year, first hosting a teacher from France for a month, and then enjoying a six-week visit from Niels' parents, who live in the Netherlands. Between being the hostest with the mostest, working on quilts, and watching our son finish kindergarten, my brain has been too fried to get any words down on...screen.

I'm writing now because I want to write a series of posts on an item I recently crossed off my bucket list: attending a Concordia Language Village (CLV)! CLV is a group of immersion camps put on by Concordia College in (mostly) Bemidji, Minnesota. Each year, the program attracts more than 13,000 participants from all 50 states and more than 40 countries to their 15 language camps.

I first became aware of CLV as a high school French student in Minnesota back in the 80s. I've always had an interest in languages and thought it would be a pretty incredible way meet people from around the world while working on my French. Alas, my family didn't have the money to send me, so it remained on my bucket list for another 25 (or so) years.

I should note here that I was not compensated for writing any of this. I would have, in a heartbeat, if offered, but my motivation was to provide the kind of information I was looking for now, as a parent.

So? What makes Concordia Language Villages so special, and why would I want to go?
There are a few other language camps out there. (this one in Washington state looks pretty amazing for French), but Concordia seems to be the gold standard due to the themed-settings, the variety of camp options offered, the international staff of native speakers, the number of languages offered, the home-cooked culturally appropriate food, the focus on global citizenship, and the fact that they have been doing this for so long. (The camp was started in 1961).

What languages are offered at CLV?
Current languages offered, along with their camp name and year of establishment, are:

German: Waldsee (est. 1961)
French: Lac du Bois or Les Voyageurs (est. 1962)
Spanish: El Lago del Bosque (est. 1963)
Norwegian: Skogfjorden (est. 1963)
Russian: Lesnoe Ozero (Лесное озеро) (est. 1966)
Swedish: Sjölunden (est. 1975)
Finnish: Salolampi (est. 1978)
Danish: Skovsøen (est. 1982)
Chinese: Sen Lin Hu (森林湖) (est. 1984)
Japanese: Mori no Ike (森の池) (est. 1988)
English: Hometown, USA or Hometown, Europe (est. 1999)
Korean: Sup sogǔi Hosu (숲 속의 호수) (est. 1999)
Italian: Lago del Bosco (est. 2003)
Arabic: Al-Wāḥa (الواحة) (est. 2006)
Portuguese: Mar e Floresta (est. 2008).

Each village is named "Lake of the Woods" in its language, with the exception of the English villages Hometown, USA and Hometown, Europe, the Portuguese village Mar e Floresta (Sea and Forest), and the Arabic village al-Wāḥa ("the oasis"). The Japanese village, Mori no Ike, literally translates as "Pond of the Forest," but was chosen in lieu of the literal translation for the ease of pronunciation. (information courtesy of Wikipedia)

What kinds of camps are offered?
Within each camp, there are several options: weekend camps, day camps, 1 week camp, 2 week camp, 4 week credit courses (where campers will generally learn the equivalent of one academic year's worth of language), and family camp. Most camps are located in Northern Minnesota, but a few are offered in the Twin Cities. While CLV is primarily known as a camp for kids and teens, they also offer immersion camp specifically for adults and training for teachers and corporations.

Who attends CLV?
Anyone interested in learning about a new language and culture will feel at home at CLV. Some campers may come build on a language learned at school (this was my initial interest). Others may come to learn a language not offered at school. Some students may want to prepare for international travel and/or study. Some come to get a head start on a language they plan to study. Some come to learn about a language spoken at home or by relatives (heritage speakers). My own son wanted to go to Russian camp because he loves space and Russia has a big place in the history (and future) of space exploration. Adults may want to attend to help with business travel. Teachers may want to empathize with what their students experience.

What does "immersion" mean in a camp setting?
Not everyone can afford to visit a different country to learn a new language. In fact, in my experience traveling to the Netherlands to visit my husband's family, many people while switch to English to help you out once they figure out you are not a native speaker. And when I went to China, new friends and strangers wanted to speak English to practice their own language skills with a native speaker.

At CLV, everything is communicated in the target language. (Important note: English is always acceptable when it comes to safety issues!) You hear a lot of singing and see a lot of acting to communicate meaning. One exception to this is family camp, where parents may be spoken to in English at times to help with safety issues or to clarify what is being said. There is empathy for the fact that the older we get, the harder it is to learn a new language!

Repetition is a big part of the immersion experience. For example, each meal time follows a similar pattern. Counselors greet the campers, talk about, act out, and show what we will be eating, sing a song about meal time, talk about what happens after the meal, and sing a song of thanks after the meal. After a few meals, the pattern is recognized and words become familiar.

