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Deutschlernen in Waldsee!
Übercool, Mann!!

Waldsee Village Weekends

Waldsee Credit Abroad

Waldsee Stadttheater

College Credit for
High School Students

Hast du Waldseeweh? Are you missing Waldsee already? Why not come up to Bemidji for one of the Waldsee Village Weekends. The weekend program at Waldsee is very similar to our summer program - it's just a bit shorter and you travel together with your German class from school.

Contact your German teacher to see if your school is planning a trip to Waldsee this fall.

Dates for the fall programs:

     October 25-28
     November 9-11
     November 30-December 2

Wir sind wieder da!  Waldsee Credit Abroad returned from an action-filled credit month in Germany and Switzerland.  In every place we stopped, Waldsee friends were there to show us their hometowns.  In Berlin, friends introduced us to refugees living in Germany.  Using our common language, German, we learned what challenges and opportunities brought them to Berlin.  In Stuttgart, we took in the musical “Die Drei Musketiere” (The Three Musketeers), performed  auf Deutsch.  In Switzerland, we sampled a local soft drink called Rivella (pictured above), which is made from milk. During our time in the German Gymnasium in Bad Waldsee with our host siblings we met lots of German friends and are still IMing regularly with many of them. 

The Waldsee Stadttheater troupe worked on several different projects this summer, including several films (The Pirates of Waldsee, Waldsee in a Bottle, A Namensschild public service announcement, and a commercial for Haribo), a stage theater piece (Oedipus in Waldsee) and stand-up comedy. The Stadttheater program is just one of many adventure programs that Waldsee offers. Each adventure program focuses on a certain theme, such as theater, the environment, medieval life, and Swiss culture.

If you'd like to see one of the Stadttheater films, click here.

This past summer we had a wonderful group of Studis who participated in the College Credit for High School Students program at Waldsee. The group explored various aspects of German history and politics, focusing on themes such as the changing definition of what it means to be German, the German presidency of the G-8, the European Union, the German political system, as well as environmental and immigration issues.

The highlight of the course was spending time one-on-one with the German Ambassador to the United States, Klaus Scharioth (pictured above playing a round of chess with the Studis).

Waldsee Adventure
Day Camp

Waldsee in NYC

The Solar Decathalon

Thanks!

We launched the Waldsee Adventure Day Camp this summer and tt was quite a hit with both the local kids from Bemidji as well as families who were vacationing in the area. Some had older siblings who were in the two-week or credit program, while others were trying out Waldsee for the first time.

Waldsee day-campers spent their days learning songs, doing arts and crafts, playing games and (of course) learning German!

Since it was such a success, we are pleased to announce that we have expanded the program and plan to run the Waldsee Adventure Day Camps every week next summer between June 9 and August 22. We will be offering both a regular and an extended day program.

Waldsee has been invited to present at the German Language School Conference in New York City on Saturday, October 6. Waldsee staff members will be speaking to the teachers of German Saturday schools from across the country about the teaching methods and techniques used at Waldsee.

The theme of the conference is "Buiding Bridges - Teaching German to All Ages" and that's one thing that Waldsee does well, since we teach German not only to young children, but also teenagers, college students, and adults. We'll be presenting on "best practices" at Waldsee as well as teaching songs through TPRS.

If you would like to attend the conference, please visit the GLSC Web site.

From October 12-20 the US Department of Energy will be hosting a "Solar Decathalon" on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Twenty teams from across the United States and around the world have been selected to compete.

Team Germany is represented by the Technische Universität Darmstadt, which has invited Waldsee to join them on the National Mall! Several Waldsee villagers and staff will be on hand on the weekends to talk with visitors about German environmental buildings (such as our own Waldsee Biohaus) and interact one-on-one with Team Deutschland.

If you happen to live in the area, please stop by!

Over 100 students attended Waldsee because of the generosity of others. We wanted to take this opportunity to thank those of you who contributed to the Waldsee scholarship fund or to the Concordia Language Villages Passport fund.  Waldsee also benefited from many smaller donations in kind, including books, videos, CDs, board games and even a sailboat! We are still looking for a donated pontoon boat, but we could also use other smaller gifts such as costumes, video production equipment, science equipment, tents, bicycles, and laptop computers. If you would like to contribute any of these items to Waldsee, we can furnish you with a receipt so that you can claim your gift as a tax deduction. If you are interested in contributing to the Waldsee scholarship fund, please contact our development team at  1-800-222-4750.