Bone is popular with mine!

I know I am biased, but my daughter is one of the coolest people I know--all of her siblings even say so. She is so generous minded, witty, and empathetic--she has a strong sense of what not to say to people, what might hurt their feelings, etc. So this group is really missing out on a fantastic person. But that is a small consolation for the pain and loneliness of being left completely in the cold.

I would not call myself an extrovert at all--I'm pretty shy--but I still want to have adult friends and interact with adults at least once a week or so. I don't think my daughter's shyness and quiet demeanor is only a little part of the problem; she was pretty willing and even eager to go to the group activities at first, when some of the girls paid some attention to her. She just doesn't have fun and feels pretty icky when, most of the time when she does go, no one talks to her nor listens to anything she tries to say. Again, the fact that most of the other kids do frequent, exclusive activities together--sometimes right before or after the inclusive gatherings--means that clique has a strong group dynamic going. Without any parent intervention, it just makes it harder for new kids to break in.

I called it a homeschooling social group/ support group for lack of a better term, but they do a variety of activities--sometimes educational, sometimes social. I agree that especially when a person is shy, joining with a new group of people in primarily social activities can be much more difficult and awkward. I am always more comfortable in a new group when it involves working on some mutual task together--volunteering, etc. I wish more parents would be mindful of and sensitive to how difficult it can be for newcomers to a group--especially children--and that they would guide their children in welcoming these newcomers or being more inclusive of any child that seems to be left out. (I also wish they would occasionally check in to see how the kids--even teens--seem to be interacting, but too often the moms just want to talk to each other; if their own kids are happy, they don't seem to care beyond that.) When a new girl joined a group I was part of several years ago and I saw her standing hesitantly back as the other girls her age interacted, I had to encourage one of my older daughters her age to invite the girl to join them, introduce her to the other girls, etc. It was not something that automatically happened. I had to remind dd a few times after that as well. But she now seems to be more aware of people who look lonely, and she reaches out to them.

I have a friend who loves this book, after initially balking at the coercive title, lol: http://www.amazon.com/Youre-Trying-Teach-Revised-Edition/dp/0865303177

I think that having professors teach something they don't know about might help keep them fresh. It sounded like St. Johns focuses on this practice primarily for freshmen, so perhaps it could work. But I know that for subjects in which I have become "expert" (after teaching them several times), I am much more likely to remember all the finer points students need to know but which took me a few rounds of teaching to finally acquire.

So sorry to hear that, wilrunner! My heart goes out to you both. I try to teach my children to notice lonely people and reach out to them, but our society is really an extrovert-favoring one, and it doesn't seem that many people are teaching or emphasizing that kind of compassion.

What is the size of the tabletop? A bunch of links come up if you google plexiglass cut to size: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#q=plexiglass%20sheets%20cut%20to%20size

One of the most touching and sensitively written stories I have ever read, and a great read-aloud, is Truman Capote's autobiographical A Christmas Memory. It is a long short story sometimes packaged with other Capote holiday short stories.

What kind of bird is in your avatar? Cute!

An excerpt of this talk was playing on public radio as I read this! :)

I have homeschooled for years and have been very willing to have people over or take kids to fun events, and I have done so frequently over the years when my kids have wanted it. I have hosted events for this group as well. But most of the time dd balks at having anyone over. If she ever says "ok," I am right on it. The problem is, when someone is shy and new to a group, it can be hard for them to feel comfortable inviting people to hang out if they get the impression other people might have little or no interest in them. It would be great if people in established groups were more sensitive to that and made the effort to reach out to shy newcomers. (In the past, I have come across a few rare individuals in groups who had that sensitivity, and it made all the difference!)

Harvey Mudd is one of the best liberal arts/science colleges in the country and one of the best engineering schools, but many people don't know about it. Thanks so much for the link!

Congratulations! Most magazines, etc. purchase all rights. It is standard. The only negative is that you cannot publish the poem elsewhere, but as far as I know, most published writers begin that way. I sold a story at age 13 (pretended I was an adult author, so there was no photo of me, etc.), and it was a huge thrill for an aspiring author to see it in print. I would think that the vast majority of people who read children's publications would not pose a safety threat to your child. One time a friend and I had our names and our parents' names--possibly even our addresses, I can't recall--published in our city newspaper for an academic honor we had gotten, and a strange man called us that evening (we did not have unlisted phone numbers). It was creepy, but nothing else came of it, and it was a city newspaper read by the general public and not a children's magazine. Your worries are not completely unfounded, unfortunately--anyone who gets a bit of fame makes themselves a bit more vulnerable--but I would think that a children's magazine would be one of the safest places in which to become "famous."

Evanthe mentioned Waldorf education. While I do not recommend following Waldorf science, you could get some inspiration from some of the things they do in Waldorf schools/ Waldorf homeschooling. I found these fun pages on Pinterest to give examples of incorporating art into science, and there is much more stuff like this online: http://www.pinterest.com/queenslace/5th-waldorf-botany-block/ http://www.pinterest.com/erinncate/waldorf-steiner-class-7/