It costs a lot of money. Is it really worth it?
There's no getting around the fact that this is a pricey camp, especially when you factor in transportation. We attended family camp, which cost $1,840 for the three of us. But, that nearly two grand included:

• a beautiful semi-private cabin for 5 nights, (We shared with one other family, they had the two downstairs rooms and a bathroom, we had the upstairs two rooms and a bathroom. We shared the kitchen, living room, and dining room). 
• 42 all-you-can-eat home-cooked cultural meals (14 total meals over 6 days for 3 people at each meal).
• a secure location where our child could explore the great outdoors without concern for non-registered campers, parents, or staff intruding. 
• language instruction and resources, primarily from native speakers
• cultural experiences and exposure
• access to target language food, clothing, books, and other items for purchase
• the ability to talk to other international families and to compare notes on how they face our unique parenting experience.
• an absolutely gorgeous setting.

For us, the price was worth it. We spend a good chunk of our budget on travel because we value buying experiences, the concept of global citizenship, and seeing our friends and family around the world. By comparison, we felt we got a lot of what we value for what we spent on camp. We would highly recommend the camp for anyone who values the same.

How much language do you actually learn?

Like anything else, you get into it what you put into it. For Niels and I, our goal was to be able to decipher the Cyrillic alphabet and communicate some basic phrases. For our son, our goal was that he would get over any insecurity or shyness about speaking a new language and sample some new foods that we may not have had yet at home. On all accounts, we were successful. I was amazed by how quickly our minds started to think in Russian and the squiggles we saw posted around camp became familiar words. One week of camp gave us a good feel for the language, but clearly you do not become fluent in that time. What it did give us, though, was the confidence that we could navigate our way around a Russian-speaking environment with confidence. I can see how the two-week camp would be even more helpful if we had a planned trip to a Russian-speaking location, and how the four-week credit course could truly give one a full academic year's worth of language study.

I did read a few reviews from campers at the more commonly-spoken language camps (specifically Spanish) that there was some disappointment at the amount of English spoken by fellow campers. I would guess that the more common the language, the more you might see that due to campers who may not be as motivated as campers for other languages.

How do I know my kids are safe?
Our son is six, and neither he nor I are ready for him to attend an overnight camp, especially one that is a sixteen hour drive away! Family camp was an excellent introduction for both of us to the Concordia way of doing camp. Family camp is set up a little differently  than the camps for other kids because the expectation is that parents are responsible for their own children, except when they are signed up with a specific counselor. However, we were there with one-weekers and day campers and could see how they were always with a counselor or two at all times. Based on what I saw, there was about a 1:5 ratio of staffer to campers.

The camp itself is closed off when in session. It's out of the way, and no one comes to the campsite without being signed in. The daily schedule is set up so that assigned counselors know where their kids are at all times. Even during the 45 minutes of free time, the kids use the buddy system and the counselor knows which activity they are doing. At family camp, parents sign their children up on a roster for the times when they are with counselors. It is up to the counselors to know where those children are at all times, and it is up to the parents to get them to the activity and pick them up afterwards.

There is a beach and boating activities. Campers swim with a buddy, and only when a lifeguard is one duty. Boaters need to pass a swim test to go out without a lifeguard with them. The beach is closed when no lifeguard is available.

There is a medical cabin in the middle of camp. The staff nurse speaks the target language and English. English is absolutely acceptable in medical situations.

If you are like me, you want to see what your kids are doing when they are away. CLV does a great job of posting photos, videos, and text to inform family and friends of what campers are doing each day.

How can I get a job at CLV?
Finally, as we were enjoying our time at camp, we thought of many of our international friends and how they may enjoy working at CLV. Staffers are not required to spend the entire summer at camp, so international staffers can work for part of the summer, and then have time off to travel in the States. Many American staffers work at the camp as vacation for their regular job. If you are bilingual and have an interest in working at camp as a counselor, nurse, or kitchen worker, you can find more information on the CLV website.

You can see more photos of our week at Lesnoe Ozero on Facebook.

Other posts in this series:
Concordia Language Villages, part 2: Packing!
Concordia Language Villages, part 3: The Setting
Concordia Language Villages, part 4: A Day at Camp
Concordia Language Villages, part 5: The Food!
Concordia Language Villages, part 6: What We Learned
Concordia Language Villages, part 7: Final Thoughts

If you have any other questions about Concordia Language Villages, leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer it.

Linked to:
Artsy Fartsy Mama * Creative Muster * DIY Dreamer *  Practically Functional *  Sew Much Crafting * Twinkly Tuesday

Quilt #40: Little Learners Quilt, part 2

In my last post, I showed how I made the little people in this quilt. (If anyone knows the actual name for those blocks, please let me know in the comments!) In this post, I'll show how I appliqued the logo and tagline.

I've made one other appliqued quilt, and learned a lot during that process. I also learned some ways to make the process a little easier. For starters, I had the logo enlarged made into two engineering prints at Staples for $3.89 each.

