The sudden onset OCD and anxiety with intrusive thoughts made me immediately think of PANDAS, a pediatric disease thought to be caused by the strep virus. My best friend's daughter suddenly started having OCD and intrusive thoughts after a brief illness where she was hospitalized. Within a few months she was diagnosed with PANDAS. One mother has been a huge advocate for strep testing in kids with sudden onset OCD, and she wrote a book about her son's experience with diagnosis and recovery. It is called Saving Sammy. Just thought I'd mention it since it sounded like your child has similar symptoms to my friends daughter. Not all doctors believe PANDAS even exists, there are several specialists who are doing great research in the area, but treatment and lifestyle changes as prescribed by my friend's doctor and also a naturopath have greatly reduced and almost eliminated he problem. She has had a recurrence or two after being exposed and testing positive for the strep virus, but necessarily actually having strep throat.

My daughter ended up with bedbugs in her room and we figured out she picked it/them up at a Girl Scout camp after sleeping in a beautiful and fully furnished cabin for two nights. No mattress protector would have prevented the bug(s) from getting into her stuff and coming home with her. Luckily we were able to catch one and confirm it after she got bit several times during the night two weeks after the trip. We got rid of them using a thermal process done by professionals where they heat the room to 140+ degrees for a few hours to kill the bugs and their eggs. We also now always check for evidence of them (and after many days of searching for information I know all about how to find/catch them!) whenever we travel or sleep away from home. If you are really worried about them, isolate any clothing or bedding coming home from college until it can be washed and dried on as hot a setting as possible. I don't think a mattress protector will help, they are really just used to protect a mattress from the bedbugs damaging it (pooping all over it!) to the point of having to get a new mattress. Can't wash that out!

Our local public high school will not accept homeschool credits. If I wanted my daughter to get a diploma and graduate from the HS, she would have to make up any missed required classes and credits during summer school. We decided that she will go to the public school part time, this year she is taking choir, band and biology. The rest she will do at home. When she is ready to graduate, we will just make a transcript which includes the classes taken at the public school (with an official copy attached) and ones she completed at home.

I can tell you from experience that if your daughter haas been in public school up to this point you will have little to worry about socialization. We started home schooling last year when my kids were 11 and 13. They still hang out with their public school friends and are in as many, if not more, activities like dance, scouts, music, basketball, etc...they get PLENTY of socialization. It's not like once you start homeschooling you isolate your kids from all others.

This is what we did last year for our first year of homeschooling and it worked well. I think we are going to start with morning time, Latin and literature the last week of August and work in history, science (DS only) and math after a few weeks. Morning time will be some Shakespeare/poetry, logic, memory work, note-taking practice and grammar. The kids will probably take lots of breaks during the day to get outside since the weather is still nice. We will start the last week of August because my daughter is going to the high school part time for choir, band and biology. They start August 27th so we will get started then, too.

I love reading all of the posts, it certainly makes me feel like I'm not going crazy! I will be 45 this year and have definitely seen anxiety increase in the last couple of years, especially when things like lumpy breasts, underarm pain that comes and goes with my cycle, mid-cycle spitting and the discovery of uterine cysts have all occurred over the last year or so. I feel like there is always something going haywire and it freaks me out, what will I be like when menopause actually starts !?! At the same time my daughter will be homeschooling high school part time and my son will be working his way thru middle school at home. Oh boy!!!

I'm in IL, too. If you are homeschooling your child, they do not have to fulfill any graduation requirements because they are not really graduating from any school. Yes, you are supposed to instruct them in the subjects as Ellie posted, but there is no need to fulfill any graduation requirement as far as I know. On the Illinois State BOE it says "Parents who choose to educate their students in the home through the high school years may determine when their students have met the graduation requirements of their private homeschool and is therefore entitled to receive a high school diploma."

We did a few of the Excellence in Literature lessons at the end of this school year as a trial to see if it would work as a year-long LA program. It was our first year of homeschooling and I put together a hodgepodge curriculum based on what I thought they would most enjoy, which is reading. Once I knew we would continue our homeschooling journey into high school, I started looking at ready-to-go curriculum. I liked everything about it except there was no discussion of the book included in the lesson, which I personally feel is the most important part of understanding great literature. It was very independent, the curriculum is written directly to the student. I also liked that they spent a month on each book researching background info, rewriting parts of the book, and doing several other writing assignments that show deep thought about the book. We will be adding in discussions this year, DH and I are going to split the reading and do it along with our daughter so we can have a hearty discussion about each book. I do have the entire 5-year program, which I like because I want to be able to jump around a bit based on what history we are studying. I hope this helps!

This is very true. When my daughter was in 7th grade (and still in public school) she did a report for her LA class on music and math skills. She polled her entire grade on whether they played an instrument and what level of math they were taking. There was a significant connection between those that played an instrument and being in the higher math classes. There is scientific research out there that she also cited that supports this connection.

I have a bachelors degree in chemistry, and when I was in HS and college I HATED studying in my book-only lecture classes. Get me in a lab and I would shine! I cannot say enough about how important hands on science experiments can be when studying science. Good luck to you and I hope you have a wonderful year using all of your supplies!

