Saturday, June 26, 2010

School's out for summer


Across Europe school finished yesterday and the question in every parents mind is " what do I do with the little darlings for 2 whole months"?
Camp is the obvious answer, the choice is endless : biking, golfing, horse riding,canoeing,hiking, painting, circus skills and much much more but here is the dilemma . Give little Johnny a choice early on in the year and although he will have happily taken part in the discussion, allowed you to pay for everything, bought the equipment to keep his interest up etc around about now he will be shaking his little head and stamping his feet about not wanting to go. I have tried to force my daughter to go on a camp and what you are left with is an ill tempered child for the whole of the summer- not nice.
Another solution is to book a camp at the last minute and whilst bargains abound in the last minute travel industry the choice left to you in the last week of the school term is usually hideous- anyone for snail watching camp? No,didn't think so . Even should you manage to find something last minute the only available date always seems to be the exact first week of the holiday leaving you rushing around like a loony and still be left to wonder what about the other 7 weeks?
The Americans seem to have got this right by having a long standing tradition of whole summer long camps and most kids seem to buy into it. Ok lately Fat Camp seems to be the most talked about but again the choice is huge. My friend even told me she used to go to Jewish camp as a kid- who knew!
So what have I done with my child this year? Next week we go to Madrid where I will leave her in the very capable hands of the people at TASIS at www.summer.tasis.com for a month long intensive Spanish language camp for 14 - 17 year olds. She will be based in Salamanca for 3 weeks and the last week will be spent on the Costa del Sol so its not all work.Now I must confess I am so jealous because I would love to have done something like this but I come from a generation where we didn't really do that type of thing( we got summer jobs!!). Am hoping that during this month that her Spanish will come on in leaps and bounds. Cheap it isn't but when you consider that next year she will take her IGCSE in Spanish and that the Spanish oral accounts for 40% of the grade then I think this is money well spent.
Now, the only question left to ponder is what I will do with her for the remaining 4 weeks!

2 comments:

  1. Love this one! Great Idea to send a child or a teenager off for bonding with peers and learning new cultures and languages!

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  2. Great idea! I love it! But I have to say when I was a teenager I used to love to work during a summer. After I had my own money I would spent it on something that my parents wouldn't approved - like for example piercing :-}

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