Next I selected bright fabrics that matched the logo. I was able to find most of the fabric from our stash, but I did need to buy a tonal black. While I was at Joann, I also found the backing fabric with handprints, which turned out to be a godsend when I started working on the handprints for the logo.

One lesson I learned is that Heat N Bond Lite works better for me than Pellon Wonder Under for applique. Not only does it work better with with my Silhouette Cameo, but the appliqued material is more flexible and less stiff than when I use Wonder Under (as I did with the previous quilt). 

After ironing on the Heat N Bond and removing the white paper, I was ready to get started. 

The tree trunk was the largest part of the logo, much too large for my Cameo, so I cut out the trunk from one of my engineering prints.

I used my small 28mm rotary cutter to cut out the tree trunk. 

I cut out just the tree of the second print, and used it to center the tree trunk on the quilt. 

Once I was happy with the placement, I ironed on the trunk. I was a little nervous about this part, because all the other little pieces would be based on the placement of the trunk. 

The biggest challenge I had with the logo was finding a handprint that would work with my Silhouette. I must have tried eight or nine different handprints before I found one that worked. The logo I used from the school was too pixelated for the Silhouette. And you'd be amazed by how different handprints can look depending on how wide the fingers are spread. Finally, I had the idea to scan the handprint on the backing fabric. 

All I had to do was add the circle in the middle of the palm in my Silhouette file. Of course, none of the hands were the same size so I had to keep playing around with sizes. 

 I forgot to take a picture, but before putting the fabric in the Cameo to cut (my favorite feature!), I ironed on the Heat N Bond and left the paper on. Then I was able to get perfect little hands.

As each hand was cut on the Silhouette, I cut a circle around the hand on my print. I then lined the print up with the tree trunk to figure out where the hand should go. It was tedious, but it worked!

By the time all my circles were cut out, the quilt looked like this. 

At this point, I was starting to feel pretty good about my progress!

When I make a quilt, I usually don't tell the recipient until it's done, just in case I mess it up. However, this time I caved and contacted the school so I could get a high resolution logo and correct font for the words. Once I knew that the tagline was in Berlin Sans FB Demi, it was easy to make the letters with my Silhouette.

I started placing letters in the center and then moved outward, using a ruler to keep them in a straight line. 

I changed the font to Century Gothic and followed the same idea for the rest of the letters. 

One last bit of text using the negative space. I had to be careful not to lose the little tiny pieces  in the As and D. 

And the applique is done!

I used two borders to finish the top. I used 1.5" strips for the black, and 2.5" for the green.

Before making my quilt sandwich, I reinforced all the applique.

I bought a new toy before I started the binding. It's a 1/4" foot with guide and I love it! I've learned that I tend to pull to the left as I'm piecing and quilting, so I think my seams are going to look much nicer now. 

After some straight line quilting, I added the label and called it done!

I delivered the quilt to school the day before the annual art auction. It was really fun to see it up on the stage behind the auctioneer, and especially at the end of the night as students posted for pictures in front of it. 

Linked to: 

Artsy Fartsy Mama * Creative Muster * DIY Dreamer * Practically Functional

Quilt #40: Little Learners Quilt, part 1

It's a miracle! I'm back with a new blog post! I made this little people quilt for my son's school. I've had several inquiries into how I made it. And since I didn't want to forget, I'm writing it all down for our mutual benefit! A few fun facts. This quilt is made of 622 individual pieces (yes, I counted!), 63 different fabrics (I raided my scrap bin), and 19 different colors of thread!

Last August I went to the Original Sewing & Quilting Expo in Pittsburgh, where I fell in love with this quilt:

About a month ago, I finally got around to re-creating the block pattern. (If anyone knows what it is called, please let me know in the comments). 

The people on the quilt I saw were pretty small, maybe 5"x7". When I decided to make a quilt with these blocks for my son's school, I decided to make them a little larger so that I could have a little fun with their outfits. My blocks were 9.5" x 12.5."

Despite making 18 of these blocks, I had to make two additional ones for this post because I never took photos of the process, mostly because I made a mistake on every one! I'm glad I did, because my notes weren't correct. Now both you and I will be able to make these cute blocks without wasting fabric!

So, we'll start with the boy, because he's a little easier. After you cut out the pieces, I like to lay them out to make sure I have all the pieces.

The head is the most complicated step, it took me a few times to figure out the right proportions. This is a good time to note that if I were to make this quilt again, I would choose a white pattern that didn't have a direction to it. That would have saved a lot of time and fabric, as some pieces needed to be cut a certain way.

First, take one of your little .75" squares and place it in the corner of your skin tone square. I used four different skin tones in my quilt. 