Those cardboard disposable cameras rarely take good pictures. I've sent them a couple of times to girl scout camp with my daughter and got back fuzzy pictures that were dark. I don't really have a recommendation other than there's a good chance that she won't have time, or just won't take pictures. I've sent DD with her digital camera (one that was no more than $50) and she did not take more than two pictures. She is 14 now, and just yesterday got back from a 10-day fine arts camp. No phones allowed, and all she had was an iPod for music. I asked if she would have wanted a camera and she said no, some of her friends took pictures and will just text or email them to her.

This is what we are going to do for 7th grade chem. With two parents that have chemistry degrees, we will have no shortage of home experiments going on. What exactly they will be, I don't know yet :) We've made slime a million times when they were in PS and for fun at birthday parties. I have a few chem kits we've acquired, so we will probably start with those. Just wish one of us still worked in a lab where we could get our hands on all the cool glassware and materials.

I am planning on using Speilvogel's World History along side it, only because I already have a copy of this text. If I find Western Civ before the fall, we will use that. We did some of the ??'s from World History last year, both orally and written. We will also be selecting literature readings from the Medieval/Renaissance time period out of our EIL courses. Our library also has a book called Literature Links to World History for K-12 that was helpful in finding appropriately aged books for any time period, separated by fiction, non-fiction, and DVD selections. I went thru the book and wrote down sources I thought DD would enjoy reading. DH loves history so he really enjoys discussing the who's and why's with DD, and they do this at least once a week throughout the school year.

This is why we will not be using Saxon next year. We used it last year in our first year of homeschooling (DS 11 did 7/6 and and DD 13 did Algebra 1) but kids did not really like the program. DH and I have strong math backgrounds and want our kids to not only be able to solve the problems, but understand why those solutions work and how to apply them to ANY problem. Both of our kids are good at math, but neither of them enjoys it much. Adding that extra layer of "this is WHY it works like this" makes it more interesting for them and they retain the information better. When our daughter was in PS they were working on how to calculate the circumference of a circle. When my husband asked her what pi was, she said 3.14… He said, no, what does it represent? She had no idea. He said, solve the equation c=(pi)d. It made her realize that pi was the ratio of circumference to diameter for any sized circle from a ping pong ball to the earth. That's the kind of stuff Saxon doesn't do that my kids want so they better understand and can apply math concepts. Yes, Saxon tests extremely well, but for me that's not the goal. I want the kids to understand why they are doing what they are doing to solve a math problem, for us that is more important than getting the right answer. My son was so obsessed with getting the right answer on his math homework when we started homeschooling that my husband would write all of the answers in before he started. He wanted our son to show all of the work it took to get there and not take shortcuts to get to the answer. I'm not saying it can't work for everyone, it just wasn't the right fit for us and what we wanted from a math program.

My daughter will be going to the public school part time for choir, freshman band and biology. Everything else will be at home. English: Combo of Teaching the Classics and Excellence in Literature + IEW Fix-it for grammar Language: Latin Alive Social Studies: SWB History of Medieval and History of Renaissance (1 semester each) + Glencoe's World Geography Math: Geometry (hubby still figuring out which curriculum to use) Art of Argument logic She is also taking flute, piano and electric bass lessons. The school has a block schedule, so she will go three days one week and two the next from 7:30-1:30. We will have to adjust our schedule after the first few weeks if we find we are trying to tackle too much at home. The first two months will be crazy with marching band practices and competitions, but after October is over things should calm down. I must say, I'm really looking forward to this next year and starting high school!

I will be using EIL over the next four years with my daughter, who just turned 14 and will start high school this fall. We will be using Susan Wise Bauer's History of the Medieval World and History of the Renaissance World (1sem each). We did the ancients this year (not with SWB book) so we will skip that time period and move on to Medieval. I am going to match EIL books with the time period so we will not necessarily do the books in order as written in the curriculum. I have all 5 years together in a binder, so we will pick and choose books as we go thru the two history books.

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What are Big Science and Big History? I've seen it mentioned several times on this thread. I am still researching materials for an origins unit next year. Thanks!

I believe this is the original Circe thread, it is 13 pages of posts! http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/359457-how-does-one-provide-a-classical-education-circe-institute-lovers/

