My 8 year old wants to attend either MSU or Auburn University's vet camp. Thing is, she has to be either going into 6th grade or 13 years old. She REALLY wants to do this. Academically she is ready, emotionally she isn't and I would not send her now even if she could go.

But . . . I would like an alternative. Any ideas?

We sent her to "kids college" last summer for 2 science classes at a local community college and while the activities were interesting there were waaay too many kids for her. It's more of a holding pen for kids for summer than any kind of academic enrichment.

We'd be willing to travel in the southeast too if anyone has any terrific ideas.

She is specifically wanting:
small classes
hands-on activities
related to science/animals
REALLY interesting - "not just looking at bugs and trying to identify them" (she told me yesterday as we looked into our local zoo's summer camps)

She's very hard to please sometimes. lol

You could try contacting Texas A&M's College of Ag and Life Sciences and see if they do any summer programs. I have no idea if they do any, but if they did I would imagine it would be pretty fun, they have tons of land and a lot of animals, as well as fish hatcheries on campus.

I'd also contact your local 4H... while not exactly directly related to veterinary work, I would imagine they have lots of summer programs working with animals and learning about them that she might enjoy. And 4H is for kids of all ages, if I'm not mistaken.

No, not at all. My dd13 was the same way and I didn't view it as hard to please so much as it being hard to find a program that was truly designed for a HG introvert with a major passion area that had been an interest for her since she was a toddler. It is really hard to find a good fit for kids who want more than "looking at bugs."

I'd suggest staying away from academic programs aimed toward kids her age and even gifted kids her age. We've found pretty much what you found with the community college program -- too busy and not really designed for our dd's level of interest/knowledge/giftedness.

The things that my dd really enjoyed at that age included:

* SCUBA Rangers (youth SCUBA intro program done in indoor pools usually through local SCUBA shops) She also did "specialty" Ranger classes after getting her first SCUBA Ranger certification which included ways to identify critters in dark water (they blacked out the windows and had flashing lights on their tanks and hand held lights)

* Once she was a bit older (10 was the minimum here), we started volunteering at the humane society and our local raptor rehab program also takes youth volunteers with adult partners/helpers

If I think of anything else, I'll post it!

One other thought came to mind. I am assuming that you homeschool based on your signature. This won't give her the chance to join a class, but what about doing a citizen science project over the summer like the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project: http://www.mlmp.org/Default.aspx

or Project Pigeon Watch:
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pigeonwatch

or Bee Hunt:
http://www.discoverlife.org/bee/index.html

Good ideas and THANK you so much.

Thank you also for this validation. I know she's not hard to please - - the difficult part is finding something to meet her needs.

I will check out those links above.

Assuming you're in Florida, have you looked at the camps at Sea World or Busch Gardens? My children have not attended since we are not in FL, but I have thought it would be fun for them to do sometime when we are visiting relatives.

Here is the link for the Sea World Orland day camps: http://seaworld.org/adventure-camps/swf/day/index.htm

I love the "holding pen" analogy for the camps. My DD is the same, needs advanced for the mind, not advanced enough for the social w/ older kids, does poorly with masses of kids.

Do you have a small local nature center that does classes or camps? Often their classes are smaller enrollment because if they wander around the trails they want fewer kids, and the kids tend to be more quirky or have strong passions (like a boy DD met who is super interested specifically in carnivore plants...) We've lucked out in that the instructors tend to be quite intense and caring themselves.

My DD has always done very well with these, also if you have a botanical garden.

The "popular" ones usually aren't the best for DD, even the zoo and a popular science camp at a local college. Mostly because they're just...popular...and they get the "holding pen" types.