"Gå for 10" or "Lots of summers"!
Make Skogfjorden a summer tradition. For that, I have a strong recommendation for you as you look into your future: Take part in all our sessions and give yourself the pleasure of a long-term, full-fledged Skogfjorden experience that takes you on a fun and varied journey that can continue right through high school.
The organization of Skogfjorden's sessions is informed by Skogfjorden's Gå for 10 (Go for 10) challenge. The challenge is to see villagers who start young enough to attend Skogfjorden for 10 years—a rare and coveted accomplishment. As cool as that is, first-time villagers of all ages are equally welcome, and every year is a celebrated accomplishment for every villager who comes.
No matter how old villagers are when they first come, what the Gå for 10 challenge does for all villagers is keep us on our toes, program-wise, making sure that there are 10 full summers of fun and variety built into the program.
Here is how you can design your Skogfjorden adventure to keep every Skogfjorden summer fun and interesting.
First, start your time at Skogfjorden with either an Adventure Day Camp or one-week session if you are just starting school, or, if you feel ready, a two-week session.
Once you have soaked in everything our one- and two-week sessions have to offer, move into our four-week programs.
There are several ways to do this, but here is our idea of the best possible way.
For those of you who are just getting started at school, sometimes a 4-day Skrelling (Adventure Day Camp) or 1-week overnight experience is just the ticket. As a skrelling, you arrive in the morning and stay through the afternoon Tuesday-Friday, getting a taste of Norwegian, what Skogfjorden is and what the daily life of the village is all about. Otherwise, you spend the rest of your days and nights with family or friends who are in the area. When you are old enough and feel ready for an overnight, start with one of our one-week NB 11 or 21 sessions. These are great for getting a good handle on being away from home and experiencing how fun living and breathing norsk 24/7 can be.
Note that the Skrelling and our one-week sessions are designed to be a one- or two-time experiences and they combine nicely with vacation in the area.
When you are old enough and feel ready for a longer overnight, start with the two-week NB 12 session. Get to know us and Norway even better, and enjoy the special touches that the rousing Skogfjorden PLUSS musikk sessions have to offer! Music is a powerful tool for making learning easy. We use it even more than usual in this session. It is a great way to start the summer for young and "old staff" alike!
You can do this two-week session several times before moving on to a different session.
After you have made some friends and gotten settled into how Skogfjorden works in the first two weeks of the summer, hop on over to NB 52 and enjoy the cool things that happen with Skogfjorden PLUSS fred. There you will meet even more new friends and be together with older villagers who will welcome you like top-notch, Norwegian-speaking big brother and sisters. Those older friends will gladly take you to the next level of what Skogfjorden is all about -- this session, in especially peace-rich ways.
This session can be attended several times.
By the time you are 13 years old or older, give NB 32 and 33 a swing and experience for the first time Internasjonal dag and our toveis session for learners of both norsk and engelsk. When learners of Norwegian and English meet native speaking peers of the language they are learning, great things happen! It is common for villagers to leave this session with new friends who live oceans apart now connected with strong, personal bonds.
Note that this is a session designed more for older villagers and can be attended several times. Our schedule and programming cater to the older crowd.
When you feel ready to join us for a whole month, come to our Folkehøgskole program (NB 30) where you get to specialize in things Norwegian/Skogfjorden in a way that truly puts you at the heart of what we are all about. We do it in folk high school kinds of ways with special activities designed just for you. Folk high schools are based on a Grundtvigian philosophy of whole-person learning that sets the stage for an enriched life in the world we all share. Its focus is more on learning for life than learning for academic achievement.
Every year is different, so you can attend this session multiple summers.
If you want to put some academic rigor into your summer, we have a different kind of four-week program for you: our Videregående program (NB 34) during which villagers do one year of high school intensive language work in four weeks. This session is complete with academic assignments and grades. This program uses a research-informed model of instruction that is theme-based. Villagers at all levels formally advance their Norwegian while also building an understanding of how to continue their learning it on their own once they leave Skogfjorden.
This program is intended for high school students and can be attended several times.
Don’t forget that there are other Skogfjorden programs offered during the year in the Twin Cities, and other Skogfjorden-site programs for families and for adults, too. Skogfjorden could become habit-forming for more than just you!