I, too, feel that I've missed the boat on classical education for my kids but am going to try to fix that in the upcoming school year. We did Sonlight this year (core G) since my son loves to read and I wanted a guide to help me through the first year. I ended up just using the guide for Story of the World and Kingfisher assignments and questions, and also the LA reading list. I did not use the questions for the readers from the guide, I would skim each book and ask questions on my own that required more thinking and not just remembering what happened in each chapter. Some of the historical fiction books were good reads, but because there are only so many hours in the day, we are going to stick to classics from now on and not use historical fiction as a supplement to our history lessons. I'm not sure that the historical fiction, while he thought they were interesting to read, added anything to his understanding of the time period. Somewhere around April I listened to a Circe podcast about reading aloud to our children, and why we seem to stop doing so when they can read on their own. We started a family reading time each night and are going through some of the good/great books lists. The 14yo wasn't so thrilled about this at first, but it's starting to grow on her. We are just finishing up Huckleberry Finn. Starting school back up in the fall, my son will be doing a kind of unit study of history in month-long chunks. Instead of studying events in chronological order, we will be looking at parts of history that interest him and studying those in depth. This was inspired by another Circe podcast about going deeper into subjects and not studying a little bit of everything. I think it was called Multum Non Multa (much not many in Latin) and you can search for it on Youtube. We will be doing a history of weapons, great battles of the ancient world, King Arthur, and inventions that changed the world, to start. We will do a lot of reading, writing, and research next year on each subject. I have no curriculum to use as a guide, but will be kind of winging it each week seeing where our studies take us. Although my son would be going into 7th grade had we kept him in PS, if you go by his birthday and the cut-off of where we now live, he would be going into 6th grade. So I feel like I have an extra year to try something different and not fall behind. There is a huge Circe thread that was started a few months ago, and although it is VERY long, there are some great ideas and tips about how to have a discussion on classical literature with your child. There are links to podcasts and audio files, book recommendations, and much discussion about historical fiction and its place in a curriculum. If you have a few hours (or even days!) you might want to check it out. There was another thread on not using historical fiction in history studies, that also might be of interest. If you search the forums you should be able to find them. Best of luck to us all!

I am glad I am not the only recently-inspired Circe/morning time mom! Earlier this week I listened to one of Cindy's podcasts on morning time and will definitely be adding this to our school day in the fall. My kids are older (11,14) so I expect some push back on this one. This was our first year homeschooling, and although it went well, there were always things I wanted to do that never got done. Grammar, read-aloud literature and science, poetry/Shakespeare, to name a few. My list for next year's morning time looks like this: Review the day and do some light meditation/yoga Poetry/Shakespeare Logic Joy Hakim Science books read-aloud Grammar Lit Analysis My daughter will be going to high school part time next year to participate in choir and band and possibly take one core class, so she will be gone two or three mornings a week. I'm hoping to do morning time in the morning on the days she is home and then right after lunch on the other days. I really hope this works out because I was always stressing over the things we weren't doing consistently. Many articles I've read about morning/circle time talk about letting the kids do something with their hands (play with clay, legos, blocks, knit, color) while listening to read-aloud or lessons. I let my son sit on an exercise ball when he watches IEW videos or online classes and it helps him get some energy out and focus at the same time. We will probably do the same with morning time. Looking forward to reading others ideas for motivation!

We tried many activities before we found a few that my son enjoys. We've done soccer, basketball, fencing, archery, karate, kendo, swimming, and I'm sure others I can't think of right now. He enjoys basketball, LOVES kendo, does an art class and also boy scouts. He plays an instrument (electric bass) which he likes enough to practice daily. Kendo and music lessons are year round, basketball he only does over the winter, and art here and there when he wants to. Scouts is during the school year. It may just take some time and experimentation to find something your son enjoys doing. My son would almost always rather be home playing with his friends or on the XBox, but he knows video games are strictly limited, especially when it's nice outside. I do feel that participation in some extra curricular activities is important and finding something you really enjoy doing is so worthwhile. Be patient and try everything.

We have only done two lessons so far as a trial for next year, but my daughter has enjoyed them. The lessons are meant to be done independently by the student, which I like. We have already done Teaching the Classics and may work thru parts of Windows to the World this summer before she starts EIL exclusively next year for high school. I have all 5 books in one binder so we are going to pick and choose lessons that go along with her history studies, which next year will be a semester of Medieval and and semester of the Renaissance. I like that we can be flexible with the curriculum and use it in that way. I really like the research the students do on the author and all of the extra tidbits they give in the guide to further help the student understand the book, like links to videos and other readings. There are several written assignments throughout the lesson, which I also think is important. They are not always just analyzing the book from a literary perspective. For example, when my daughter read Julius Caesar she had to re-write Brutus' speech in modern English. It really helped add to her understanding of the book. If I had to pick one shortcoming of the curriculum, it would be that there are no discussion points listed for any of the books. DH and I are going to share reading responsibilities so we can discuss each book with her as she progresses through the lessons. I think having a discussion on the book is a critical part of really understanding it, thinking out loud and hearing your own thoughts really helps me flush out the parts I may not thoroughly understand. I know the curriculum was meant to be totally independent, so discussing with someone is hard unless the other person has read the book, but we will definitely be reading along and discussing the literature with her as she moves through the program.

I have the 5 course binder. I prefer to have it all in one binder since we will not be using the lessons in order. We will be matching books with our history curriculum, which this year will be a semester of Medieval and a semester of the Renaissance. We will choose books from across the whole curriculum, so it will be easier for her to find the lesson in a binder than from individual spiral bound books. Plus I hope to sell it when we are done with it and it won't incur shelf wear in the binder. They do say on the website that you don't have to do them in order, but the classes do get harder as you go. Reading and writing are my daughter's strongest skills, so I'm not worried about doing the lessons out of order. She did two of them as practice at the end of this year (8th grade) and did an excellent job on what I felt were hard books, Julius Caesar and Ivanhoe.