Because the piece is so small, I didn't draw a diagonal line or pin the pieces together. Just sew from one corner of the white square to the opposite corner.

Repeat with the other three white squares. Again, if you are using a background with a directional pattern, make sure that all pieces are placed in the right direction.

Use your ruler to mark a 1/4" and trim the excess.

Repeat all around.

It looks a little angular at this point, but it will look better when it's all pieced together. ***Note*** The photos here show a 1" square. In the actual quilt I made, I used .75" squares.

Assemble the rest of the pieces as shown. When I was making the actual quilt, I chain-pieced, but here you can see each step.

The main difference between the girl block and the boy block is the dress. As you can see in the finished quilt photo, I varied from this design a bit with the ballerina, tree hugger, and Elsa blocks. One the music lover block, I actually appliqued her skirt so that the music would run across her skirt. Much of the fun for this quilt for me was customizing each block. That said, here's the basic pattern for the girl block.

First, lay out your pieces. 

At this point, I hadn't yet created the half square triangles for the skirt. I always seem to need larger squares than the expert quilters recommend, so I used 5" squares to create 3.5" HST. If your lines are better than mine, you may be able to use 4" squares. If I were to make this quilt again (i.e., had I not already cut a ton of 5" squares, I would have split the difference with 4.5" squares).

Once the skirt pieces are made, follow the same instructions as the little boy block. 

Here are some close-ups of a few of my favorites.

Superman was a big hit with the students. I put my Silhouette Cameo to good use on this quilt. I'm still figuring out how to break apart images for applique, so that little S took WAY more time than it should have. On the plus side, I could make another in 10 minutes!

The artist is an example of how much more complicated my people got as I got into the project. This block was originally a simple girl in a yellow dress. I made a straight line skirt, but didn't like it, so I took apart the block and made the traditional yellow block. Then I had the idea to add the palette. You can see how tiny the pieces were!

While I was making this quilt, we had a French teacher staying with us for a month while she observed at our son's school. Sandy's favorite color is green, so I chose this fabric to represent her. To give perspective on the size of the flags, the arm to the left is 1". 

The inspiration for the ballerina came when I was at Joann looking at ribbon. D's school has new performing arts teacher who has taught my boy to dance (!), so I wanted to honor Miss J. You can tell that this is one of my earlier blocks because it was made before I realized it would be much easier to make one long white side pieces instead of three smaller pieces.

The musician was my practice run for the letters I would need for the school name and tagline. 

And here are close ups of some of the others. 

Once the blocks were done, I was able to figure out what size the middle section needed to be: 36.5" x 36.5"

In part two, I will show how I made the the applique logo and tagline.

Linked to:
Fluster Buster * Moonlight and Mason Jars *  Sew Much Crafting * Val's Quilting Studio * A Vision to Remember * Wednesday Wait Loss @ The Inquiring Quilter

11 years...

Today marks 11 years since I fell and broke my head.

I've written about it before here and here. With more than a decade of practice in not taking my health for granted, I've become more accepting of seasons when parts of my brain aren't working so well. I admit, that as a former professional writer, it's difficult when the ideas in my head no longer translate well to words on a page or screen. One of the reasons we started this blog--in addition to creating an album of sorts of our home building process and noting the ways we've turned this house into our home--is to simply remember my life. The fact that others have come along for the journey is just a well-appreciated bonus.

I realize I haven't posted an update this November. I can't tell you how many times I've thought about posting, or even sat down at my computer with a goal on sharing something that I've done recently, but the writer's block has been become a wall. It has taken me over thirty minutes to write this paragraph, including three trips to Thesaurus.com to help me find the word I wanted or at least was close enough. Frustrating!

If my words were flowing more easily, I would write more about our incredible two week trip that I highlighted with our day at the International Quilt Show in my last post. For our son, it was a dream trip. We visited the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL, Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi, and Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. The high point of the latter was getting a private tour from blogger friend and NASA employee Sarah.

In December, my days were filled preparing for Sinterklaas (and making gevulde speculaas), our son's birthday, and Christmas (including our Sparkle Box tradition). I finished a few quilts and other sewing projects, but mostly enjoyed time with my family.In January, in addition to ringing in the new year, I celebrated my birthday last week and brain-aversary today.

 It's taken a little longer to get back into a routine with 2 rounds of croup for my son in December and 3 snow days in January, but hopefully we are on track now. We have a new guest in our home, Sandy from France, who is observing at my son's school for the next month as part of her education. She will also learn about living with someone with a brain injury.

And so I begin another year of my new normal. Life in the slow lane is peaceful. I love my family and I am loved. On good days, I quilt and play board games and maybe even write a blog post. On bad days, I sleep and thank God for the parenting respite called "iPad." On my average days, I do what I can and give myself grace for the things I cannot. Every day, I am thankful for the life I have been given.